It was daylight before they woke from their second nap, and as Peace flew out of bed once more, she cried in delight, "Oh, it's snowing again! Now it will seem like Christmas sure! Let's clean off the walks before breakfast. Gail won't let us eat our candy yet."
She made short work of her toilette, threw on her wraps and was out of doors almost before Cherry had opened her eyes; but the next moment she came stumbling back into the house with the wild yell "Girls, girls, Santa Claus did come again, and left a tre-men-jus big mince pie on the porch—I picked a teenty hole in the top to see for sure if 'twas mincemeat—and a bundle of something else. Hurry up, I can't wait to open it! Oh, the paper fell off, and it's shoes—tennis slippers in the winter! Think of it! That is worse than Mrs. Grinnell's hair-ribbon, ain't it?"
"Peace!" cried Gail in shocked tones, entering the kitchen with the rest of the family at her heels. "You should be grateful for the presents people give you and not poke fun at them."
"I am grateful, Gail, truly. I ain't poking fun at them, honest, though they are funny presents for this time of the year. I s'pose, maybe, my hair will get long enough for a ribbon sometime, though Mrs. Strong says it is too curly to grow fast. And when summer comes, we can wear these slippers, if they aren't too small. They look awful little already. These are marked for Allee, and here are mine, and those are Cherry's. There aren't any for the rest of you. I s'pose the pie is for you. You're lucky. I would rather have the pie than the shoes."
"Oh, Peace!"
"Well, wouldn't you? There is someone at the front door."
Gail disappeared through the hall to answer the knock, and Peace, with her new shoes in her hand, slipped out of the kitchen door. "Just as I thought," she muttered to herself. "Mr. Hardman brought them over. He thinks they will make up for that money he never paid us last summer, but they won't. He can just have his old shoes right back again!"
Out to the barn she marched, hunted up a scrap of paper and a pencil left there for just such emergencies, laboriously scribbled a note, which she tied to the slippers, and deposited the bundle on the Hartman steps, where he found it when he came out to sweep paths. "Well, I swan," he exclaimed, half in anger, half amused, as he picked tip the rejected shoes, "if she hasn't trotted them slippers back! Peace, of course. Let's see what she says." Carefully he untied the little slip and read:
"Here are your shoes. Im greatful but this is the rong seesun for them. By summer they will be to small as they aint very big now. Ive got over wanting tenis shoes anyhow. The muny you owe us would have come in handier. Peace Greenfield."
He tucked the note in his pocket, dropped the shoes on the kitchen mantle, and went chuckling about his morning work. Hardly had he finished his numerous tasks, when he was surprised to see Peace coming slowly up the path, with eyes down-cast and face an uncomfortable red. She knocked lightly, as if hoping no one would hear, and looked disappointed when he opened the door.