He hunched up one knee and clasped his arms about it.
“You see, I used to think that you couldn’t have Christmas without all the store fixings and lots of presents, just as you do. And when I first came ’way up here I thought it was just naturally ‘good-by, Christmas.’ Then something happened.”
“Suppose you tell me what. We might make a better compromise if I understood just what did happen.”
David considered him thoughtfully. Johanna had said while he was out at the telephone that Mr. Peter was a painter, a bachelor chap with no one in particular belonging to him, and David wondered if he would really understand. As Johanna had often said, “There are some things you just can’t put through a body’s head.”
“Things happen ’way up here in the hills that would never happen in the city, never in a hundred years,” he began, slowly; and then, gaining courage from the painter’s nod of comprehension, he told all about everything. Of course he could not tell all the stories as they had been told to him—there was not time—but he told about them, and particularly about the “heathen.”
“And that isn’t all,” he finished, breathlessly. “I’ve a great plan for to-morrow night, if Johanna and Barney and you will help.”
“We might make that the compromise,” smiled Mr. Peter. “What is it?”
David told, and when he had quite finished, the man beside him nodded his head as if he approved.
“What does Johanna say?” he asked.
“I haven’t told her yet.”