With these Mr. Peter and David created miracles. They silvered bunches of the pine-cones and hung them on their drooping green branches above the doorways and windows. They trailed the ground-pine across the ceiling from corner to corner, and about the mantel, hanging from it innumerable tiny red bells fashioned from the red paper. They stood two tall young spruces on either side of the window niche and these they trimmed with strips of pop-corn, silvered nuts and pine-cones and red and white candles. And every window had a hemlock wreath made gay with cranberries.
And Barney and Johanna? They were likewise performing miracles. When David and Mr. Peter had finished and given their work a last survey and exchanged a final round of mutual congratulations they went into the kitchen to behold the others’ handiwork.
There was the table lengthened out and covered with a snowy-white cloth. In the center, surrounded by a wreath of green, stood the mammoth Christmas cake; and at the four corners stood tall white candles in crystal candlesticks. At one end was a cold baked ham resplendent with its crust of sugar and cloves and its paper frill of red and white. At the other was a red Japanese bowl filled with the vegetable salad that had made Johanna famous; while dotted all about the table were delectable dishes of all sorts—jams and jellies, nuts, raisins, savory pickles, and a pyramid of maple-sugar cream. But it was from the stove that the appetizing odors came: rolls baking, coffee steaming, and chicken frying slowly in the great covered pan.
“It smells too good to be true,” cried Mr. Peter, clapping his hands. “Never was there such a Christmas supper! Come, David, boy, we will have to scramble into some festal raiment to do honor to Johanna’s cooking, although I am not quite sure that I have anything to dress up in but a pair of gold sleeve-links and a red necktie.”
“Ye might be making a prayer while ye’re dressing that somebody will come to help eat it up. I’ve said to Barney a score o’ times since dinner that there’s just as much likelihood that not a mortal soul will show his face here this night.”
“Why, Johanna!” David protested.
“I know, laddy. But mind, ye’ve not seen one of them but once, yourself, and I’m a stranger to them. Never matter; only if no one comes ye’ll all be eating ham and fried chicken for the rest o’ the year.” And Johanna ended with a good-humored laugh.
Before six they were gathered in the living-room with the candles lighted and the fire blazing uproariously on the hearth.
“It’s all so fine and like mother used to have. I believe I shall be wishing somebody ‘Merry Christmas’ before I know it,” shouted Mr. Peter. Then he held up a warning finger. “Hush! What’s that?”
They all listened. There was certainly a noise outside; it sounded as if some one was feeling for the knob. David was away like a flash to the hall and had flung open the door wide. The next moment his voice came back to the others, ringing with gladness: