And “presently” they were called in to behold a mammoth cherry-pie, baked in a tin pan, and they had just as much as was good for them, even to Maude’s doggie. Maude left first, for she wasn’t hungry, and, besides, she knew that her mamma would worry about her long absence; but the little starved boys and girls from “the square below,” didn’t go for a long time. To tell the truth, grandma didn’t stop at giving them cherry-pie. They had some turkey, and some mashed potato, and turnip, and some hot coffee, besides.
“Tain’t often I can give,” said grandma afterward. “But we’ve been prospered, and I can’t bear to see anybody hungry on Christmas day.”
After they had all gone, Elsie sat with her heart full of quiet happiness, rocking in her little rocking-chair. She was meditating vaguely on the envy she had felt toward Maude, and her general feeling of discontent. At last she spoke to grandma, who happened to be sitting beside her.
“Most everybody has things some other folks don’t have,” she remarked, rather vaguely.
Grandma understood her.
“Dear heart!” she cried again, for that was her pet name for Elsie. “That’s right! There’s mercies for everybody, if they’d only reckon ’em up—and Christmas day’s a first-rate time to remember it!”
BERTIE’S RIDE.
Here’s a nice state of things! We have run short of candles for the Tree, and of course the shops will be shut to-morrow, and the day after. What is to be done? Almost anything else might have been managed in some way, but a Christmas Tree in semi-darkness—can anything more dismal be imagined?” And Alice Chetwynd’s usually bright face looks nearly as gloomy as the picture she has called up.