It was a good deal of a puzzle to me for days after that, how I was to shine. What could I do? I was a little child: my only duties some lessons to learn: not much of that, seeing I had not strength for it. Certainly, I had sorrows to bear; but
bearing them well did not seem to me to come within the sphere of shining. Who would know that I bore them well? And shining is meant to be seen. I pondered the matter.
"When's Christmas, Miss Daisy?"
Margaret asked this question one morning as she was on her knees making my fire. Christmas had been so shadowed a point to me in the distance, I had not looked at it. I stopped to calculate the days.
"It will be two weeks from Friday, Margaret."
"And Friday's to-morrow?" she asked.
"The day after to-morrow. What do you do at Christmas, Margaret? all the people?"
"There ain't no great doings, Miss Daisy. The people gets four days, most of 'em."
"Four days—for what?"
"For what they like; they don't do no work, those days."