And the Small Girl’s mother said, “She was lovely about giving up the doll, and she will love the tree.”
“We’ll have to get up very early,” said the Small Girl’s father.
“And you’ll have to run ahead and light the candle.”
Well, they got up before dawn the next morning, and so did the Boy-Next-Door. He was there on the step, waiting, blowing his hands and beating them quite like the poor little boys in a Christmas story, who haven’t any mittens.
But he wasn’t a poor little boy, and he had so many pairs of fur-trimmed gloves that he didn’t know what to do with them, but he had left the house in such a hurry that he had forgotten to put them on.
So there he stood on the front step of the little house, blowing on his hands and beating them. And it was dark, with a sort of pale shine in the heavens, which didn’t seem to come from the stars or to herald the dawn; it was just a mystical silver glow that set the boy’s heart to beating.
He had never been out alone like this. He had always stayed in his warm bed until somebody called him, and then he had waited until they called again, and then he had dressed and gone down to breakfast, where his father scolded because he was late, and his mother scolded because he ate too fast. But this day had begun with adventure, and for the first time, under that silver sky, he felt the thrill of it.
Then suddenly some one came around the corner—some one tall and thin, with a cap on his head and an empty basket in his hands.
“Hello,” he said. “A Merry Christmas.”
It was the Small Girl’s father, and he put the key in the lock, and went in, and turned on a light, and there was the table set for four.