“I guess I can’t just now,” replied Tommy gravely.
“I’ve got a new doll with real hair and a pink spangled dress, and a stereoscope with lots of pictures. Say, Tommy, don’t you want to look at the pictures through my stereoscope?”
Tommy shook his head. He would have liked to own a stereoscope.
“They’re real pretty. They couldn’t all go into my stocking. They were all round it on the floor. Say, Tommy, did you hang your stocking?”
Tommy hesitated just one moment. Then—he had the blood of honest soldiers in his veins—he nodded.
“Oh, Tommy, what did you have in your stockings?”
“Useful things,” replied Tommy gruffly.
“What kind of useful things? Mittens?”
“I said useful things,” replied Tommy with masculine dignity and finality. He walked away with the proud carriage of a victor leaving a hardly won battlefield, while Cora screamed after him. “Tommy Dunbar, I think you are real mean, so there!”
Nancy and Sarah had seen Tommy out in the yard talking to Cora.