“Their stockings—” mused the doctor, unhearing.
With a suddenly lighting face, after deep thought, she went to the telephone in the dining-room, and three minutes later a good husband and father, a mile away across the city, left his own child and the tree he was trimming and went to answer her summons.
“Mr. Waldteufel? This is Doctor Madison.”
“Oh, Doctor!” came rushing the rich European voice. “Merry Christmas to you! I wish could you but zee your bapey—so fat we don’t weigh him Sundays no more! His lecks is like——”
The surgeon’s voice interrupted. There was excited interchange of words. Then the toy-king said:
“I meet you at my store in ten minutes! It is one more kindness that you ask me to do it! My employees go home at five—the boss he works late, isn’t it? I should to work hard for this boy of mine—an egg he eats to-day, the big rough-neck feller!”
“Oh, Molly, you can’t!” Cassie protested. But there was color in her face.
“Oh, Cassie, I can! Have we a tree?”
“I couldn’t. It wasn’t the money, Molly—don’t think that. But it was just being so tired ... the trimmings are all there from last year ... oh, Molly, into this darkness and cold again! You shouldn’t!”
She was gone. But the hour that Cassie waited, dreaming, with the baby in her lap, was a restful hour, and when it was ended, and Molly was back again, the baby had to be carried upstairs, up to his crib, for there was heavy work to do below stairs.