And the Small Girl said out of the things she had been thinking, “Mother, why don’t we have turkey?”
The clear look came back into the eyes of the Small Girl’s mother, and she said, “Because we are content.”
And the Small Girl said, “What is ‘content’?”
And her mother said: “It is making the best of what God gives us. And our best for Christmas day, my darling, is a beefsteak pie.”
So she kissed the Small Girl, and they finished peeling the vegetables, and then they put them with the pound of steak to simmer on the back of the stove.
After that, the Small Girl had her supper of bread and milk, and Pussy-Purr-up had milk in a saucer on the hearth, and the Small Girl climbed up in her mother’s lap and said,
“Tell me a story.”
But the Small Girl’s mother said, “Won’t it be nicer to talk about Christmas presents?”
And the Small Girl sat up and said, “Let’s.”
And the mother said, “Let’s tell each other what we’d rather have in the whole wide world——”