The hours that followed passed like magic to Nancy Carson. Veritable wonders were wrought in that small cabin; and oh, it was good to be planning and playing again with a little boy! Not till the child, who had been up since dawn, had dropped asleep on the settle from sheer weariness, did she add the finishing touches to the scene.
“It’s like a picture of Christmas,” she murmured happily. “The tree, so green and slender with its snowy trimmings—the cone-laden pine at the windows—the bulging stocking at the fireplace, and—and the sleeping boy. I wonder——”
She turned, startled by a step on the creaking snow outside, but it was Scott, of course. He came in quietly, not laden with bundles as she expected, but empty-handed. There was, she thought, a strange excitement in his manner as he glanced ’round the fire-lit room, his eyes resting for a moment on David’s peaceful face. Then he saw the well-filled stocking at the mantel, and his eyes came back unswervingly to hers.
“Nancy! Is—is it——?”
She drew nearer, and put her arms about him.
“Yes, dear, it’s—Jimmy’s—just as we filled it on Christmas Eve three years ago. You see, I couldn’t quite bear to leave it behind us when we came away, lying there in his drawer so lonely—at Christmas time. Tell me you don’t mind, Scott—won’t you? We have our memories, but David—he has so little. That dreadful mother, and——”
Scott cleared his throat; swallowed, and said gently, “He has, I think the loveliest mother in the world!”
“What do you mean?”
He drew her down onto the settle that faced the sleeping boy, and answered, “Listen, Nancy. I went to the school-house. I thought perhaps they’d give me something to trim the tree. The party was over, but the teacher was there with Ira Morse, clearing things away. I told them about David—why he hadn’t shown up; and asked some questions. Nancy—what do you think? That Hawkins woman isn’t the child’s mother! I knew it!
“Nobody around here ever saw her. She died when David was a baby, and his father, half crazed, the natives thought, with grief, brought the child here, and lived like a hermit on the mountain. He died when Dave was about six, and as no one claimed the youngster, and there was no orphan asylum within miles, he was sent to the poor farm, and stayed there until last year, when Clem Hawkins wanted a boy to help do chores, and Dave was the cheapest thing in sight. Guess you wonder where I’ve been all this time? Well, I’ve been interviewing the overseer of the poor—destroying red tape by the yard—resorting to bribery and corruption! But—Hello, old man, did I wake you up?”