Then, slowly, forgetting that the lamp burned in the little shop across the yard, he climbed the stairs.
It was almost three months since the subject of Christmas had been broached in the little house. Then, one pleasant October afternoon, when the children left the main road and turned in at the by-road which led toward home, they found gran’pap sitting on the fence. He missed the children, who, dinner-pail and books in hand, walked two miles to the schoolhouse before half-past eight in the morning and did not return until half-past four in the afternoon. Thomas could have covered the distance much more speedily, but little Eliza could not walk fast. Now in October, the sun was already near its setting.
Gran’pap had a knife in his hand and was whittling something very tiny. When the children came in sight, he put both knife and handiwork into his pocket. He greeted them with a cheerful shout, and they smiled at him and came up slowly. Thomas and Eliza took their pleasures very soberly. Though gran’pap had lived with them since spring, they were not yet accustomed to his levity, fascinating as it was.
Eliza took his hand and trotted in a satisfied way beside him. She was a fat little girl, and her old-fashioned clothes made her look like a demure person of middle age. Thomas stepped along on the other side, trying to set each foot as far ahead of the other as gran’pap did.
“Well,” said gran’pap, “here we are!”
“And what,” said Thomas, with a happy skip and a wave of the dinner-pail, “what are we going to do to-night?”
Gran’pap sniffed the sharp air, which promised frost.
“Wait till you hear the chestnuts rattlin’ Saturday!” said he. “I have poles ready for beatin’ ’em, and I made each of you a pair of mittens for hullin’ ’em.”
Saturday’s pleasure, while delectable, was still too far away and too uncertain for Thomas.
“But to-night, gran’pap, what about to-night?”