“Oh,” answered Beatrice, as she happily kicked her feet against her gate post, “I guess we’ll have to give mother the same old promise we give her every Christmas, that she will have all the year two little girls, oh, such good little girls, to help take care of babies and tidy up the cabin, tra la-la, tra la-la-la!”
After that, until the afternoon train whistled, the merry little girls kept choosing gifts for all the family, but most of all for mother. But the minute the train whistled, Beatrice suggested a new game.
“When the train starts puff-puff from the station just round the curve over there,” said she, “and the wheels begin to turn round slowly, and the cars come slowly, rumble-rumble, you turn square round facing the train this way, just like me, and you sing with me this song I am just thinking up, and we’ll try Christmas magic, like this:
“White magic,
Christmas magic,
Send our mother a Christmas gift!
“Gold magic,
Christmas magic,
Send our mother a Christmas gift!”
By the time the passenger train was opposite the little log cabin, the laughing children were gazing straight toward it, singing over and over to the rumble of the wheels: