"It's for Master Harry, Jo. When I get it done and put a few gold pieces in it, don't you think he'll like it all the better because his mother knit it?"
"Shouldn't wunner a bit ef he would, missus. My souls an' bodies! wot a Christmas this will be!"
"Don't tell him, Jo."
"I'd be chopped into bits afore I'd tell it!"
"Jo is a faithful, honest, good little fellow," said Mrs. Malcom to Harry; "we mustn't forget Jo at Christmas."
"No, indeed, mamma. Do you know what I think would please him more than anything? A pretty collar for 'Thus'lem, as he calls that old crow. Of course we'll give him clothes and things; but he'd like something of that kind for Methuselah—darkies like trinkets, you know."
"Jes so, jes so," said the crow.
Harry remembered this remark bitterly enough upon Christmas-eve, when the happy moment had at last come for him to bring forth his treasure from its hiding-place, and put it triumphantly in the hands of his mamma.
The Christmas greens were all hung, the Christmas tree was ready for Santa Claus to trim, and Jack Frost had already begun his wonderful decorations. Little Laura was fast asleep in her snug little bed; Jo had gone, whistling cheerfully, to his garret; and even 'Thus'lem had squeezed himself through the hole in the plaster that led from the main building to the room over the kitchen, and gone to roost comfortably in Jo's black bosom.
Jo looked out of the little window up to the clear cold sky. One tiny star was glimmering there.