A beautiful ham which had another card: "I'm boiled, and am very good eaten cold." A bag of potatoes which said: "We are not cooked, but if you will wash our coats and put us in your oven you will see how fast we will get ready for dinner." So, through the box. There were two pies, and a cake full of raisins, and a bag of nuts and candies. And there was a package over which Janet cried for joy; she had laughed about all the rest; but this had warm flannels, and three dresses for the baby; and two suits almost as good as new for the little girls; and a woollen blanket for father's bed, and could it be! Yes, there was a new dress for herself; besides this, there were stockings and shoes, and two flannel sacks, and I really have not time to tell you what else. But pinned into a corner of a pretty handkerchief which had Janet's name on it, was a shining bit of gold worth five dollars! Can you imagine Mr. Burns' face when he came back with a loaf of bread he had earned, not begged, a bit of dried beef, and found the table set, a chicken before his plate, flanked by a dish of potatoes in such a hurry to be eaten every one burst through their coats? All the talk there was during the next hour, would make a book in itself.
"And you ain't no notion where they came from?" he asked for the third or fourth time.
"Not the least in the world. One card says: 'From Santa Claus, to the little girl who takes good care of her brothers and sisters;' but who knows whether I take good care of them or not?"
"I suspect the Lord does," said Joseph Burns reverently, "and He has told some of his children to send you a Christmas box. We must thank the Lord, and trust to Him to pay the others. He will do it." But I cannot help thinking, what if Janet had been cross that windy day!
SIX O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING.
He did that which was right in the sight of the lord.
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
For unto this day they drink none, but obey their father's commandment.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.
"WHY, yes," said Grandma, with her finger on Rollo's verse, and her eyes tender with old memories, "I remember a story about that verse; and it is a story which I think likely I shall remember in Heaven."
"Let's hear it right away, if you please," Ralph said, and the others settled into quiet as soon as possible.