“Oh, and you can buy your presents back now,” says Libby Liberty to Mis’ Holcomb right in the middle of it.
“No, sir,” says Mis’ Holcomb, proud. “A bargain is a bargain, and I made mine.” And then she thought of something. “Oh,” she says, leaning forward to the window of the car, “don’t you want to sell your presents back again?”
“No!” they all told her together. “We made a straight bid, you know.”
“Then,” says Mis’ Holcomb, “let’s us give Stubby the money to put in his pocket and take the one-way fare to his mother!”
And that was what they done. And the big car rolled off down Daphne Street, with Stubby in it going like a king.
And when we all got back in the post-office, what do you s’pose? There was the crocheted towel and the hand-embroidered dressing-sack slipped back all safe into Mis’ Holcomb’s shopping-bag!
But she wouldn’t take the other things back—she would not, no matter what Mis’ Wiswell and Mis’ Merriman said.
“I can crochet a couple of things to-morrow like lightning,” says Mis’ Holcomb. “You don’t want me to be done out of my share in Stubby’s Christmas, do you?” she asks ’em.
And we all stood there, talking and laughing and going over it and clean forgetting all about the United States mails, till the man at the window called out:
“ ‘Leven minutes and a quarter before the mail closes!”