Grace S. Richmond

“ It was late in the afternoon, a tremendous Christmas dinner well over, and the group scattered, when Guy and his mother sat alone by the fire. The "boys" had gone out to the great stock barn with their father to talk over with him every detail of the prosperous business he, with the help of an invaluable assistant, was yet able to manage. Carolyn and Nan had ostensibly gone with them, but in reality the former was calling upon an old friend of her childhood, and the latter had begged [35] a horse and sleigh and driven merrily away alone upon an errand she would tell no one but her mother. ”

“ Oliver's comment, when Guy had laid the whole thing before her in the most tactful manner he could command. She spoke rather coldly. "It is not usual to think that families should be broken up like this on Christmas Day, of all days in the year. Four families, with somebody gone—a mother or a father—just to please two elderly people who expect nothing of the sort, and who understand just why we can't all get home at once. Don't you think you are really asking a good deal?" ”

“ That Christmas Day virtually began a whole year beforehand, with a red-hot letter written by Guy Fernald to his younger sister, Nan, who had been married to Samuel Burnett just two and one-half years. The letter was read aloud by Mrs. Burnett to her husband at the breakfast table, the second day after Christmas. From start to finish [4] it was upon one subject, and it read as follows:
Dear Nan:
It's a confounded, full-grown shame that not a soul of us all got home for Christmas—except yours truly, and he only for a couple of hours. ”

“ I felt gulpish in my throat, on my honour I did, when I looked at them. Mother just gave one gasp and flew into my arms, and Dad got up more slowly—he has that darned rheumatism worse than ever this winter—and came over and I thought he'd shake my hand off. ”

“ Marian began to speak. She [13] thought Guy was exceeding his rights in talking as if they had been at fault. It was not often that elderly people had so many children within call—loyal children who would do anything within reason. But certainly a man owed something to his own family. And at Christmas! ”

“ But mother'd hear us."
"No, she wouldn't. Don't you know how she trusts everything about the house to Marietta since she got that fall—"
"Mother get a fall?"
"Why, yes!" Guy stared at his brother with some impatience. "Don't you remember she fell down the back stairs a year ago last October, and hurt her knee?" [12]
"Certainly, Oliver," his wife interposed. "I wrote for you to tell her how sorry we were. But I supposed she had entirely recovered."
"She's a little bit lame, and always will be," said Guy, a touch of reproach in his tone. ”

“ He isn't old enough to use a cane, by jolly, and Ol ought to know it, if Marian doesn't. I'm glad I sent him that typewriter. He liked that, I know he did, and it'll amuse him, too—not make him think he's ready to die!"
Guy was not the fellow to forget anything which had taken hold of [8] him as that pathetic Christmas home-coming had done. When the year had nearly rolled around, the first of December saw him at work getting his plans in train. He began with his eldest brother, Oliver, because he considered Mrs. Oliver the hardest proposition he had to tackle in the carrying out of his idea. ”

“ Guy.
Gay Nan had felt a slight choking in her own throat as she read this letter. "We really must make an [6] effort to be there Christmas next year, Sam," she said to her husband, and Sam assented cheerfully. He only wished there were a father and mother somewhere in the world for him to go home to.
Guy wrote the same sort of thing, with more or less detail, to Edson and Oliver, his married elder brothers; to Ralph, his unmarried brother; and to Carolyn—Mrs. Charles Wetmore, his other—and elder—married sister. ”

“ If you think you can eat quiet as cats, I'll feed you up, but if you're goin' to make as much rumpus as you did comin' round the corner o' the wood-shed I'll have to pack you straight off to bed up the back stairs. ”