Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/105

 buttery puff paste, a "receipt" a Jewish lady had given Aunt Mabel years ago on the train to Lincoln when she had to find out something about Pa's will at the courthouse.

The morning of this triumph over her nearest rival, Aunt Mabel returned out of breath from carrying a laden basket and a three-foot tree for the parlor table. A short time later, hearing a brushing sound, Lucy peeked out her window and saw Vida helping Mr. Bertrand bring a tree up their front steps.

"My goodness, we'd better step on it and shop, Christmas Eve is tomorrow."

"Yes, meet me in front of Cheever's after work, the stores are open tonight."

Christmas shopping was a lark and Lucy wanted to buy everything in sight. Christmas was tomorrow and New York was a long wav off.

A quilted hug-me-tight, a fancy apron, and a box of candy for Aunt Mabel. A box of candy for Mr. and Mrs. Bertrand. An elegant volume of the Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyám with a tooled leather cover and silk ribbon bookmark for Vida because she was crazy about poetry. Lucy couldn't think of a thing for Clem until she spied at Cheever's, while buying cards to send to Miss Shaver and Miss Klemper, a tiny globe of the world with a hole for sharpening pencils. Just what he needed because he always sharpened his pencils by hand. For Mae, Lucy secreted a big bottle of toilet water, and a new powder puff and rouge because Mother's rouge was so old it had turned a funny color that made her skin look blue.

Mae bought her employers candy and cards. Her gift for Lucy was finished. An Alice-blue broadcloth coat with a shoulder cape and matching bonnet edged with white rabbit.

Clem, uncertain about a gift for Lucy, while buying a handsome purse for his mother saw just what she might like. A bright red calfskin Boston bag, stamped L.C. in gold, for her slippers and sundries, to replace the old black oilcloth bag. L.C., entranced with her only luxurious possession, thereafter carried it continually here and there on one pretext or another, keeping its newness immaculate.

This crazy attachment was observed jealously by Vida Bertrand. For, after weeks of painstaking thought, Vida had settled on a silver chain memory bracelet with an oblong placque on which her full name was engraved to bind her forever to her friend L.C. (Unfortunately, there was only room on the placque for one full name.) A gift Lucy promptly, and insensitively, Vida sadly noticed, bangled Rh