Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/163

 him a pudding for Christmas, a real plum-pudding crammed to the top with raisins, figs, citron and cherries. A pudding such as she had always made at Christmas time. It was made from an old Colonial recipe that her mother had handed down to her. It would be the first of those savory puddings that had gone to war. But the pudding hadn't come. Enoch wondered what had become of it. Was it likely that it could ever find its way to him through all that blood and carnage? The night before while there was a lull for a moment, he had told Dirk and Joe Tooks about that pudding. In his description of it he had unconsciously told a lot about his mother.

"It must o' been hard to leave a ma like dat," commented Joe Tooks.

"Yeah," agreed Dirk. "Now me, I never had no home. Nearest thing I ever had to one was de yards o' de Illinois Cen'ral. The engines sounded frien'ly cornin' puffin' in de yards. Dey wuz good company. Like Joe, yere, dey had big mouths."

And now it was Christmas morning.