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Rh But the days was slippin' by, an' I begun to worry. 'Twas gittin past the middle o' December now. Then I remembered Christmas was comin' on. So one day arter my boy had left, I begun to think why I couldn't make a Christmas for him. I was jest hungry for a stockin' to fill. The next time he come I led up to the subject an' found out that he'd never heerd o' Christmas or Santy Claus in all his life. So I told him about it an' he was so interested. The stockin' was easy enough, for I had one of Peleg's. Then I wanted a partikiler specie o' apple, big an' red. They calls 'em Boardman reds. The hick'ry nuts I got easy enough and the maple sugar. I was goin' to get .some pepp'mint lozenges, but I thought that was too personal. I got a big stick o' ball lick'rish, an' some B 'gundy gum. Then o' course there must be a jack-knife. I set up late o' nights an' riz early o' mornin's to knit a pair o' red yarn mittens, an' I wound a yarn ball, an' covered it with leather. I had a diff'cult time findin' fish-hooks an' sinkers. Right on top I was goin' to put Peleg's leather-covered Bible. Every day I talked Christmas to him, tellin' about the diff'rent Christmases I'd knowed.

The last night but one come—the 23rd. Ev'ry time I spoke o' father's houses or families goin' home for Christmas, I see he looked kind o' sorry. That arternoon when he asked in a shaky, still voice, " Don't you want to hear me speak my piece?" he follered up with the dear old hymn,

He went on with all the verses, an' when he come to I was all goose flesh, an' so choky.

All the next day I went about my work very softly. I'd filled the stockin', an' there it laid in my room, never to be hung up, all bulgy, onreg'lar an' knobbv. I knew what ev'ry bulge meant. That one by the ankle was the jack-