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1913.] . She said you ‘re not to go off the place again till she gets back. I was to tell you when you came in. She looked everywhere to find you before she left, because she ’s going to be gone till late in the afternoon. Where you been, anyhow?”

Will’m told her. Miss Sally was a neighbor who often helped in the shop at times like this, and he was always glad when such times came. It was easy to tell Miss Sally things, and presently, when a few direct questions disclosed the fact that Miss Sally “b’leeved” as he did, he asked her another question, which had been puzzling him ever since he had decided to ask for a ride on the train,

“How can Santa put a ride in a stocking?”

“T don’t know,” answered Miss Sally, still intent on her crocheting. “But then I don’t really see how he can put anything in, sleds, or dolls, or anything of the sort. He ’s a mighty mysterious man to me. But, then, probably he would n’t try to put the ride in a stocking, He ’d send the ticket or the money Lo buy it with. And he might give it to you before hand, and not wait for stocking-hanging time, knowing how much you want it.”

All this from Miss Sally because Mrs. Neal had just told her that the children were to be sent to their father the day before Christmas, and that they were to go on a Pullman car, because the ordinary coaches did not go straight through. The children were too small to risk changing cars, and he was too busy to come for them.

Will’m stayed in the shop the rest of the morning, for Miss Sally, echoing the sentiment of everybody at the Junction, felt sorry for the poor little fellow who was soon to be sent away to a stepmother, and felt that it was her duty to do what she could toward making his world as pleasant as possible for him while she had the opportunity.

Together they ate the lunch which had been left on the pantry shelves for them, Will’m helped set it out on the table. Then he went back into the shop with Miss Sally, But his endless questions “got on her nerves” after a while, she said, and she suddenly ceased to be the good company that she had been all morning. She mended the fire in the sitting-room and told Will’m he ’d better play in there till Libby came home. It was an endless afternoon, so long that, after he had done everything that he could think of to pass the time, he decided he ’d write his own letter and send it up the chimney himself. He could n’t possibly wait for Libby to come home and do it. He ’d write a picture letter. It was easier to read pictures than print, anyhow. At least for him, He slipped back into the shop long enough to get paper and a pencil from the old secretary in the corner, and then, lying on his stomach on the hearth-rug with his heels in the air, he began drawing his favorite sketch, a train of cars.

All that can be said of the picture is that one