Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/123

1913.] Jamie Fitch wanted a warm red jacket, to wear when he sat up in bed, and that Uncle Santa wanted me to make it. I went down-town that very afternoon and bought the wool, and I knew that I was not mistaken by the way I felt afterward, so glad, and warm, and Christmasy. That's why all his family love to help him. He gives them such a happy feeling while they are doing it.

It was Will’m’s turn now for a question. He asked it abruptly, with a complete change of base:

“Did you ever see a stepmother?”’

“Yes, indeed! And Cousin Rosalie has one. She ’s Uncle Norse’s wife. I 've just been visiting them.”

“Has she got a tush?”

“A what?” was the astonished answer.

“He means tusk,” explained Libby. “All the cruel ones have ’em, Susie Peters says.”

“It ’s a tooth that sticks away out,” Will’m added eagerly, at the same time pulling his lip down at one side to show a little white tooth in the place where the dreadful fang would have grown, had he been the cruel creature in question.

“Mercy, no!” was the horrified exclamation. “That kind live only in fairy tales along with ogres and giants. Did n’t you know that?”

Will'm shook his head. “Me an’ Libby was afraid ours would be that way, and if she is, we 're going to do something to her. We ’re going to shut her up in a nawful dark cellar, or—or something.”

Miss Santa looked grave. Here was a dreadful misunderstanding. Somebody had poisoned these baby minds with suspicions and doubts which might embitter their whole lives. If she had been only an ordinary fellow passenger, she might not have felt it her duty to set them straight. But no descendant of the family of which she was a member, could come face to face with such a wrong without the impulse to make it right. It was an impulse straight from the sky road. In the carol service in the chapel, the night before she left school, the dean had spoken so beautifully of the way they might all follow the star, this Christmas-tide, with their gifts of frankincense and myrrh, even if they had no gold. Here was her opportunity, she thought, if she were only wise enough to say the right thing!

Before she could think of a way to begin, a waiter came through the car, sounding the first call for dinner. Time was flying. She ’d have to hurry, and make the most of it before the journey came to an end. Putting the little crocheted jacket back into her suitcase and snapping the clasps, she stood up.

“Come on,” she said, holding out a hand to each. “We ’ll go into the dining-car and get something to eat.”

Libby thought of the generous supper in the pasteboard box which they had been told to eat as soon as it was dark, but she allowed herself to be led down the aisle without a word. A higher power was in authority now. She was as one drawn into a fairy ring.

Now, at last, the ride on the Pullman blossomed into all that Will'm had pictured it to be. There was the gleam of glass, the shine of silver, the glow of shaded candles, and himself at one of the little tables, while the train went flying through the night like a mighty winged dragon, breathing smoke and fire as it flew.

Miss Santa Claus studied the printed card beside her plate a moment, and then looked into her pocket-book before she wrote the order. She smiled a little while she was writing it. She wanted to make this meal one that they would always remember, and was sure that children who lived at such a place as the Junction had never before eaten strawberries on Christmas eve; a snow-covered Christmas eve at that. She had been afraid for just a moment, when she first peeped into her purse, that there was n't enough left for her to get them.

No one had anything to say while the order was being filled. Will'm and Libby were too busy looking at the people and things around them, and their companion was too busy thinking about something she wanted to tell them after a while. Presently, the steward passed their table, and Will'm gave a little start of recognition, but he said nothing. It was the same man whose locket he had found, and who had promised to tell Santa Claus about him. Evidently he had told, for here was Will'm in full enjoyment of what he had longed for. The man did not look at Will’m, however. He was too busy attending to the wants of impatient grown people to notice a quiet little boy who sat next the wall and made no demands.

Then the waiter came, balancing an enormous tray on one hand, high above his head, and the children watched him with the breathless fascination with which they would have watched a juggler play his tricks. It was a simple supper, for Miss Santa Claus was still young enough to remember what had been served to her in her nursery days, but it was crowned by a dish of enormous strawberries, such as Will’m had seen in the refrigerator of the car kitchen, but nowhere else. They never grew that royal size at the Junction.

But what made the meal one of more than