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 finish putting in the books for them, and then everything really will be done. Joe won't mind running me in when he gets home. It won't take him a minute."

The workmen were going, too. The house grew silent. Kate sat idle among the books, realizing how tired she was, remembering the fun, the excitement of those first days at 29 Chestnut Street. Where to put the big chair? Where to hang the saucepan and onions? Waiting, when twilight came, for the click of the gate

She roused herself, and began pushing in Joe's old bound volumes of Saint Nicholas that had left such a big gap in the bookcase at home. Pictures of little girls with deep silky bangs and little boys with broad collars—"Denise and Ned Toodles"—she had worried because Jodie liked that better than the more virile "Boys of the Rinkum Ranch".

"Dear St. Nicholas.

I am one of your little readers in far-away Australia—"

Jodie had written a letter to St. Nicholas once. "Dear St. Nicholas,

I am eight years old. I have a dog named Shep—"