CHAPTER III

CHRISTMAS DAY WITH THE CAMPBELLS

The days which followed the advent of the orphan sisters in the great house were happy ones. Oh, so happy! How can they be described? The two lonely old hearts which had hungered all these long years for the little children who had so early left them thrilled with gladness at every sound of the eager, girlish voices. Boundless content reigned in their hearts as they watched each expressive face and studied each different character; and they wondered openly how they had ever managed to live without this precious band of granddaughters, as they insisted upon calling their charges.

And the girls were equally happy. Gail felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, as if her soul had been suddenly freed from a dark prison. The care-worn look vanished from the thin face; the big, gray-blue eyes sparkled with animation; her heart bubbled over with grat.i.tude and love; and in every possible way she tried to show these new guardians how deeply and tenderly she loved them. And her att.i.tude was that of the other sisters also, except that each took her own method of showing it. The Campbells were well satisfied with their experiment and were never tired of saying to each, other, "They are ours now."

"Yes," Peace had answered them once when she had overheard these words; "we are yours now, but it seems to me 'sif we had always belonged to you. Some way, we fit in just as slick! 'Sif we had only been away on a vacation and just got home again, and you're tickled to see us and we're tickled to see you. Only--s'posing we really had been your granddaughters, s'posing you had been our Grandpa Greenfield, I bet _you'd_ never have named me Peace."

"No," Dr. Campbell replied gravely, but with a quick thrill of tenderness in his heart for this little scapegrace who seemed to win from everyone an extra share of love; "no, I don't think I should have named you Peace--that is, if I could have foreseen what the blossom was to be when the bud unfolded. I should have called you Joy."

"Joy?" repeated Peace. "Humph! That sounds like a heathen name. We've got a story book about Hop Loy, a Chinaman who was born on Christmas Day and never saw a Christmas tree until he was older'n Cherry. Why-ee!

Ain't that terrible! I used to think I'd like to have my birthday come on Christmas, but now I'm glad it doesn't, for then everybody'd make one present do for the two days, and I'd get only half as many pretty things as other children have. It's bad enough as 'tis, being born on New Year's Day, for by that time most folks have spent all their money on Christmas doings."

"Oho," he mocked, "is that what is bothering you? Well, now, don't you worry! You shall have your share of birthday gifts as well as heaps of Christmas presents as long as you live with us. This year Christmas will be doubly merry, for it is the first holiday season we have had any young folks to help us celebrate since the days when Dora's nephew used to spend his vacations with us."

"Why doesn't he come any more?" asked Cherry curiously.

"Oh, he is a gray-haired man now with children of his own," laughed grandma, then sighed, for the rollicking Ned who had been the life of so many vacations with them had married a society dame whose one aim was to see how many social victories she could score, and the poor children of the family fared as best they could in the great, loveless palace which they called home.

"Do they live in Martindale?" asked Hope, eager to add to her list of acquaintances any whom the Campbells loved.

"No, their home is in Chicago now. That is a photograph of the children." She pointed to a group picture on the fireplace mantel, and the girls cl.u.s.tered about it with inquisitive eyes.

"What a sad-faced child the smaller one is," observed Faith. "How old is she?"

"Six or seven weeks younger than Peace, I believe. She was born on Valentine Day."

"How lovely!" Peace cried joyfully. "But I'd like it better if it was the boy who was almost my age. He looks the nicest of the bunch. The big girl is homely--"

"Peace!"

"Well, it ain't her fault, I know, and I wouldn't mind how homely she was if she looked _sweet_, but she doesn't. She looks 'sif she thought she owned the earth and I never did like a _darnimeering_ person. Now Tom--his name is Tom, isn't it?"

"No, dear, it is Henderson. Henderson Meadows."

"Oh! Why, I was sure it was Tom; he has such a Tom-ish look--"

A shout of derision interrupted her, but she stoutly declared, "Well, he has! Boys named Tom are always nice--all I ever knew. I'm sorry his name is Henderson. It doesn't sound a bit like him."

"You are a queer chick," said the President indulgently, "but I quite agree with you in regard to Henderson. He is a splendid fellow, however, in spite of his long name. They ought to have called him Ned Junior. He is big Ned all over again, just as Belle the second is the counterpart of her mother. Lorene is the odd piece. Every family has one odd one, I believe. Lorene is like neither her father nor mother."

"What funny names! They are as bad as ours. But I should like to know the children--the folks, I mean. I s'pose Belle is too old to be called a child any longer, ain't she?"

"Yes, Belle is sixteen and stylish," he answered grimly, as if that told the story, and it really did, for little more could be said of the frivolous, society-loving girl, brought up to follow in the footsteps of her worldly mother.

"Do they come here often?" ventured Gail, still studying the group, none of whom looked really happy.

"No, oh no," Mrs. Campbell answered hastily. "Martindale is too quiet for Mrs. Meadows. Ned sent Henderson and Lorene up here for a month last summer, but Belle has never been our guest. Grandpa and I have visited them twice in Chicago, but that is all we have ever seen them."

"I wish they lived nearer," sighed Peace. "We never had any cousins of our own, but maybe they'd adopt us too, like you did; then we'd know what it feels like to have real relations."

"Suppose you write Lorene. I think she would enjoy getting letters from a little girl so near her own age."

"That _would_ be nice, s'posing I liked to write letters," Peace a.s.sented, "but I don't. I'll send her a Christmas present, though; and a valentine when it comes time, and a birthday gift, too. She will like that, won't she? What street does she live on in Chicago? It'll have to go pretty soon if it gets there in time for Christmas. That's only a week off. Mercy! What a lot of work we'll have to do before then, getting ready for the parties. I do love parties! But I don't see what you wanted to make two for. One would have been a plenty, and not near so much work."

Mrs. Campbell laughed comfortably. "The house isn't large enough to accommodate all we want to invite, so we had to make two parties.

Besides, the evening party is a sort of 'coming out' affair for my older girls--"

"Coming out of what?"

"Oh, introducing them into college society--"

"And we littler girls ain't worth coming out for? Is that it?"

"Oh dear no! But _little_ girls don't come out into society. They have to wait until they are grown up. Even Gail and Faith are too young for the social whirl as the world understands that phrase. They must wait until they are through with school and college life before they take up social duties. But they have met so very few of our young people since coming here to Martindale to live that we are giving this party to introduce them to their own cla.s.smates really. Do you understand now?"

Peace did not, but she vaguely felt that she ought to, so she bobbed her head slowly and fell to puzzling over the queer ways of the world.

Fortunately for the whole household, the last week of preparation for the holiday season was a very busy one, so Peace had little time to think of all these perplexing questions; and when Christmas Day dawned at length, everyone thought she had forgotten her grievance over not being invited to attend the evening party for the older sisters. But Peace remembered, and in the gray of the early dawn before anyone else was awake in the great house, the door of the flag room burst open with a jerk and a joyous voice shrieked through the gloom:

"What have you got in your stockings, girls? Mine is stuffed so full it fell off the nail, and one chair and half the dresser is loaded with the left-over packages. And Allee's got as many as I have. There's a doll for each of us--they beat yours all hollow, Cherry. Now we've got a G.o.ddess of Liberty all our own and you can have yours as soon as ever you want it. And I've got seven books. Guess Santa must have mixed me up with you again, Cherry. There are three puzzles and five games and a lot of handkerchiefs and ribbons, two sashes, and oh, the loveliest white dress for winter wear, all trimmed with the softest velvet--just the thing for your party tonight, Faith, s'posing I was invited. And there's a plaid dress and a plain red one and a brown one and a dark blue--six in all--and two coats. _Two!_ Think of that! Mercy, ain't we rich now? Are you awake, all of you? Are you listening? Ain't this different from last year?"

Ah, how well they all remembered that last Christmas, and what a hymn of praise and thanksgiving went up from each of those six hearts for the joy and good tidings this Christmas had brought them!

Before Peace had finished shouting her catalog of gifts, the other sisters were awake--and indeed, the whole household was astir--examining the generous remembrances loving hands had heaped around their beds as they slept. And what a merry time they made of it! Gussie could scarcely prevail upon anyone to touch her tempting breakfast, for excitement had dulled the usually hearty appet.i.tes; the young folks found their treasures more alluring than any breakfast table could possibly be, and the President and his wife hovered over them to enjoy the sight of their joy.

"A body'd think they had never seen a Christmas Day before," muttered Marie, waiting impatiently in her snowy cap and ap.r.o.n to serve the rapidly cooling breakfast.

"It's many a long day since they have seen one like this," said Gussie loyally, smiling gratefully as she thought of the liberal number of packages old Santa had left hanging to her door during the night. But at length the meal was ended, Marie had carried the dishes away, Jud appeared with a step-ladder and hammer, and the younger trio were banished upstairs to amuse themselves until the last of the party decorations were put in place. This was not a hard thing to do, fortunately, and for once not one of them raised any objection to being exiled in this fashion.

"Why, I've enough things of my own to look at and think about to last me a week," Cherry breathed ecstatically.

"Yes, and s'posing you did get tired of that," spoke up Peace, "there's all the rest of the girls' bundles to 'xamine. They've each got a hundred 'most near, I sh'd think."

So for a long time they fluttered from room to room, admiring the pretty things that were now their own, nibbling chocolate drops, or discussing the party scheduled for two o'clock that afternoon. Then gradually conversation flagged; each girl sought a favorite retreat, and surrounded by her pile of belongings, sat down to gloat over them.

Silence fell upon the rooms, broken only by the sound of rustling ribbons caressed by admiring hands, the opening and shutting of boxes, the fluttering of story-book leaves, the protesting squeak of Queen Helen's bisque arms and legs, and the rattle of mysterious puzzles.

Cherry had retired to her own domain to regale herself with certain tempting volumes, and Peace and Allee were alone in the flag room when the older girl suddenly dropped the book in which she had been lost for a full half hour, and said eagerly, "Allee, this is the most interesting story I ever read. It tells how the little Swede children give the birds a Christmas. Think of that! The birds! We tried to make it happy for everyone we knew--Jud and Gussie and Marie and the flirty chimney-sweep who goes by here every morning, and the washwoman who lives in the alley, and the milk-boy who comes so far through the cold to bring us our milk, and Caspar Dodds' family--and--and--all of them; and we even remembered the canary and the dogs, but we never thought of the birds outdoors."

"No, we didn't," Allee agreed, pausing in her occupation of undressing the gorgeous Queen Helen to stare fixedly at her sister as if trying to fathom her thoughts. "We might ask Gussie for some crumbs. It ain't too late yet."

"Crumbs wouldn't do at all. The book says they tie a sheaf of wheat to a tall pole in the yard so the birds will see it and come down and eat.

See, there is the picture."

"Um-hm. But we haven't any tall pole in our yard, 'cept the flag-pole and that's on the roof."