"Well, Mr. Hildreth," began the Doctor formally.

Roger's face fell.

"I'm your adopted son," he hinted, "and you said that made my name same as yours."

"Mr. Leslie!" corrected the Doctor, and Roger glowed.

"Well, Mr. Leslie," went on the Doctor thoughtfully, "I'm chuck full of grievances. There's the rheumatism in my leg, for instance. That's no sort of thing to have at Christmas."

"But that's better," said Roger. "You said so this morning. I 'spect you been thinkin' too much about it like you said I did when my leg was stiff."

"Ahem! And I did hope somebody would come home for Christmas. I like a house full of romping youngsters--"

Roger pointed an accusing finger.

"Aunt Ellen says every blessed one of your children, an' your grand-children too, begged and begged you to come to the city for Christmas an'--an' you wouldn't go 'cause you're old-fashioned and like a country Christmas so much better--an'--an' because you'd promised to teach me to skate on the Deacon's pond an' take me sleighin'."

"Dear me," said the Doctor helplessly, "for such a mite of a kiddy, you do seem remarkably well informed."

"Man to man," reminded Roger inexorably and the Doctor aired his final grievance.

"And then there's that youngest son of mine--"

"Doctor Ralph?"

"Doctor Ralph! What right had he, I'd like to know, to marry that pretty sister of yours and go off honeymooning holiday time. Didn't he know that we needed him and Sister Madge here for Christmas? I miss 'em both.

Young pirate!"

Roger's heart swelled with loyalty. It was Doctor Ralph's skilful hand that had helped him walk.

"Most likely," he said fairly, "I'm a little to blame there. After I came home from the hospital, I did tell Sister Madge to marry him--"

"Most likely," acknowledged the Doctor, "I said something similar to Doctor Ralph. I can't have you shouldering all the responsibility. Well, your Honor, there's the Christmas evidence. What's the verdict?"

Roger considered. This man to man game had certain phraseological conclusions.

"No case!" he said suddenly, nor would he alter his decision when the Doctor protested against its severity.

"You had so awful many peoply sort of places to go," pointed out Roger, and the Doctor laughed.

"And let you spend this first Christmas on your two legs in a _city_?"

he demanded. "Well, I guess not! No-sir-ee-bob! There!--the alder berries have faded out and the garden's thick with twilight."

"And it's Christmas eve!" cried Roger, his black eyes shining with delight.

"Speaking of Christmas," said the Doctor, sniffing luxuriously, "I feel that I ought to slip out to the kitchen for a minute or so. I do smell something tremendously Christmasy and spicy--"

Roger caught his breath. With a Christmas intrigue as surely in the air as the smell of spice, here was dangerous ground.

"Aunt Ellen," he faltered, "Aunt Ellen said she couldn't pos'bly be bothered with--with any men folks in the kitchen--not even me."

"Pooh!" rebelled the Doctor largely, "that's merely a ruse of hers to protect the cookies. And what I'd like to know is just this--what's Aunt Ellen doing in the kitchen anyway? Certainly old Annie's able to do the Christmas fussing for three people. Aunt Ellen ought to be in here with us. That was part of my lonesome grievance but I forgot to mention it."

Roger, shivering apprehensively, visioned suspicious stores of Christmas delicacies--holly and evergreen--and a supper table set for _ten_! And off somewhere among those purple spears of twilight old Asher, the hired man, was waiting at the station with the big farm sleigh.

He must keep his eye upon the Doctor until six o'clock, and lure him away from the window.

"Tell me a story," begged Roger--"over here by the fire." And his voice was so very tremulous and urgent that the hungry Doctor abandoned his notion of a Christmas cookie, and complied.

To Roger, in a nervous ecstasy of antic.i.p.ation, the story was a blurred hodge-podge of phrases and crackling fire, distant noises of clinking china and hurrying feet, and wild flights of imagination.... Old Asher must be coming past the red barn now ... and now down the hill ... and now past the Deacon's pond ... and now--

Sleigh-bells fairly leaped out of the quiet, and Roger jumped and gulped, aquiver with excitement. The Doctor regarded him with mild disfavor.

"Bless my soul," he said in surprise, "that was the quietest part of my story. You're restless."

"Go on!" said Roger hoa.r.s.ely, and the obliging Doctor, mistaking his agitation for interest, went on with his tale.

But Roger had heard old Asher driving along by the picket fence and turning in at the gate-posts, and the story was no more to him than the noisy crackle of the log. Off somewhere in the region of the kitchen door he detected a subdued scuffle of many feet.

The grandfather's clock struck six.... Roger's cheeks were blazing--the fire and the Doctor still duetting.... Why, oh, why didn't somebody come and call them to supper?... There had been plenty of time now for everything. Why--

The door swung back and Roger jumped. Old Annie, Asher's wife, stood in the doorway, her wrinkled face inscrutable.

"Supper, sir!" she said and vanished. Hand in hand, the Doctor and Roger went out to supper.

The dining-room door was closed. That in itself was unusual. But the unsuspecting Doctor pushed through with Roger at his heels, only to halt and stare dumfounded over his spectacles while Roger screamed and danced and clapped his hands. For to the startled eyes of Doctor John Leslie, the snug, old-fashioned room was alive with boys and holly--boys and boys and boys upon boys, he would have told you in that first instant of delighted consternation, in different stages of embarra.s.sment and rags.

And one had but to glance at the faces of old Asher and Annie in the kitchen doorway, at Aunt Ellen, hovering near her Christmas brood with the look of all mothers in her kind, brown eyes, and then at Roger, scarlet with enthusiasm, to know that the Doctor had been the victim of benevolent conspiracy.

"It's a s'prise!" shrieked Roger, "a Christmasy s'prise! Aunt Ellen she says you're so awful keen on s'prisin' other folks that we'd show you--an'--an' you'll have a bang-up Christmas with kids like you love an' so will I, an' so will they an' the minister he went to the city and found seven boys crazy for Christmas in the country an'--"

"Roger! Roger!" came Aunt Ellen's gentle voice--"do please take a breath, child. You're turning purple."

The Doctor adjusted his gla.s.ses.

"Seven boys!" he said. "Bless my soul, when I opened that door I saw seventy boys!" He counted them aloud--then for no reason at all save that he had glanced into seven eager faces, thinner and sharper than he liked, for all they glowed with excitement and furtive interest in the long supper table asparkle with lights and holly, he wiped his gla.s.ses and patted Roger on the back.

"Is your leg botherin' so much now, daddy Doctor?" demanded Roger.

"Nothing like so much," admitted the Doctor.

"Are you lonesome 'nuff now to stick out your chin?"

"Bless your heart, Roger," admitted the Doctor huskily, "I'm so full of Christmas I can hardly breathe!"

"Hooray!" said Roger. "Me, too."