“Goody, goody!” sang Pink, dancing into Grandma’s room one evening, “It’s only four weeks till Christmas.”
“And I’m saving all my allowance for Christmas presents,” Bobby announced. “I’m going to get Mother an umbrella—hers is slit and it has a long handle—or a sparkly comb for her hair or some silk stockings.”
“Why!” exclaimed Grandma in surprise. “How did a little boy ever think of such nice, appropriate things?”
“Oh, Mother always makes a list,” Alice explained carefully. “She puts down all the things she’d like to have, and we pick from that. You see, the first year we bought our own presents to give, Bobby got her an iron-handle at the five-and-ten-cent store and she always uses an electric iron, and I gave her a book that she already had, so after that she made us a list. But Bobby won’t have money enough for any of the things he named,” she said, with scorn for her brother’s idea of prices. “I know very well he won’t.”
“Well, you might all three go together,” Grandma suggested, “just as brother Charlie and I did once for a present we got for our mother. Her birthday came in November, and we wanted to give her something nice—a real store present—so we put our money together. Of course there was nothing at our store, but twice a year, in the spring and again in the fall, Mr. Simon, the peddler, came straight from the city, and it was from him that we planned to buy Mother’s present.
“Mr. Simon was no common peddler, no, indeed. He was little and round and fat and bald-headed—not handsome at all, but one of those people whose looks you never think about after you know them. He always staid over night with us, and because Father would take no money for keeping him he left tucked away some place a little present that Mother said more than paid his bill.
“We all liked to see Mr. Simon come. He brought Father the latest news from the city and told Mother and the girls about the newest fashions and customs. I remember when he told Mother how some people were putting wire screens over their windows to keep the flies out, and how she laughed and said, ‘The very idea of shutting out the fresh air like that!’
“He would tell stories to us children and recite poetry, and when he opened up his packs in the evening, how we all crowded around!
“He didn’t show everything at all the houses, but he did at ours—fine Irish linens, velvets and satins, beads and brooches and wonderful shawls.
“It was a shawl that Charlie and I meant to buy for Mother—a soft, creamy, silk shoulder shawl. Aunt Louisa had just such a shawl, and when Mr. Simon was showing his things that spring we decided on that shawl the minute we saw it. We coaxed Mother to try it on, and she threw it around her shoulders to please us. It was so soft and lovely and the creamy tint was so becoming to Mother that we would have bought it immediately, but, alas! when we slipped out to count our money we didn’t have enough—not nearly enough.
“‘But we don’t need it till fall,’ said Charlie. ‘Let’s get Mr. Simon to keep it for us till he comes next time, and then we’ll have enough money.’
Mother threw the shawl around her shoulders to please us
“When we went back to the sitting room the shawl had been put away in its flat little box. At the first opportunity we asked Mr. Simon if he would save it for us, and he said he would.
“‘It won’t be too much trouble, carrying it around so long?’ I asked as an after-thought.
“‘Not a bit of trouble,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘’Tis no heavier than one of your own black curls.’
“But the next day we forgot all about the shawl, for Mother had lost her best brooch. It was a cameo with a carved gold border set around with pearls. It had been Father’s wedding present to Mother, and she always wore it even with her everyday print dresses. That brooch looked as well on a common gown as it did on a fine silk. Mother said it was like some people, they were so fine and wonderful that they were at home in any company.
“Mother missed the brooch that night when she went to take it off. She had gone back downstairs and searched carefully all over the sitting-room floor, but she hadn’t found it. She didn’t mention losing it until after Mr. Simon had gone. Then we hunted all over the house and the yard and the garden, and Charlie kept on hunting when everyone else had given up. He climbed the trees and looked in all the bird nests around, because he had heard that sometimes, when birds are building, they carry valuable things to their nests. And he searched in every other unlikely place you could think of, but he didn’t find the brooch.
“We were very busy that summer, for besides our regular work we had to earn enough money to pay for Mother’s shawl. I weeded in the garden for five cents a day, and Charlie picked potato bugs, and we sold blackberries and did all sorts of things. When it was time for Mr. Simon to come again we had our reward, for safely hidden away under a loose board in the attic floor, was enough money to pay for Mother’s present.
“But by this time we had changed our minds about what we wanted to give her—instead of the shawl we thought we would give her a brooch. We met Mr. Simon at the gate and asked him anxiously if he had saved the shawl, for we were afraid that maybe he wouldn’t like our not taking it in the spring.
“‘Indeed, I did,’ he answered. ‘I haven’t so much as opened that box since I was here before.’
“Then Charlie and I told him that if he could sell the shawl to someone else we would like to buy instead a brooch for Mother. He said he could sell the shawl, but why buy our mother a brooch when she already had one so much finer than anything he had to offer? We told him about Mother’s brooch being lost, and he was awfully sorry. We selected a new brooch, and Mother was pleased with it and fastened it into her collar right away.
“The next morning I came into the sitting room, after seeing Mr. Simon off, to find Father and Mother talking seriously together.
“‘I can’t understand it,’ Father was saying. And I saw that Mother held in one hand the cream-colored shawl that Charlie and I had meant to buy for her.
“‘Oh, is that what Mr. Simon left this time?’ cried Belle, coming in just behind me. ‘Who gets it, Mother, Aggie or me? I think I ought to have it because I am going to be married, but Aggie will say it’s her turn because I got the lace collar last time.’
“But Mother did not answer, and we saw with surprise that in her other hand she held her brooch—not her new brooch, but the one that had been lost.
“‘It was in the box with the shawl,’ she said quietly, and looked at Father. How had the brooch come into Mr. Simon’s possession, they were wondering, and why had he returned it in this mysterious way? Had he found it the night Mother lost it and had he now repented of having kept it?
“‘You had the shawl around your shoulders the night you lost the brooch, Mother,’ Belle said. ‘Maybe the brooch got fastened in it then.’
“‘That would be perfectly possible,’ said Father gravely, ‘but how many times do you think Simon has showed that shawl in the last six months?’
“Then I found my voice.
“‘Oh, not once, Father!’ I cried. ‘He never even opened the box since he was here last time. He said so himself.’ And I told them how he had been saving the shawl all that time for Charlie and me. Mother laughed happily and said we were dear children, and Father picked up the county paper with an air of relief.
“Next time I think, yes, I know that next time we shall have a Christmas story.”