Chapter IV: Part 4

As she looked over magazines at home, she imagined how her name would look printed. Once when she was looking over a big fashion paper, she turned to a department page and found that there was a chance to correspond with an editor lady. So she at once wrote and between the two there grew up a friendly intercourse upon paper. Ermelinda confided her desire to write stories, and though none were awarded prizes in the department, yet Ermelinda regarded the editor lady as a friend. And once she told her how the school had solicited Liberty Bond subscriptions.

The boys and girls had volunteered for the work, going together from house to house. Ermelinda enjoyed the luck of selling nine bonds on subscription and one fifty dollar one outright. It was all very interesting indeed. Ermelinda grew more and more enthusiastic and her patriotism flamed hot. She went over the territory assigned and then, on her own hook, took up new territory. It was in rather a shabby quarter of the town but one of the girls was with her. So they entered a doorway and went into a tenement. She was surprised to see it so gray and destitute.

They knocked at the first landing, but though they met with a fair reception, they sold nothing. At the second landing it was the same. Ermelinda caught glimpses of bare poverty in the rooms as the door opened at her knock. She had always known that such things were, but the vivid picture of them had never been presented. So she mounted to the top floor and knocked. The door opened. It was a thin little ragged boy who opened the door and there were more thin little ragged boys inside--yes, and little girls and a baby and a mother and a father. All of them were so poor and so unhappy! Ermelinda explained her errand but, of course, it was hardly any use! Ermelinda wrote to her editor about it that evening. The editor answered, “Well, wouldn’t it be rather jolly to surprise that family with a basket of good things for Thanksgiving Day?”

Oh, indeed it would! She could get the girls at High School to help! She began to plan what to put into the basket. On the way to school the next day she told everybody she met. Ermelinda had a most engaging way of putting facts in story form. But though some contributed five or ten or twenty-five cents, there were others who drifted off as soon as money was mentioned. Then Stella Wilkins came by and Ermelinda grabbed her.

“Say, Stella,” she began, “don’t you want to help, too? I’m getting up a basket for Thanksgiving for a poor family I found in a tenement, they are--” but right here she stopped short. Stella’s expression was almost frightened. For the first time, Ermelinda noticed that Stella might be classed as “poor.” Ermelinda had never thought much about poverty before or noticed whether the boys and girls who came to classes showed signs of need. She had always liked Stella. “There are some children,” went on Ermelinda. “The little things look sick and hungry. We’re planning to give them a perfectly splendid Thanksgiving--I haven’t a cent to my name but I’m nabbing everybody I see--”

Stella smiled. “Guess you know, Erm, I really can’t, though I’d like to,” she said. “But father lost his work this fall and we’ve all had to do without things. I’m trying ever so hard to get my little sister a winter coat. She hasn’t any and she can’t go to school till she has one--It’s awfully hard, Erm. I’m glad you’re helping _them_!”

Ermelinda put an arm around Stella. “I’d like to work, too, to get that coat,” she said. “I’ve been lucky all my life and had things done for me but I’d be mighty proud if I could buy my little sister a coat if she needed one!”

They walked toward the class together. Somehow, they had become real friends.

She rushed home the next afternoon early in order to go buy the basket with one of the girls. Oh, Ermelinda’s family was to have the dandiest Thanksgiving that there ever had been!

She put a gay crêpe tissue paper table-set into the basket. It had a tablecloth and napkins with bright colored fruits upon it. Then all the other things were packed tight and the basket was very heavy and very tempting when Ermelinda’s busy fingers had finished. It was put away in the pantry closet to stand there safely till the time should come.

Next day Ermelinda found Kitty Fowler, who volunteered to help. “You see, Kitty, I can’t carry that big basket all alone myself,” she explained. “I do need somebody ever so much.”

“Then I’ll help and I’ll be at the corner waiting for you at four o’clock.”

When she reached the corner with tired arms, Kitty was not there. Ermelinda waited. It was frightfully windy and cold. It seemed as if it might snow for there was penetrating dampness and chill in the air. She thought of Stella trying to buy the coat for a little sister--she wondered if, by now, the little sister had it. She hoped so. She wondered how Stella had earned the money--Still Kitty did not come. It was growing dusk.

Ermelinda decided that Kitty must have forgotten. She was that kind--always ready to help but not responsible. It was too late to go home and get mother--beside that, mother was tired. The boys were out skating. There was no reason why she, Ermelinda, should not go alone. So she tugged the big basket and the bundle onward. Her arms ached and she had to stop more than once to turn ’round about, taking the basket in the other hand and changing the bundle. Somehow she reached the right street and the door that led to her family up there on the top floor. Somehow she reached the landing. She put the basket down and knocked. She had planned how nice it would be just to hand the basket in and say, “Santa Claus came for _Thanksgiving_ and brought you this.” Then she would run away and they would call, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Maybe they had not heard; Ermelinda knocked loudly again. No answer! She knocked again. All was silent! Then a woman in a blue apron came out upon the second floor landing and screamed up at her, “They’ve moved away. What d’you want anyhow? That family went off last week--Nobody’s there!”

At last, Ermelinda understood! But the woman did not know where they had gone. She suggested that Ermelinda ask the janitor on the first floor.

It crossed Ermelinda’s mind that she might give the basket to the woman on the second landing, but as she came down the wide-open door showed a table with food upon it. The janitor didn’t know where that family had gone--he said the man had work and they had gone away. Yes, they had been in hard straits for a while--didn’t pay rent at all, he said. But now there was nothing for Ermelinda to do about it. The bitter disappointment of the expedition made a lump in Ermelinda’s throat--why, if the fairy godmother had come to help Cinderella and had not found her, that is about how the fairy godmother would have felt!

Little Lady Bountiful almost cried but she took up the packages and walked home. She told mother all the story and then she wept. There were all those good things for somebody’s happy Thanksgiving and where should they go?

At last, mother suggested that she herself would buy the things in the basket and that Ermelinda might give the money to some public charity. She wrote her editor and asked what to do. The editor wrote back and said _she_ thought Ermelinda was right: that the boys and girls might be told, perhaps, but that since they had given the money without sacrifice, it ought to be used to help some need. Ermelinda received the letter from the postman just as she started for school. She opened it in the cloak-room and there she met Stella, who was just hanging her tam upon a neighboring hook.

They went into class. Suddenly in the midst of her conjugating of a Latin verb, a thought came to Ermelinda--Oh, how about the coat for Stella’s little sister? She would find out! At noon, she found Stella, eating lunch upon a bench. “Say, Stella,” she began, “we’re friends. Tell me, did you get it--that coat for your little sister?”

Then Stella told her. No! There was no coat. She couldn’t get that work. The little sister had colds and Stella was worried. As they talked, Stella told Ermelinda just how bitterly blue everything was. They parted as the bell rang for classes.

After school, Ermelinda labored over a letter that it was rather fun to write. She worked hard because of the fact that she was trying to disguise her handwriting. The letter was from Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother to Stella and inside the envelope, sealed with a blue bird seal, Ermelinda put the money! Then she sent the letter inside another to her editor in the city and asked her to mail it there. She told her Cinderella’s fairy had asked her to send this letter to somebody who mustn’t know where the Fairy Godmother lived. And the editor mailed the letter in the city. So the deed was done.

It was about three or four days afterwards that Stella came upon Ermelinda studying hard, her head in a book. “I want to tell you, you were so interested,” she beamed. “My little sister’s got the coat, only I didn’t really give it to her _myself_. The money came in a letter that was mailed in the city. It was ever such a dear letter and signed by Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. I think it must have been from a real fairy, somehow, but I don’t know who could have known about the coat--I don’t know anybody else who might have sent it, unless it was a _real_ fairy!”

“I’m glad your little sister has the coat,” Ermelinda chuckled.

_The Directory Santa Claus_

_THE FIRST DECEMBER SURPRISE_

_When Dotty had made the Surprise Book upon that memorable day when she had not been able to go to school, she had calculated wrongly, so Marjorie’s Surprise Book had more than the usual number of leaves and it lasted till the following Christmas. The first surprise of that December which closed Marjorie’s Surprise Book seemed very thick and fat indeed. It proved to be two stories in place of one and with them was a Christmas card. “I’m sorry that the Surprise Book must end,” sighed Marjorie. “Aren’t you, Dot?” And of course, Dotty held out hopes that Santa Claus might bring another! I shouldn’t wonder if he did, for Santa Claus likes to make surprises. Maybe it was he, himself, who had told Mother how to make the first Surprise Book, long ago. They each chose one of the Surprise Book’s Christmas surprise stories for Mother to read aloud on Christmas afternoon when the stories were opened. Dotty’s came first. It was “The Directory Santa Claus.”_

_XIV_

_The Directory Santa Claus_

Christmas holidays had begun and school was out. The scholars had spoken Christmas pieces that told of gift-giving and Santa Claus.

Rose Schneider and Lili Fifer, with school-books under their arms, pushed open the heavy oak door of the big city library and trotted with one accord upstairs to join the line of children waiting to get in.

“I got a dandy book,” Lili volunteered as they wedged into the waiting line. “It was all about a little girl that went to see Santa Claus. I’m bringin’ it back now. Say, Rose, you get it on your card. It’s an awfully nice story.”

But Rose shook her head. The thin snub of her nose turned up even higher than ever. It added emphasis to her refusal. “There ain’t any Santa Claus,” she said. “I never had any Christmas presents from him.”

“Well,” Lili insisted, “I ain’t either but _I_ think there _is_ a Santa Claus all right. He don’t know us, maybe, but he’s awfully good to some children. My cousin that goes to Sunday School gets a doll, and a box of candy, and an orange from him every Christmas. He has a long white beard an’ he’s ever so jolly!”

“Salvation Armies, they make Santa Clauses. They’re not real--only anybody dressed up. Most likely your cousin’s Santa Claus was like that,” Rose retorted. “The Salvation Army Santa Clauses they always stand by the street corners to catch Christmas dinner pennies in their pails.”

“No. ’Twasn’t that kind of a Santa Claus! _He’s real!_”

“Well, you won’t find him in no _directory_,” Rose argued. “You just go an’ look. All real folks’ names is in it an’ you won’t find Santa Claus. There _ain’t_ any!”

With this parting thrust, Rose squeezed through a sudden opening in the line and escaped into the reading room beyond.

Lili waited for her book to be discharged, then she raised a questioning little hand toward the lady at the library desk.

“Please,” she asked, “where is the directory book?”

“Downstairs,” the librarian answered. And downstairs Lili went.

The directory book was really very, very big indeed. It was almost a pity that it couldn’t be a story book, for one could never have done with a story book _that_ size. There’d always be something new to read in it. When the fat volume was opened on its desk, Lili studied it at random trying to make out what it all meant. She decided to begin at the very beginning, so she commenced with _A_, turned on to _B_, and ran her forefinger down page after page. It took a great deal of time and patience. The text was very small and Lili was afraid she might overlook it. Down page after page it travelled till it came to _Claus_--Oh, there it was: Claus, Adolph, carpenter! No. That couldn’t be Santa Claus--the whole name wasn’t right. And beside that, _he_ wasn’t a carpenter, Lili felt sure.

How many people there were by the name of _Claus_! Well, with patience, one might find the right one! “Then I shall tell Rose that there is a Santa Claus for sure,” thought Lili. On down the list she went.

There was an S. T. Claus. That was the nearest to it. Who knows what that S. T. might mean in the way of abbreviation? The address was not far from the library. Lili decided to go down the avenue and find out if it were where the _real_ Santa Claus lived.

The long winter twilight was beginning when Lili came out of the library. Already the lights from the grocery and the drugstore on the corner beyond warmed the cold gray stone of the pavement with red light. Further over, past the intersecting street, an arc lamp made a misty star in the dimness. Toward the star of light Lili made her way.

Yes, yes, she was on the right side of the street--she was getting nearer, nearer! Lili’s heart went pit-a-pat. Oh, there it was--There it was! It was a little shop that bore the number. Over its window was a sign, S. T. Claus. Somewhere Lili thought she had seen Santa Claus’ name written that way! It was the _very_ place, no doubt!

In the shop-window was a wee green tinsel-covered tree. Toys were caught in the branches. They overflowed onto the broad base of the display-window--cats, dogs, carts, steam-engines, dolls, baby-carriages, jumping-jacks--Oh!

Lili stood staring, transfixed with wonder, for--for there in the store, visible through the lighted window, was a small, jolly-looking, white-bearded man--exactly like the picture of Santa Claus in the story book! To be sure, his white beard was not _quite_ so long, and he wore a gray knit coat instead of a bright red one with white fur on it. But his occupation of stringing Christmas tree chains was so very Santa-Claus-like, there could be no mistake in identity!

Just here, he came to the window and added a box of gay candles to the display of toys. He looked out at Lili through the frosty panes and smiled. “Hello,” he called by way of cheery greeting.

“Hello,” returned Lili, and, somehow, before she knew it, she was standing in the shop beside the worn counter, looking up into the merry face of Mr. Claus.

“It was through the directory that I found you,” she smiled. “Rose Schneider, she says there ain’t no _real_ Santa Claus--but I says there is for _sure_! A lot of children must have passed here an’ not known where Santa Claus lived maybe! But _I_ found you!”

Santa Claus doubled in a hearty chuckle. “And here I am all the time,” he laughed, “just every day.”

“Didn’t anybody know you was the real Santa Claus?” Lili gazed confidently into the old man’s bright eyes. “They had ought to know by the sign,” she suggested.

“How should they?” the little man replied. “Santa Claus--everybody knows he likes to be an ordinary citizen. You won’t tell the kids, will you?”

Lili hesitated. “No, not if you don’t want I should. But there is Rose Schneider an’ she says there ain’t any real Santa Claus. It was through her saying that I found you in the directory. She said there wasn’t no such name there”--

There was a silence.

“I’ve got it,” he announced suddenly. “Just why don’t Rose believe in Santa Claus--because he never brought her any presents or what?”

“I think it’s because you’ve forgot her mostly,” returned Lili. “I says to her you forgot me, too--but you didn’t know about us maybe.”

He thought.

“Where do you two kids live?” he questioned.

She told him.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said he. “I don’t want the other children to find it out that I _am_ the real Santa Claus, so you’d better not tell them. You run home now an’ you keep it quiet. Wait till real Santa Claus time at Christmas! THEN, Rose will believe!”

Ah, yes. And she _did_! It was a wonderful, wonderful Christmas for Lili and Rose. It was better even than Rose’s cousin’s Christmas, for they shared together a little tree that was left on Christmas Eve “From Santa Claus,” and each little girl had a doll, and some candy, and a game. “It’s from the _real_ Santa Claus an’ I know him but _you_ don’t, Rosie Schneider!” Lili beamed.

And Rose retorted, “I do too believe in the real Santa Claus!”

“I want a story about the _real_ Santa Claus and the little girl,” she demanded of the librarian at the children’s reading room next day. “Lili Fifer, she says it’s an awfully good story and she likes I should know more about him. It’s true for sure, ain’t it?”

And the librarian smiled.

_Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas_

_THE SECOND DECEMBER SURPRISE_

_Marjorie’s Christmas story was called “Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas.” She said she liked it better than the story Dotty chose from the Surprise Book’s Christmas pocket. You can tell what you think about it for yourself, for here it is._

_XV_

_Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas_

Mary Elizabeth looked up from the soldier scarf she was learning to knit. Her mother, in the rocker beside Mary Elizabeth’s hassock, caught a bit of anxious thought that rested between Mary Elizabeth’s brown eyes. “What is it?” she asked, putting her hand down upon Mary Elizabeth’s to stop the knitting needles.

“I was thinking,” Mary Elizabeth sighed, “just thinking, Mother. It’s going to be a very soldierly Christmas this year, isn’t it? But the children--they don’t realize it and they’re thinking and talking about Santa Claus. Are we going to have the tree this year?”

Mary Elizabeth’s mother patted Mary Elizabeth’s hand softly. “We’ve always had one, haven’t we, daughter?” she said. “Can you remember the time when we did not have one?”

“No,” laughed Mary Elizabeth. “I suppose it was when I was too small a baby ever to have a tree or so little that I didn’t know what the lights were and thought I would like to play with their sparkles--but I do remember the tree we had when I was a little bit older. It was before any of the children came. I was about three years old, I think. You told me that the tree was made in honor of the little Christ Child’s birthday and I always thought you meant a little child like myself and expected to see him--”

Mary Elizabeth paused. “Then I grew bigger, and by and by there were all the children and the baby, and I was the oldest and we all thought that a funny friend who was a jolly old man called Santa Claus brought us the toys we found in our stockings. We thought all the play was real--about his coming down the chimney and about his sleigh with the eight reindeer. It used to seem strange that so big a man as Santa Claus could squeeze down our chimney and by and by I suspected it was all a play and you told me that it was just a funny, jolly way to make the very little children enjoy the fun of Christmas surprises. You told me then that I might help toward Christmas myself by trimming the tree. That was to be my part: each year I was to do it all myself and every year I tried to make it some new and lovely kind of a surprise. I always have loved to fix the tree. I always have felt that it must be the kind of a tree that the little Christ Child would love if he came in the way that I used to think you meant when I was still little.”

“Your tree has always been a beautiful tree, Mary Elizabeth,” Mother smiled. “It has always been a tree that shone with happiness. Each year we have loved it so that the children could not bear to part with it at New Years, you know.”

Mary Elizabeth smiled. But her question still remained unanswered. “Will there be a tree this year?” she asked. “I’m afraid the children would be sad without it, Mother.”

“I, too, have been thinking, Mary Elizabeth,” said Mother. “It is indeed a soldierly Christmas. What do you think we had better do?”

“Well,” answered Mary Elizabeth, thoughtfully. “We have the ornaments, though I usually buy some new ones. I would have to get candles. The tree would not cost so very much, only it seems as if every penny ought to go to the little French and Belgian children--and there are the soldiers to send things to--and when everything is the way it is, why it really hardly seems like Christmas!”

“I know,” returned Mother. “But we sent all the money in the children’s bank and all your money and my money, Mary Elizabeth. We have the soldiers’ things all done--almost. I think we ought to have the tree for the children and you can fix it up somehow, can’t you?”

“Yes,” smiled Mary Elizabeth, but she was thinking that she must somehow find a way to make that tree as pretty as usual--even without any money to buy things!

That day and the next, Mary Elizabeth pondered the question. She thought of this and of that but nothing seemed quite right. There was no way to earn any money. And the tree had no star for the top. It had been lost, somehow. It was not with the tree fixings in the box in the attic! How to get a new star, that was one question. How to get the candles was another. And Mary Elizabeth’s tree had always been a tree that people came in to look at and admire. It was not like any other tree. It was always a surprise, somehow. Money was needed to buy things to make it wonderful. Money was needed to make it a bright surprise as usual!

At school, Mary Elizabeth found herself puzzling over this problem as vacation time drew near. It was harder for her than any arithmetic problem, for it could not be solved at all. Twice she saved five cents by walking home and that bought candles. But the problem remained as usual. It was _how to get more money_.

Then there came the day when the magazine came. It was always something of an event when the magazine came. It had new pictures in it and often it had cut-out pages for the little children. Once there had been a circus with clowns to cut out and ever since that time, Brother somehow got hold of the paper as soon as Mother took it from its wrapper. He was always hoping for more circus, you know. He knew its pages by heart and spelled out the titles and headings of the pictures. When Mary Elizabeth came home one day, he announced that the magazine had come.

“What’s in it?” questioned Mary Elizabeth.

“Pictures,” Brother replied mysteriously, “but not any of a circus. It’s a puzzle page. You have to guess what the pictures are and they’ll give a prize of five dollars to the one who answers and tells what the pictures are.” But Brother was still busy with the magazine and Mary Elizabeth was called away to help Mother with the little sister. She did not see the page, though she thought about it and wondered if she could answer all the questions and get the money that way to trim the Christmas tree. In the evening, after supper, after the little children had gone off to bed and Brother, too, with them, she found the magazine and looked it over. Yes, it was a contest. And the pictures were Mother Goose. It seemed easy to guess them--Mary Elizabeth guessed Simple Simon right away. It was the picture of a funny doll fishing in a little pail with a hook and line. She tried the others. She was not so sure of all but she guessed them with the help of the little children’s Mother Goose to refresh her memory. She was so excited that she felt the prize was already hers. She was sure she _must_ win!

Just think of it: the first prize was five whole dollars and the second prize was two whole dollars and there were eight other prizes each of one whole big dollar--ten chances that Mary Elizabeth might earn some money for her Christmas tree! Her hands shook as she took up pen and put it to paper. She used her very best paper and three times or more she discarded what she had written and tried to do better. She wrote with extreme pains and slowly. It took all the evening just to write the short answer. She put it into its envelope to mail on the way to school next day, but she said nothing about it as she kissed Mother good-night.

Nearer and nearer came Christmas time. The little children talked more than ever about Santa Claus. Brother planned what kind of a stocking he would hang up. They talked about the tree and asked Mary Elizabeth what she supposed Santa Claus would make as a tree surprise this year. At these times, laughingly, Mary Elizabeth suggested that there would be candles on the tree and that perhaps there would be tinsel. She said that, maybe, Santa Claus would send all his Christmas to the little French and Belgian children and not have much to make into a surprise here at home. She told them stories about Santa Claus and the Santa Claus Land. She played with them to keep them amused but she thought all the time of the Mother Goose Contest and as time went on, she felt less sure each day of having won. Once she passed by the ten cent store and found a beautiful gold star and wanted to buy it. Then one day Mary Elizabeth actually found a ten cent piece near a shop upon a busy sidewalk in town. Her heart went thump at the sight of it. She asked several persons if they had lost anything and they replied, “No.” So Mary Elizabeth went straight to the ten cent store and bought a star, right away.

All this time, Mary Elizabeth watched anxiously for the postman. The time set for the close of the contest came and passed. No letter was brought to Mary Elizabeth. She knew that she would have had a letter if she had won any prize, of course. But Mary Elizabeth, with her heart heavy as lead, wondered whether she had really ever believed she would win. She admitted that she had. She was sure her work was right--that is, all answers were correct. The writing was neat. There were no blots. She had done her very best.

Mary Elizabeth was too soldierly to cry. She told nobody. She set about planning how she would cut paper ornaments out of colored wall papers and paste them together. She would make some paper dolls and dress them like fairies with the tissue paper she had. She would make wings with tissue paper, too. She would ask Mother to let her make some gingerbread animals and men to use on the tree. She would gild some nuts and pinecones maybe. There was the star. There was the box of candles. Those were _something_! But if only she did have money, she would trim her tree with the emblems of all the Allies and have a really soldierly Christmas tree!

Mary Elizabeth went into her room and locked her door tight. She took the key of her lower bureau drawer and sat down upon the floor beside it and drew it out. In it lay all the Christmas tree things with the box of candles and the star. As she looked at the bright Christmas things, a tear dropped upon her lap--oh, it might have been so different!

Why is it that when one is just in the midst of Christmas planning somebody comes to the door and knocks? Did you ever spread all your things out on a bed or a table or on the floor and fail to have somebody come to knock at your door and demand to be let in right away? There came a knock at Mary Elizabeth’s--but first, the latch had been tried. “Let me in, Mary Elizabeth!” cried Brother.

“I can’t,” returned Mary Elizabeth.

“You can.”

Thump-thumpety-thump.

“Go ’way,” admonished Mary Elizabeth. “I shan’t let you in! You can’t come in.”

“Well, you’ll be sorry,” said the muffled voice of Brother. “You’ll be sorry,” but he left off knocking at the door and ran away. Mary Elizabeth wondered if perhaps he suspected about the play of Santa Claus. He was getting to be quite big. Maybe he knew about the tree. Maybe he would have to be let into the fun of Christmas planning next year--but was it fun? Wasn’t it dreadful to worry about the tree and plan how to make it all new? No, it was not worry! No, it was not! Mary Elizabeth denied this stoutly. It was part of the self-sacrifice of Christmas to think about it as she had--and there would be a lovely tree! Yes, there would, somehow; she’d manage to make a grand surprise of it. Oh, yes, she would. Mary Elizabeth smiled and was ashamed of that little hot tear. She put the Christmas tree things back into the drawer one by one and she closed and locked the drawer. Then she went to the window and looked out across the snow. She thought maybe some cotton would look pretty and snowy on the tree like that. She heard Brother at the door again but she wasn’t quite ready to let him in. She wanted to be alone and think. She did not want to tell stories about Santa Claus.

His little voice came plaintively, “Please, Mary Elizabeth, let me in. I’ll tell you something nice, if you’ll let me in.” But Mary Elizabeth was not ready to hear what Brother thought Santa Claus was going to bring. She did not go to the door. Then she heard his soft little footsteps trot away down the hall and she felt sorry. She opened the door to run after him and there, where Brother had left it, there lay a big square envelope with the name of the magazine upon it!

Mary Elizabeth gasped. She tore it open and read:

DEAR MARY ELIZABETH:

Your good work has merited the reward of the Second Prize of two
dollars offered in the Mother Goose Contest. The money is enclosed
and we hope that it will bring with it a Very Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas! Hooray! Oh, how fine! Happy Christmas--why, _of course_, Happy Christmas! Wasn’t it splendid! Wasn’t it a surprise! Waving the letter, she hugged everybody that she met, Brother, Mother and all the children. Something splendid had happened, they all agreed. Everybody congratulated Mary Elizabeth. But only Mother really guessed why Mary Elizabeth didn’t spend it all right then and there the very first day in buying candy and peanuts. That was what Brother and the little children suggested.

But next day, after vacation had really begun and when the little children and Brother were safely out of the way, Mary Elizabeth with her little red kid purse slipped out of the house and off to buy the flags of the Allies to use for the Christmas tree.

Mary Elizabeth had decided, too, what the Christmas surprise was to be. Yes, it should be a tree covered with flags and Old Glory should be with the star at the top!

And then came tree-trimming! And the tree was--oh, oh, it was ever so much more wonderful than any tree had ever been before. Everybody said so! The little children said so. Brother said so! Mary Elizabeth herself knew it was so! All the little poor children who came to the tree said so!

It was Mother, however, who knew about the very soldierly Santa Claus that had made the tree so lovely. “It honored the little Christ Child’s Birthday, dear,” she said as she kissed Mary Elizabeth good-night. “It is the tree of the soldiers who are fighting for all that Christmas means.”

“The star was there,” replied Mary Elizabeth.

CONCLUSION

_The Last Leaf of the Surprise Book_

The last leaf of Marjorie’s Surprise Book was very, very thin. It did not make Marjorie poke and feel and wonder what was inside its pocket. It was marked to open at the Christmas tree. So the first thing that she did was to pull its Christmas seals off and read what was written inside:

“I hope you will always be happy--
As happy as you can be,
As happy as all the happy times
That you have shared with me.”

“I made that up,” said Dotty, proudly. “I did it all myself.” Really, I think that Marjorie’s Surprise Book belonged to both little girls, don’t you? But which one do you suppose liked it best? Was it Marjorie or was it Dotty? What do you think? For myself, I think it was the one who made it and gave it and thought it and planned it all. So, maybe, there is somebody that you love to whom, you, too, would like to give a Surprise Book like this of Marjorie’s.

And because I myself love all you children, I am giving _you_ the story of a Surprise Book right here--now!

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.