cking cap to the little
girls, and it was Mis' Winslow, who had followed, who spoke to Pep.

"Who's dead, Pep?" she asked.

Between the belief of "Who's dead?" and the skepticism of "Who you
burying?" the child was swift to distinguish.

"Sandy Claus," he answered readily.

Mis' Winslow stood looking down at him. Pep stepped nearer.

"We're doing it for little Emily," he said confidentially. "She couldn't
get it straight about where Sandy Claus would be this Christmas. The
rest of us--knew. But Emily's little--so we thought we'd play bury him
on her 'count."

Mis' Bates, who had not heard, turned from Gussie.

"Going to do _what_ on Christmas?" she exclaimed. "You ain't to do a
thing on Christmas. Or ain't you grown up, after all?"

"Well, we thought a Christmas funeral wouldn't hurt," interposed Bennet,
defensively. "Can't we even have a funeral for fun on Christmas?" he
ended, aggrieved.

"It's Sandy Claus's funeral," observed little Emily putting a curl from
her face.

"We're goin' dress up a Sandy Claus, you know," Pep added, _sotto voce_.
"It's going to be right after breakfast, Christmas."

"Come on, come ahead, fellows," said Bennet; "I'll be corpse. Keep your
lids on. I don't mind. Go ahead, sing."

Already Mis' Winslow was walking back to the house; the other two women
overtook her; and from the porch they heard the children begin to
sing:--

"_Go bury Saint Nicklis...._"

The rest was lost in the closing of the door.

Back in the sitting room the women stood looking at one another. Mis'
Bates was frowning and all Mis' Moran's expressions were on the verge
of dissolving; but in Mis' Winslow's face it was as though she had found
some new way of consciousness.

"Ladies," Mis' Winslow said, "them children are out there pretending to
bury Santa Claus--and so are we. And I bet we can't any of us do it."

In the room, there was a moment of silence in which familiar things
seemed to join with their way of saying, "We've been keeping still all
the while!" Then Mis' Winslow pushed her hair, regardless of its
parting, straight back from her forehead,--a gesture with which she
characterized any moment of stress.

"Ladies," she said, "I don't want we should go back on our paper,
either. But mebbe there's more to Christmas than it knows about--or than
we know about. Mebbe we can do something that won't interfere with the
paper we've all signed, and yet that'll be something that is something.
Mebb