hristmas, they won't be no distinctions drawn. None of the children can
brag--and children is limbs of Satan for bragging," she added. (She was
remembering a brief conversation overheard that day between Gussie and
Pep, the minister's son:--

"I've got a doll," said Gussie.

"I've got a dollar," said Pep.

"My mamma went to a tea party," said Gussie.

"My mamma give one," said Pep.

Gussie mustered her forces. "My papa goes to work every morning," she
topped it.

"My papa don't have to," said Pep, and closed the incident.)

"I can't help who's a limb of Satan," Mis' Winslow replied doggedly, "I
can't seem to sense Christmas time without Christmas."

"It won't _be_ Christmas time if you don't have any Christmas," Mis'
Bates persisted.

"Oh, yes it will," Mis' Winslow said. "Oh, yes, it will. You can't stop
that."

It was Mis' Bates, who, from the high-backed plush rocker, rapped with
the blue glass paperweight on the red glass lamp and, in the absence of
Mr. Bates, called the meeting to order. The Old Trail Town Society was
organized on a platform of "membership unlimited, dues nothing but
taking turns with the entertaining, officers to consist of: President,
the host of the evening (or wife, if any), and no minutes to bother
with." And it was to a meeting so disposed on the subject of Christmas
that Simeon Buck rose to present his argument.

"Mr. President," he addressed the chair.

"It's Madam President, you ninny geese," corrected Buff Miles, _sotto
voce_.

"It had ought to be Madam Chairman," objected Mis' Moran; "she ain't the
continuous president."

"Well, for the land sakes, call me Mis' Bates, formal, and go ahead,"
said the lady under discussion. "Only I bet you've forgot now what you
was going to say."

"Not much I did _not_," Simeon Buck continued composedly, and, ignoring
the interruptions, let his own vocative stand. Then he presented a
memorandum of a sum of money. It was not a large sum. But when he quoted
it, everybody looked at everybody else, stricken. For it was a sum large
enough to have required, in the earning, months of work on the part of
an appalling proportion of Old Trail Town.

"From the day after Thanksgiving to the night before Christmas last
year," said Simeon, "that is the amount that the three hundred
souls--no, I guess it must have been bodies--in our town spent in the
local stores. Now, bare living expenses aside,--which ain't very much
for us all, these days,--thi