a child.

"I s'pose you're real relieved, ain't you, Abel?" she answered.

"My, yes," said Abel, without expression. "My, yes."

* * * * *

They all took the news home in different wise.

"Matthew," said Ellen Bourne, "the town meeting voted not to have any
Christmas this year. That is, to ask the folks not to have any--'count
of expense."

"Sensible move," said Matthew, sharpening his ax by the kitchen stove.

"It'll be a relief for most folks not to have the muss and the clutter,"
said Ellen's mother.

"Hey, king and country!" said Ellen's old father, whittling a stick, "I
ain't done no more'n look on at a Christmas for ten years and more--with
no children around so."

"I know," said Ellen Bourne, "I know...."

The announcement was greeted by Mortimer Bates with a slap of the knee.

"Good-by, folderol!" he said. "We need a sane Christmas in the world a
good sight more'n we need a sane Fourth, most places. Good work."

But Bennet and Gussie Bates burst into wails.

"Hush!" said Mis' Bates, peremptorily. "You ain't the only ones,
remember. It's no Christmas for nobody!"

"I thought the rest of 'em would have one an' we could go over to
theirs...." sobbed Gussie.

"I'd rather p'etend it's Christmas in other houses even if we ain't it!"
mourned Bennet.

"Be my little man and woman," admonished Mis' Mortimer Bates.

At the Morans, little Emily Moran made an unexpected deduction:--

"I _won't_ stay in bed all day Christmas!" she gave out.

"Stay in bed!" echoed Mis' Moran. "Why on this earth should you stay in
bed?"

"Well, if we get up, then it's Christmas and you can't stop it!" little
Emily triumphed.

When they told Pep, the minister's son, after a long preparation by
story and other gradual approach, and a Socratic questioning cleverly
winning damning admissions from Pep, he looked up in his father's face
thoughtfully:--

"If they ain't no Christ's birthday this year, is it a lie that Christ
was born?" he demanded.

And secretly the children took counsel with one another: Would Buff
Miles, the church choir tenor, take them out after dark on Christmas
Eve, to sing church choir serenades at folks' gates, or would he not?
And when they thought that he might not, because this would be
considered Christmas celebration and would only make the absence of
present-giving the more conspicuous, as in the case of the Sunday
schools themselves, they faced still another t