ttic. I've done
the same to my bedroom. I've emptied my house out of all the stuff the
folks' and the folks' folks and their folks--clear back to Grandmother
Hackett had in here--I mean the truck part. Not the good. And I guess
now I've got some room to live in."

Jenny looked at her admiringly, and asked: "How did you ever do it? I
can't bear to throw things away. I can't bear to move things from where
they've been."

"I didn't use to want to," said Mary, "but lately--I do. The Winter's so
clean, you kind of have to, to keep up. What's the news?"

"Here's a letter," Jenny said, and handed it. "I didn't look to see who
it's from. I guess it's a strange Writing, anyway."

Mary glanced indifferently at it. "It's from Lily's boy, out West," she
said, and laid the letter on the shelf. "I meant, what's the news about
you?"

Jenny's eyes widened swiftly. "News about me?" she said. "Who said there
was any news about me?"

"Nobody," Mary said evenly; "but you've been gone most a year, ain't
you?"

"Oh," Jenny said, "yes...."

For really, when Old Trail Town stopped to think of it, Jenny Wing was
Mrs. Bruce Rule, and had been so for a year. But no one thought of
calling her that. It always takes Old Trail Town several years to adopt
its marriages. They would graduate first to "Jenny Wing that was," and
then to "Jenny Wing What's-name," and then to "Mis' Rule that was Jenny
Wing...."

"... You tell me some news," Jenny added. "Mother don't ever write much
but the necessaries."

"That's all there's been," Mary Chavah told her; "we ain't had no
luxuries for news in forever."

"But there's that notice in the post office," cried Jenny. "I come home
to spend Christmas, and there's that notice in the post office. Mother
wrote nobody was going to do anything for Christmas, but she never wrote
me that. I've brought home some little things I made----"

"Oh--Christmas!" Mary said. "Yes, they all got together and concluded
best not have any. You know, since the failure--"

Mary hesitated--Ebenezer Rule was Bruce Rule's uncle.

"I know," said Jenny, "it's Uncle Ebenezer. I don't know how I'm going
to tell Bruce when he comes. To think it's in our family, the reason
they can't have any Christmas...."

"Nonsense," said Mary, briskly; "no Christmas presents is real
sensible, my way of thinking. It's been 'leven years since I've given a
Christmas present to anybody. The first Christmas after mother died, I
couldn't--I just c