my best to hev some o' the children stop in here on their
way, for _my_ little party. An' with one set o' lungs their mas says no,
they'd get mussed for the tree if they do. I offered to hev 'em bring
their white dresses pinned in papers, an' we'd dress 'em here--I think
the grandma ladies'd like that. But their mas says no, pinned in
papers'd take the starch out an' their hair'd get all over their heads.
An' some o' the mothers says indignant: 'Old ladies from the poorhouse
end o' the home--well, I should think not! Children is very easy to take
things. If you'd hed young o' your own, you'd think more, Calliope,'
they says witherin'."

Her little wrinkled hands were trembling at the enormity.

"I donno," she added, "but I was foolish to try it. But I did want to
get a-hold o' somethin' beautiful for them old ladies to see. An', my
mind, they ain't much so rilly lovely as little young children, together
in a room."

"But, Calliope," I said in distress, "isn't there even one child you can
get?"

"No, sir," she said. "Not a one. I been everywhere. You know they ain't
any poor in Friendship. We're all comfortable enough off to be
overparticular."

"But wouldn't you think," I said, "at Christmas time--"

"Yes, you would," Calliope said, "you would. You'd think Christmas'd
make everything kind o' softened up an' differ'nt. Every time I look at
the holly myself, I feel like I'd just shook hands with somebody
cordial."

None the less--for Calliope had drunk deep of the wine of doing and she
never gave up any project--at four o'clock on the day before Christmas I
saw the closed 'bus driven by Jimmy Sturgis fare briskly past my house
on its way to the "start of the Plank Road," to the Old Ladies' Home.
Within, I knew, were quilts and hot stones of Calliope's providing; and
Jimmy had hung the 'bus windows with cedar, and two little flags
fluttered from the door. It all had a merry, holiday air as Jimmy shook
the lines and drew on swiftly through the snow to those wistful nine
guests, who at last were to be "in Christmas," too.

"If they can't do nothin' else," Calliope had said, "they can talk over
old times, without hot milk interferin'. But I wish, an' I wish--seem's
though there'd ought always to be a child around on Star o' Bethlehem
night, don't it?"

I dined alone that Star of Bethlehem night, and to dine alone under
Christmas candles is never a cheerful business. The Proudfit car was to
come for me soon after e