emurely with a blue ribbon, was seated at one end of the table, her
eager face half buried in a sheet of paper. She was laboriously
inditing, for perhaps the twentieth time, an epistle to "Sandy Claus,"
telling him what she hoped he would bring her.

If anything had been needed to confirm Dave Patton in his resolve, it
was this. From the rapt child his eyes turned and met his wife's
inquiring glance.

"I reckon I've got to go, Mary!" he said quietly. "Think you two kin
git along all right fer four or five days? We ain't likely to have no
more snow this moon."

The woman let a little sigh escape her, but the look she gave her
husband was one of cheerful acquiescence.

"I guess you're right, dear! I'll have to let you go, though five days
seems an awful long time to be alone here. I've been thinkin' it
over," she continued, guarding her words so that Lidey should not
understand--"an' I just couldn't bear to see it, Dave!"

"That's so!" assented the man. "I'll leave heaps o' wood an' kindlin'
cut, an' you'll jest have to milk an' look after the beasts, dear.
Long's you're not _scairt_ to be alone, it's all right, I reckon!"

"When'll you start?" asked the wife, turning to pour the batter in
little, sputtering, grey-white circles on to the hot, greased
griddle.

"First thing to-morrow mornin'!" answered Dave, seating himself at the
table as the appetizing smell of the browning pancakes filled the
room. "Snow's jest right for snowshoein', an' I'll git back easy
Christmas Eve."

"You sure won't be late, popsie?" interrupted the child, looking up
with apprehension in her round eyes. "I jest wouldn't care one mite
for Sandy Claus if you weren't here too!"

"Mebbe I'll git him to give me a lift in his little sleigh! Anyways,
I'll be back!" laughed Dave, gaily.

II

After Dave had gone, setting out at daybreak on his moose-hide
snowshoes, which crunched musically on the hard snow, things went very
well for a while at the lonely clearing. It was not so lonely, either,
during the bright hours about midday, when the sunshine managed to
accumulate something almost like warmth in the sheltered yard. About
noon the two red and white cows and the yoke of wide-horned red oxen
would stand basking in front of the lean-to, near the well,
contentedly chewing their cuds. At this time the hens, too, yellow
and black and speckled, would come out and scratch in the litter,
perennially undiscouraged by the fact that the only th