seman gazed on it with pride, and Calvin with admiration.

"It's the handsomest piece of confectionery I ever saw!" said Calvin
with conviction.

"It _is_ handsome, I'm free to confess!" said Mr. Cheeseman. "It cost me
consid'able labor, that did. Take it out careful, Cynthy!"

"Mr. Cheeseman! you ain't goin' to give it to Lonzo!" cried the pretty
girl indignantly.

"Certin I am!" said the old man. "I told him he should take his pick,
and he's taken it. I didn't think of that figger, 'tis true, but what I
say I stand to. Easy there! I guess you'd better let me lift it out,
Cynthy!"

Very tenderly he lifted out the glittering trophy and placed it in
Lonzo's outstretched hands. The simpleton chuckled his rapture, and
retired to his dim corner--to worship, one might have thought; he put
his prize on a low table and grovelled before it on the floor.

Mr. Cheeseman, heedless of Cynthy's lamentations, proceeded to
re-arrange the show-window, trying one effect and another, head on one
side and eyes screwed critically. Satisfied at length, he turned slowly
and rather reluctantly toward Calvin Parks, who had been standing
silently by.

"After all," he said apologetically, "Christmas is for the children, and
Lonzo is the Lord's child, my wife used to say, and I expect she was
right."

Calvin's twinkle burst into a smile.

"That's all right, Mr. Cheeseman!" he said. "That suits me first-rate. I
was only wonderin' whether it was just exactly what you would call
trade!"

CHAPTER XII

CALVIN'S WATERLOO

Christmas Eve. All day a blaze of white and gold, softening now into
cold glories of rose and violet over the great snow-fields. The road,
white upon white, outlined with fringes of trees, and here and there a
stretch of stump fence, was as empty as the fields, the solitary sleigh
with its solitary occupant seeming only to emphasize the loneliness.

Calvin Parks looked down the long stretch of road into which he had just
turned, and gave a long whistle.

"Hossy," he said, "do you know what this ro'd wants? It wants society! I
don't know as it would be reasonable to expect a house, or even a barn,
but it does seem as if they might scare up a cow; what?"

Hossy whinnied sympathetically.

"Just so!" said Calvin. "That's what I say. Christmas Eve and all, it
does really appear as if they might scare up a cow. Not that she'd be
likely to trade to any great extent. What say? She'd buy as much as that
last woman