she said until she was equal to a
bit of sunshine on a dark day.

All of them were as certain as certain could be that she had presented
Doodle when he was a very little child with those soft, warm mittens
which somehow grew as he grew and so always just fitted his hands. What
wonderful mittens they were, too! All Doodle had to do on the coldest
day was to reach out his hand in his hearty, cheery way, to any one, and
no matter how cold that person might be, even if his teeth were
chattering with the cold, he was sure to feel a warm glow all over his
body. This was how Doodle got into the way of taking care of all the
lame dogs and sick cats that came along; and why all the old people
liked him. They said he made them feel young again. And Tom and Wilhelm
and the rest of them, had not the Little Gray Grandmother left a gift
for each of them?

Ah, but they were a happy family! What if they did have to eat herring
and dry bread all the year round, with potatoes now and then thrown in,
and had to live in a hut, didn't they have a Little Gray Grandmother,
when so many city children, who thought themselves fine because they
lived in big houses, had never even heard of her!

Now, you can understand why all the children were gathered together
eagerly looking at something which lay on the sand before them. The
Little Gray Grandmother had been there and had left something. What was
it? They could not tell. It glittered like the surface of a pool of
water when it is quite still and the sun shines down upon it, and they
could see their faces reflected on it just as they had often seen them
in the well back of the house, only this mirrored their faces much more
clearly than the well did. _What was it?_ For whom had the Little Gray
Grandmother intended it? These were the questions they could not answer.
So they decided to take it in to the dear-mother and have her explain it
to them.

Ah, the dear-mother, she must know, she knew almost everything and what
she didn't know she always tried to find out for them. That was the
finest thing about the dear-mother. Of course she cooked their food for
them, and made their clothes, and nursed any of them when they were ill,
and all such things, but the great thing about her was that she never
seemed too busy to look at what they brought her and was always ready to
answer their questions. Therefore they with one accord decided to take
this new gift into the house and ask the dear-mother ab