o cozy and friendly-hearted, the parlor-windows opening out
red and cheerfully, as is the custom in Southern and Western towns; they
said "Happy Christmas" to every passer-by. The owners, going into the
houses, had a hearty word for Adam. "Well, Craig, how goes it?" or,
"Fine, frosty weather, Sir." It quite heartened the cobbler. He made
shoes for most of these people, and whether men are free and equal or
not, any cobbler will have a reverence for the man he has shod.

So Adam trotted on, his face a little redder, and his stooped chest,
especially next the basket, in quite a glow. There she was, clear out in
the snow, waiting for him by the curb-stone. How she took hold of the
basket, and Adam made believe she was carrying the whole weight of it!
How the fire-light struck out furiously through the Turkey-red curtains,
so as to show her to him quicker!--to show him the snug coffee-colored
dress, and the bits of cherry ribbon at her throat,--to show him how the
fair curly hair was tucked back to leave the rosy ears bare he thought
so dainty,--to show him how young she was, how faded and worn and
tired-out she was, how hard the years had been,--to show him how his
great love for her was thickening the thin blood with life, making a
child out of the thwarted woman,--to show him--this more than all, this
that his soul watched for, breathless, day and night--that she loved
him, that she knew nothing better than the ignorant, loving heart, the
horny hands that had taken her hungry fate to hold, and made of it a
color and a fragrance. "Christmas is coming, little woman!" Of course it
was. If it had not taken the whole world into its embrace yet, there it
was compacted into a very glow of love and warmth and coziness in
that snuggest of rooms, and in that very Jinny and Baby,--Christmas
itself,--especially when he kissed her, and she blushed and laughed,
the tears in her eyes, and went fussing for that queer roll of white
flannel.

Adam took off his coat: he always went at the job of nursing the baby
in his shirt-sleeves. The anxious sweat used to break on his forehead
before he was through. He got its feet to the fire. "I'm dead sure that
much is right," he used to say. Jinny put away the bundles, wishing to
herself Mrs. Perkins would happen in to see them: one didn't like to be
telling what they had for dinner, but if it was known accidentally--You
poets, whose brains have quite snubbed and sent to Coventry your
stomachs, ne