the house, a "S'long, Uncle!" pregnant with the friendliness of a
conversational ride. He had scraped away his snow-heels with a somewhat
sustained noise, born perhaps of shyness, and now, as he stood in the
center of the prim, old-fashioned room, a thin, eager youngster not too
warmly clad for the bite of the New England wind, Abner Sawyer felt with
a sense of shock that this city urchin whom Judith had promised to
"Christmas," detracted, in some ridiculous manner, from the
respectability of the room. He was an inharmonious note in its staid
preciseness. Moreover, it was evident from the frank friendliness of his
dark, gray eyes that he was perniciously of that type who frolic through
a frosty, first-citizen aura of informality and give and accept
friendship as a matter of course.

[Illustration]

"What--what is your name?" asked the first citizen, peering over his
spectacles. He wished that Judith's Christmas protege was not so thin
and a trifle larger.

[Illustration]

"Jimsy," answered the boy. "An' Specks, he's me chum; he goes to Mister
Middleton's, next door."

Specks and Jimsy! The first citizen helplessly cleared his throat and
summoned Judith.

She came in a spotless apron no whiter than her hair. She was
spare--Aunt Judith Sawyer--spare and patient as the wife of a provident
man may well be who sees no need for servants, and her primness was of a
gentler, vaguer sort than that of Abner Sawyer. Jimsy glanced up into
her sweet, tired face and his eager eyes claimed her with a bewildering
smile of welcome. Then because Jimsy's experience with clean aprons and
trimly parted hair was negligible almost to the point of non-existence,
it became instantly imperative that he should polish the toe of one worn
shoe with the sole of the other and study the result and Aunt Judith
with furtive interest.

"Judith," said the first citizen, not wholly at his ease,
"Mr.--er--ah--Mr. Jimsy has arrived."

Jimsy snickered.

"Naw, naw, nix!" he said. "Jimsy's the handle. I'm a stray, I am. Hain't
got no folks. Mom Dorgan says ye have to have folks to have a
bunch-name. I'm the Christmas kid."

"To be sure you are," said Aunt Judith gently, "to be sure. And where
are your things?"

Jimsy's thin little face reddened.

"Hain't only got one rig," he mumbled, "an' that warn't fitten to wear.
Mom Dorgan borried these duds fur me. She--she's awful good that way
when she's sober."

There was wistful eagerness in his fac