was an unread paper and a biscuit, a tailless dog
invading sanctity, a yelling boy by a woodpile, and now the memory of a
twilight ride and the tears of a choking lad upon his sleeve, an
irritating record of moments of weakness which it behooved a first
citizen to stamp out of his life forever. Aunt Judith read in his face
an inexorable death-sentence of her hope and rose, trembling.

[Illustration]

"You are a hard, cold man!" she said, very white. "And the house is so
lonely I hate it!... I _hate_ it!" quivered Aunt Judith with a long
shuddering sob; "there's no one to love in it--no one! And everything
Specks said to Jimsy was true!"

And then, crying and shaking, she was gone, and Abner Sawyer went with
stumbling feet to the privacy of his work-shop, his face death-white.
The pompous illusions of his little world were tumbling to ruins about
him.

He had said with frequent unction that he was a "hard" man, interpreting
that phrase liberally in terms of thrift, economy and substantial common
sense, and his world, through the mouth of an urchin, had flung back to
him the galling words--_miser_ and _skinflint_! They had fawned to his
face and flouted his back, gossiping of servants and made-over gowns
and kindlings. Up and down the quiet work-shop walked Abner Sawyer,
clinging in an agony of humiliation to the loyalty of a little
urchin.... It was all he had, he told himself fiercely, all he had!
Jimsy alone saw him as he was and liked him.... No heart!... No
Christmas tree!... No one in the house to love.... He must prove then to
Specks--to Jimsy--to Judith--to the Middletons--to all Lindon--

Turning with hot anger in his heart, he saw a book upon his work-bench;
and picking it up, Abner Sawyer faced the pitiful fiasco of Jimsy's
Christmas gift. With a great lump in his throat and his eyes wet he
glanced at the fly-leaf.

"To Uncle Ab," it said, "from Jimsy. Chrismus gretings."

The door clicked as it had clicked the night before and the night
before.

"Unc--Mister Sawyer," said Jimsy sleepily. "I 'mos' forgot to come, I
was so awful tired an' sleepy.... Ain't--ain't sick, are ye, Uncle Ab?
Yer face is awful queer."

"I--I don't know," said the first citizen hoarsely. "I--I think I am. Go
to bed, Jimsy, and--thank--you--for the book."

Jimsy went back to bed. He did not know--nor did Aunt Judith or Abner
Sawyer that presently he was the sole keeper of the house save Stump
snoring in the kitchen. For Abne