time Abner Sawyer realized that everybody on the
hill had come running at Jimsy's yell to see if he was hurt.... One was
brushing him off ... another had rescued his hat with a horrible
un-first-citizen dent in it and a lump of snow on the brim ... and they
weren't shocked ... they weren't laughing.... Why on earth should there
be friendliness now in their gaze when he had seemed so far away from
them standing up there on the hill? No scandalized amazement here at the
downfall of Lindon's pride ... he was somehow closer to them all.

It was Aunt Polly Magee, the self-appointed mother of the village, who
finally stood the first citizen upon his feet and brushed the snow from
his back.

"Dear me," she said, "that was a spill. When ye went down ye seemed
'mos' as leggy as a spider. Next time ye go coastin', Ab, ye'd better
not wear your Sunday hat. 'Tain't no better'n a kite when it comes to
wind."

Abner Sawyer's smile was vague and apologetic, but there was a fierce,
wild joy in his heart that he didn't try to understand. He was glad he
had lost his hat--he was glad he had fallen into the snow-bank--and he
was glad Aunt Polly Magee had called him Ab for the first time in thirty
years!

[Illustration]

VIII

THE CHAIN IS LOCKED

Like a rainbow blur fled the Sawyer Christmas, punctuated with the yells
and bangs of boyhood. From dawn to bed it was a triumph.

"Jimsy," said the first citizen at dusk, "has it--has it been what you'd
call a--a walloper-thump--"

"Thump-walloper," corrected Jimsy.

"Thump-walloper of a day?"

Jimsy's reply was ecstatic.

"I 'mos' always forget," he added ruefully. "Aunt Judith said I mustn't
call ye Uncle Ab. Which d'ye like best, Uncle Ab? Mister Sawyer or Uncle
Ab?"

"I--I think," said the first citizen with a gulp, "that I like Uncle Ab
a little better."

"So do I," said Jimsy.

With a wind-beaten flutter of wings, Jimsy's Christmas fled at
midnight. Dawn grayed bleakly over the Sawyer home, and there came an
hour when Peggy waited to carry Jimsy to the station. Nervous and
irritable--why he did not know save that time was crowding and he must
deliver Jimsy to the minister in time for the 8.32, Abner Sawyer strode
resolutely to the kitchen door. But he did not summon Jimsy. Instead he
turned a little white.

[Illustration]

It was a common enough sight--a woman clinging to a child and
crying--but Abner Sawyer was conscious of a swelling mutiny in his
thro