the present
glorious truth--not unadorned by the pleasant vision of the Christmas
turkey, vast now, and smoking, and flanked by perfect towers of stiff
cranberry jelly, ever so much better than mere liquid cranberry sauce;
in the middle distance, behind the noble dish, a noble pyramid of
ice-cream raised its height, and yellow cream-cakes rose beyond, like
many little suns on the far horizon. In that first moment of delight
there was almost a Christmas tree, and the mother's face beside it; but
that was too much; they faded, and the rest remained, no mean forecast
of a jolly time.

"That's perfectly grand!" Newton cried when he got his breath after his
surprise at the announcement. "Besides, I told you so. What did I say?
She wouldn't let you give up the Motor! I knew she wouldn't! Who's right
now, father? That's something like what I call a mother! But then she
always was!"

He was slightly incoherent, but that did not matter at all. Nothing
mattered. In his young beatific vision he saw the bright wheel going
round and round in a perfect storm of turkeys, and it was all his
mother's doing.

Overholt only half heard, for he had been reading the letter; the letter
of a loving wife who believes in her husband and gives him all she has
for his work, with every hope, every encouragement, and every blessing
and Christmas wish.

"There's no time to be lost!" Overholt said, repeating the words he had
spoken in a very different mood and tone half an hour earlier. "I won't
walk on with you, my boy, for I must go back and get the wooden model
for the foundry. They'll do it for me now, fast enough! And I can pay
what I owe at the bank, and there will be plenty left over for your
Christmas too!"

"Oh, bother my Christmas, father!" answered Newton with a fine
indifference which he did not feel. "The Motor's the thing! I want to
see that wheel go round for a Christmas present!"

"It will! It shall! It must! I promise you that!" The man was almost
beside himself with joy.

No misgiving disturbed him. He had the faith that tosses mountains aside
like pebbles, now that the means were in his hand. He had the little
fulcrum for his lever, which was all Archimedes required to move the
world. He had in him the certainty of being right that has sent millions
of men to glory or destruction.

That day was one of the happiest in all his life, either before or,
afterwards. He could have believed that he had fallen asleep at the
momen