ibution of gifts takes
place late on Christmas Eve.

Long before that day Keith began to watch every package brought into the
house. Soon he noticed several that disappeared quickly without having
been opened. Nor did it take his shrewd little mind long to figure out
that they must have been stowed away on the upper shelf of the pantry
back of the parlour. This was an excellent hiding-place because the
shelf in question was fully six feet above the floor and on a level with
the lintel of the doorway, so that its contents seemed as much out of
reach as they were out sight from below.

One day, however, Keith succeeded in getting into the parlour when both
parents were out. The night before his father had come home with an
unusually large and queerly shaped package under his arm and had taken
it straight into the parlour. The boy's curiosity was at fever heat and
got the better of his customary inertia in the face of explicit
prohibitions. Having dragged a heavy wooden chair into the pantry, he
placed its tall back directly against the shelves. The crosspieces in
the back of the chair formed rungs on which he climbed up to the top
shelf. It was quite a feat for a very small boy, but the slight timidity
that characterized him as a rule was totally forgotten for the time.

There was the mystifying package together with many others. He could
even touch it with his hand. In spite of its size, it was very light. It
was wider at the bottom than at the top, and it sounded hollow when he
knocked at it. His little brain worked at high pressure, but not a guess
came out of it that was at all plausible. Finally Keith had to climb
down no wiser than he was before. His failure had one advantage. It
freed him from all of guilt. It served also to keep his expectations at
an unusually high pitch, so that when the morning of the great day
arrived at last, it seemed as if he were facing twelve long hours of
actual torture.

Every one was very busy preparing not only for the feast of the evening,
but for the two coming holidays. Christmas Day in Sweden being followed
by a Second Christmas Day, equal to the first one in leisure if not in
sanctity. No one had any time to spare for the boy, who found himself in
the way wherever he turned. In the end he was ordered pointblank out of
the kitchen, where his mother, Granny and the servant girl needed all
the space at their disposal. The door to the parlour was closed although
the lodger had le