' John Trimble in the dressin'-room. He was the only one in the
village that was willin' to be Santa Claus an' he wa'n't over-willin'.
Now he's et something for supper that disagrees with him awfully and
he's all doubled up with colic. We can't have the tree till the
exercises is over, but that won't be mor'n fifteen minutes, so I sent
Isaac home to make a mustard plaster. He's puttin' it on John now.
John's dreadful solemn and unamusin' when he's well, and I can't think
how he'll act when he's all crumpled up with stomach-ache, an' the
mustard plaster drawin' like fire."

Dick threw back his head and laughed. He had forgotten just how
unexpected Beulah's point of view always was.

Deacon Todd now came out cautiously.

"I've got it on him, mother, tho' he's terrible unresigned to it; an'
I've given him a stiff dose o' Jamaica Ginger. We can tell pretty soon
whether he can take his part."

"Here's Dick Larrabee come back, Isaac, just when we thought he had
given up Beulah for good an' all!" said Mrs. Todd.

The Deacon stood on the top step, his gaunt, grizzled face peering
above the collar of his great coat; not a man to eat his words very
often, Deacon Isaac Todd.

"Well, young man," he said, "you've found your way home, have you?
It's about time, if you want to see your father alive!"

"If it hadn't been for you and others like you, men who had forgotten
what it was to be young, I should never have gone away," said Dick
hotly. "What had I done worse than a dozen others, only that I
happened to be the minister's son?"

"That's just it; you were bringin' trouble on the parish, makin' talk
that reflected on your father. Folks said if he couldn't control his
own son, he wa'n't fit to manage a church. You played cards, you
danced, you drove a fast horse."

"I never did a thing I'm ashamed of but one,"--and Dick's voice was
firm. "My misdeeds were nothing but boyish nonsense, but the village
never gave me credit for a single virtue. I ought to have remembered
father's position, but whatever I was or whatever I did, you had no
right to pray for me openly for full five minutes at a public meeting.
That galled me worse than anything!"

"Now, Isaac," interrupted Mrs. Todd. "I hope you'll believe me! I've
told you once a week, on an average, these last three years, that you
might have chastened Dick some other way besides prayin' for him in
meetin'!"

The Deacon smiled grimly. "You both talk as if prayin' was one of