extra seats extemporized.
The long-unused oven had been cleaned out, and under its vast dome the
red flames flashed and rolled upward. What a change a few hours had
brought to that lonely cabin and its wretched inmates! The woman,
dressed in her new garments, her hair smoothly combed, her face
lighted with smiles, looked positively comely. The girls, happy in
their fine clothes and marvelous toys, danced round the room, wild
with delight; while the little boy strutted about the floor in his new
boots, proudly showing them to each person for the hundredth time.

The hostess's attention was equally divided between the temperature of
the oven and the adornment of the table. A snow-white sheet, one of a
dozen she had found in the box, was drafted peremptorily into service,
and did duty as a tablecloth. Oh, the innocent and funny makeshifts of
poverty, and the goodly distance it can make a little go! Perhaps some
of us, as we stand in our rich dining rooms, and gaze with pride at
the silver, the gold, the cut glass, and the transparent china, can
recall a little kitchen in a homely house far away, where our good
mothers once set their tables for their guests, and what a brave show
the few extra dishes made when they brought them out on the rare
festive days.

However it might strike you, fair reader, to the poor woman and her
guests there was nothing incongruous in a sheet serving as a
tablecloth. Was it not white and clean and properly shaped, and would
it not have been a tablecloth if it hadn't been a sheet? How very
nice and particular some people can be over the trifling matter of a
name! And this sheet had no right to be a sheet, since any one with
half an eye could see at a glance that it was predestined from the
first to be a tablecloth, for it sat as smoothly on the wooden surface
as pious looks on a deacon's face, while the easy and nonchalant way
it draped itself at the corners was perfectly jaunty.

The edges of this square of white sheeting that had thus
providentially found its true and predestined use were ornamented with
the leaves of the wild myrtle, stitched on in the form of scallops. In
the center, with a brave show of artistic skill, were the words,
"Merry Christmas," prettily worked with the small brown cones of the
pines. This, the joint product of Wild Bill's industry and the woman's
taste, commanded the enthusiastic admiration of all; and even the
little boy, from the height of a chair into which