I'll have to do
it, of course, and father won't know the colors, but what on earth
made him get a green-and-red plaid? Now listen at me! I'm doing just
what Miss Lucrecia does to everything that's sent her. The only
pleasure she gets out of her presents is making fun of them and
snapping at the people who send them. She's an awful snapper. The
Damanarkist sent these cigars. They smell good. He don't believe in
Christmas, but he sent Father and me both a present. I hope he'll like
the picture-frame I made for his mother's picture. His mother's dead,
but he believed in her. She was the only thing he did believe in. A
man who don't believe in his mother--Oh, _my_ precious mother!"
With a trembling movement the little locket was taken from the box and
opened and the picture in it kissed passionately; then, without
warning, the child crumpled up and hot tears fell fast over the
quivering face. "I do want you, my mother! Everybody wants a mother at
Christmas, and I haven't had one since I was seven. Father tries to
fill my stocking, but it isn't a mother-stocking, and I just ache and
ache to--to have one like you'd fix.
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