the next morning mr. ashe left for new york. “i’ll be back in time to get that box off,” he promised; “you have your part all ready, honey.”

aunt lucinda was going in town with the “boston relatives.” “everybody seems going somewhere, except you and me, grandmother,” blue bonnet said, as she stood before the fire in the sitting-room on her return from the station. it was hard to settle down to the every day business of practising and so on.

“you will be riding this afternoon, dear,” mrs. clyde answered; and then aunt lucinda came down, ready for her trip.

she handed blue bonnet a little roll of crisp new bills. “for your christmas shopping,” she explained. “i am not so unreasonable, my dear, as to expect your present allowance to cover that.”

blue bonnet’s face brightened; “i have been rather wondering—” she admitted. “this will do a lot, won’t it, grandmother?”

228 “doesn’t that depend?” mrs. clyde asked, with a smile.

“and it won’t be a bit too soon to begin, will it?”

“too soon!” miss lucinda repeated. “my dear, i began last spring!”

“i don’t think i should like that,” blue bonnet commented; “i think the hurry at the end is half the fun.”

“there is generally a fair amount of that in spite of all one’s planning,” grandmother observed.

the talk during the ride that afternoon was largely of the coming christmas. it pleased kitty, for the moment, to treat blue bonnet as a mere novice in the art of christmas shopping.

the latter’s reminder that even in texas there were such things as stores was coolly ignored.

“you must make a list before leaving home,” kitty insisted, “putting down the names of all the persons you intend giving presents to, and opposite the name the gift you have decided upon.”

“after that—according to kitty’s own methods,” debby interrupted, “you must either leave the list at home, or lose it as quickly as possible.”

“and even if you don’t do that,” ruth said, “just as likely as not you can’t find the thing you’ve decided on.”

“i’ll settle with you two later,” kitty warned. “listen, blue bonnet. as soon as you’ve bought229 your present you must wrap it up in tissue paper and tie it prettily with ribbon and label it—”

“right there in the store!” blue bonnet protested. “how inconvenient, kitty!”

“to avoid confusion at the last,” kitty finished, calmly.

“you wait till you’ve seen kitty’s room day before christmas!” debby remarked.

“i’m making most of my presents,” sarah said.

“i haven’t made up my mind,” kitty flicked black pete lightly, “whether yours is an example to be followed, or shunned, sarah. i’d hate to feel lonesome—the way you must.”

sarah shifted herself in the saddle; she still found riding more of a duty than a pleasure—which kitty declared was her principal reason for keeping on with it. “lonesome!” she repeated, wonderingly, “what do you mean?”

“you remember what the poet says—” kitty’s gray eyes were most demure—“‘be good and you’ll be lonesome’?”

“then you’ve never been lonesome, kitty clark!” susy remarked.

sarah was looking puzzled; she took her english literature very seriously. “i don’t remember any poet saying—”

“never you mind, sarah mia,” blue bonnet laughed; she checked the mare’s pace, making her—much against her will—keep step with230 sarah’s horse. “tell me what you’re making for christmas? i wish i could make something, too—but my stupid fingers are all thumbs, when it comes to sewing.”

sarah responded cordially. “it would be nice for you to make something to send back in your box, blue bonnet; they’d like it, i’m sure.”

“grandmother,” blue bonnet said, that evening, “can you crochet?”

“i used to.”

“shoulder shawls?”

“those among other things.”

“please—will you show me how? i want to make one for benita. she’d love it.”

“have you ever crocheted, blue bonnet?”

“never—benita tried to teach me to knit once, but it wasn’t a success.”

“then wouldn’t it be wiser to begin with something simpler?”

“but there won’t be time for two things—and i know benita would like the shawl. i’ll get the wools to-morrow.”

“there is some worsted and a needle in the lower drawer of my work table. if you like, you shall have your first lesson now, dear.”

coming down stairs again, blue bonnet met delia in the hall. “a letter for you, miss; one of the parsonage children just brought it up; it’d been sent there.”

231 blue bonnet read the address, wonderingly—

“‘blue bonnet,’

“care of the rev. sam. blake,

“woodford, mass.”

“grandmother!” she exclaimed, “it must be from my ‘missionary-box’ girl!”

she opened the letter, with its texas post-mark. “shall i read it aloud, grandmother?”

“i should like to hear it, dear.”

“i don’t know if blue bonnet is really your name,” the letter began, “but somehow, i can’t help hoping that it is. my name is caroline judson—but i am always called carita; and i am writing to thank you for the lovely dress you sent me. nothing like it ever came in any of our other boxes, and at first mother thought it must be a mistake, until we found your note and the purse in the pocket. and if you knew how i thank you for that, too!

“now i can go christmas shopping. i’m going to buy each of the boys a knife of his own—then they can all whittle at once. i wonder if you have any brothers? i have four—all younger than i am—but no sisters.

“i wonder a lot about you; i think, perhaps, you’ve gone east to school—that’s where father wants to send me—but that you love it out here in texas best. i wish you would write to me—i never get any letters—and tell me how old you232 are, and what woodford is like. father says he is sure it has a public library—i wish we had one out here. don’t you love to read, better than anything? i was fourteen last august and all the dress needed was to have a tuck taken in it, and that will make it all the longer getting too short for me. that’s a pretty mixed-up sentence, isn’t it? but you will know what i mean.

“mother thinks i’d better stop writing now—as it is a first letter. it is so good to be writing to someone.

“please believe me, very truly and gratefully,

“yours,

“carita adeline judson.”

“grandmother!” blue bonnet folded up the letter, “mayn’t i send carita adeline judson a christmas box?”

“if not a box—a christmas remembrance, at least,” grandmother answered.

“please, a whole box! if you knew how jolly it was unpacking the ones you and aunt lucinda always sent! one can put all sorts of little things in a box—i’ll put in something for each of the boys—”

and during the lesson in crocheting which followed, blue bonnet planned enough boxes to have called for, grandmother said, a whole car of their own.

233 she did not take readily to the lesson itself; but that was because she was thinking about something else, she explained.

“a good many ‘else’s,’ i am afraid,” grandmother answered. “better unravel that and start afresh.”

“it’s easier just to break it off,” blue bonnet suited the action to the word. “i wonder who invented crocheting! i think they might have found something better to do!”

“you are not discouraged already, blue bonnet!”

“not ‘discouraged,’ grandmother, but sort of—disgusted. i hope benita properly appreciates her shawl. i wonder whether she would rather have a purple and crimson, or red and yellow? it’ll have to be bright-colored, in any case.”

mrs. clyde glanced at the pink worsted chain blue bonnet was making; at present, it resembled a corkscrew more closely than anything else. “isn’t it a bit soon to decide upon the color?”

“i always want to get things settled as soon as possible; besides, i shall feel as if it were really started, once i have bought the wools,” blue bonnet urged.

as soon as the regulation saturday duties were through with the next morning, she was off to buy her wools. they occupied the place of honor on the clubroom table that afternoon.

234 the snow predicted by denham, though a trifle behind schedule time, had arrived in good earnest; there could be no riding that afternoon.

“and a very good thing, too!” ruth remarked. “now we shall have to work.” and presently, forming a circle about the pile of purple and crimson wools, were six work-bags of various sizes and hues.

there were other things on the table; blue bonnet’s pies, still intact, mr. ashe having deeded his share in them to the club; a dish of nuts and raisins and one of fruit.

“you must have ‘spent the hull ten-cent piece,’ blue bonnet!” kitty said.

“we’re going to have a beautiful time this afternoon,” blue bonnet assured them. “isn’t it the nicest storm?”

it beat against the windows in sudden fitful gusts, the air was full of the white, whirling flakes, and down in the garden were great, drifting heaps.

susy looked at the white world without and then about the large, square room. “i always did want to belong to a club—and have a real clubroom,” she said contentedly.

it had been a nursery in former years, as the window bars and the bright colored prints on the walls still testified. now the center table, the wide lounge, generously supplied with the biggest and softest of cushions, the quaint medley of chairs,235 big and little, the low hassocks at either end of the broad hearth, made it, in the eyes of club members, an ideal gathering-place. there was nothing breakable—in the ordinary sense—and there were no curtains at the four windows,—just shades that could be raised quite out of sight when necessary; and on club days, a bright fire burned in the deep fireplace, behind the tall wire screen.

“so you’ve got your work, blue bonnet!” sarah said, taking up a skein of the purple wool. “have you learnt the stitch?”

“i’m—learning it. please—before you all begin, listen to this—” and she read them the letter received the night before.

“so that is what it was,” sarah said. “how oddly she addressed it!”

“do you suppose she would like to have the rest of us write to her?” ruth asked.

“i’m sure of it!” blue bonnet cried, delightedly. “i mean to answer this right away—and i’m going to send her a christmas box.”

“oh,” susy dropped the square of linen she was hemstitching, “let’s make it a ‘we are seven’ box.”

“and all write a letter to put in it,” amanda added.

“i do think you are the dearest girls!” blue bonnet exclaimed enthusiastically.

“let’s plan now,” ruth proposed.

236 “not until blue bonnet gets at her work!” sarah advised.

“sarah’s working you a motto, blue bonnet,—” kitty said, “‘how doth the little busy’—and so forth, and so forth.”

“kitty!” sarah protested, “you know i am doing nothing of the kind.”

“well, you can—now i’ve put the idea into your head.”

“the way i learned it was like this—” blue bonnet produced her ball of pink worsted and crochet needle rather reluctantly—

“‘how doth the busy little bee,

delight to bark and bite;

and gather honey all the day,

to eat it up at night.’”

sarah looked pained, but kitty dropped her lace work to run around and hug blue bonnet. “that’s the best version i’ve heard yet.”

“i don’t approve of parodies,” sarah remarked. “are you going to make a pink shawl, blue bonnet?”

“grandmother thought i had better practice my stitch a little before starting regularly to work,” blue bonnet answered.

kitty’s brows arched expressively. “and ‘grandmother’ was quite right, my child! how did you get it shirred like that; is it a new stitch?”

237 “why shouldn’t i shirr it, if i like it that way?” blue bonnet laid her work on the table, patting and pulling at it with impatient fingers.

“but you shouldn’t hold your finger out like that!” sarah corrected presently. “you’ll get the habit.”

“no, i won’t!” blue bonnet declared; she looked from one busy worker to another. how nimble every pair of hands in the room, except hers, seemed.

“i—i hate crocheting!” she announced presently. “it makes me feel cross and as if i should go to pieces.”

“i like it,” sarah looked down at the bed-shoe she was making. “only i don’t get much time for it.”

five minutes longer blue bonnet worked, then she pushed back her chair. “fifteen minutes—and as many more as you like—for refreshments. sarah, will you please cut the pies?”

and after refreshments, with the dusk coming on, and blue bonnet firmly refusing to have the lights lit, there was nothing for it but to gather about the fire and talk.

“now this is what i call a sensible way of spending one’s time!” blue bonnet threw on another log. “let’s talk christmas—remember, if you please, that this is the first time i’ve had a lot of girls to talk it with.”

238 she went with them to the door, when at last she could neither coax nor cajole them into remaining any longer, and from there on down to the gate—first catching up aunt lucinda’s garden cape from its nail.

all but kitty were going home to what blue bonnet mentally designated “families,” and kitty lived next door to amanda and was almost as much at home in the parker house as in her own.

it seemed to blue bonnet, as she stood there in the fast-falling snow, watching the six walk briskly off down the darkening street, kitty and debby stopping now and again to exchange snowballs with a passing friend, that of all seasons of the year, christmas was the very nicest in which to be part of a large family.

she was turning to go in when she caught the sound of alec’s whistle, and waited to speak to him. “do come in,” she urged, “i feel—just like mrs. gummidge. i want someone to talk to who is—young, and can’t do things with his hands.”

“thanks—awfully,” alec said.

“not tiresome crocheting sort of things—nor hemstitching—nor knitting double stitch—nor—”

“you needn’t go on enumerating! i plead guilty to each separate charge. you come over instead—grandfather’ll be no end delighted.”

239 “i’ll interview grandmother,” blue bonnet started for the house. halfway up the path, she turned and came back. “i can’t! i haven’t done my lessons for monday. i kept thinking there was so much time—and i did mean to do some extra studying, too.”

“can’t you—” alec began.

blue bonnet put her fingers over her ears. “run away! or i’ll come—and i mustn’t, truly.”

when blue bonnet came back to the sitting-room that evening, school-books strapped ready for carrying monday morning, she found miss lucinda sorting embroidery silks at the table.

“are you going to embroider something, aunt lucinda?” she asked. “aren’t they pretty! did you get them in boston yesterday?”

“which question shall i answer first?” miss lucinda asked, with the smile it was blue bonnet’s secret wonder she did not use oftener—it was so very becoming. “some of them i had, some i got new. i am sending a little bundle of silks and one or two stamped patterns to each of the older girls in a home for cripples, in which i am interested.”

“you mean for christmas?”

“yes.”

blue bonnet was immensely interested, offering to help sort and asking any number of questions about the girls. “couldn’t i go with you some240 time, aunt lucinda?” she asked. “i’ve never been to a place of that kind—and mayn’t i send them something, too?”

“i should be very glad to have you, blue bonnet.”

“what lots of things there are to do—in the world; and such a little time for the christmas things,” blue bonnet said, thoughtfully.

“there is always a year between one christmas and the next,” her aunt answered.

“but not between now and this coming christmas. and those hateful exams sticking themselves in between. it ought to be against the law—having examinations at holiday time.” blue bonnet rumpled up her hair impatiently.

her grandmother looked amused. “the school laws, as revised by miss elizabeth blue bonnet ashe, should prove interesting reading.”

“but if i don’t pass—it’ll just spoil being a ‘we are seven’!” blue bonnet insisted.

“then—screw not only your courage but your attention to the sticking point, and you’ll not fail,” miss lucinda counselled.

“i don’t see how sarah gets time for everything the way she does,” blue bonnet sighed. “she never seems to hurry.”

“it is generally the busiest people who have most time,” grandmother said, forestalling miss lucinda.

“alec says there have to be some idlers in the241 world to keep things balanced. alec does say such comforting things.”

“more comforting than bracing, i am afraid,” miss lucinda commented; “but in his case, there is some excuse, as he is really not strong.”

blue bonnet decided to go to bed. “we were getting on thin ice,” she confided to solomon, who insisted on going upstairs for a final chat. “and it seemed a pity—after we’d been getting on so comfortably. solomon, i’ve such an inspiration—got straight from aunt lucinda—i’ll send benita the wool in the christmas box—and let her make her own shawl!”

and when kitty asked on monday morning how the shawl was progressing, blue bonnet told her what she had told solomon.

“so thoughtful of you, my dear!” kitty observed. “but don’t forget to put in the sample too—as proof of how it ought not to be done.”

and for the rest of that recess there was a coolness between them.

for some reason—unexplained even to herself, blue bonnet had put off telling her grandmother of her change of plan. perhaps grandmother would speak of the shawl first. grandmother did, that same evening.

“i—i’ve given up making it,” blue bonnet explained. “i—i don’t believe crocheting is my vocation.”

242 “and have you discovered just what your vocation is?” her aunt asked.

blue bonnet shook her head. “unless, not having one.”

“it is something to have found out what it is not,” grandmother said. “i have known people who had not attained even to that point.”

blue bonnet pinched one of solomon’s long ears; they were behaving beautifully—grandmother and aunt lucinda.

and then grandmother said, slowly, “all the same, blue bonnet—though i agree with you that there would hardly be time, under present circumstances, for you to get the shawl done, i do not at all approve of your taking things up and then dropping them as suddenly.”

blue bonnet looked into the fire; she had been afraid grandmother would take it like that. then she looked up, with eyes full of sudden mischief. “grandmother, dear, i give you my word of honor, that the next time i start in to make anyone a crocheted shawl i’ll finish it!”

and even aunt lucinda was obliged to smile.

never days went by more quickly than those short december ones. and never, in blue bonnet’s experience, had days been half so full of business.

two or three times a week came messages from uncle cliff, generally accompanied by packages for the box, or rather boxes. for mr. ashe had been243 promptly told of that second christmas box, also destined for texas, and had as promptly expressed his unqualified approval.

the two stood side by side on the table in the clubroom, and in one a big bundle of bright purple and crimson wools held no inconspicuous place.

there were shopping trips in town with grandmother and aunt lucinda, and one made by the club in a body. blue bonnet declared she would never forget that shopping trip; sarah inwardly registered the same vow, though from different reasons.

there were innumerable impromptu meetings of the club at the house of one or another.

there were the daily walks, which, now that the riding was over, grandmother firmly insisted on.

and in between times were snatches of extra studying, hasty reviews.

“and you’ve gone through with it all every year for ages and ages!” blue bonnet said one morning, looking from sarah to kitty in positive admiration.

“why don’t you put it centuries?” kitty asked.

“of course we have,” sarah said, calmly. she expected to pass; she always had, though never brilliantly; and when she went to bed on christmas eve, though it might be late, it would be with the comfortable feeling that she had accomplished all she had set out to do.

244 “alec’s cousin came last night!” blue bonnet announced with one of her sudden changes of subject.

“what’s he like?” kitty asked.

“he isn’t like alec. i daresay he’s—new yorky. i don’t like him as well as i do alec.”

“how can you tell so soon?” sarah objected.

blue bonnet shrugged. “oh, because—and anyhow, even if i did, i wouldn’t.”

“would you mind saying that over again?” sarah looked bewildered.

“news!” debby joined them. “the pond’s frozen over! you skate, blue bonnet?”

“alec’s going to teach me. i’ve got news, too—grandmother’s going to give me a christmas party!”

there was a little chorus of excited approval.

“well, honey!” it seemed to uncle cliff as if he had been gone three months rather than nearly three weeks. “box all ready?”

“except a few last things, which we’re going to get together.” blue bonnet nestled closely to him, under the big buffalo robe. “maybe i haven’t done some tall rustling lately! i haven’t a reputation ’round these parts for getting there before the train starts, but i’ve done it this time! and just wait till you see what i’ve got for uncle joe! aunt lucinda suggested it—when it comes to245 christmasing, aunt lucinda’s a jim-dandy. and if carita adeline judson doesn’t open her eyes!”

“call a halt, honey!” mr. ashe implored, laughingly. “looks like you were trying to keep time with those sleigh-bells!”

he was waiting for her when school closed the next afternoon, and together they caught the three-twenty for town. the boxes must go the next day without fail. they shopped until dinner time—uncle cliff’s vigorous methods making even blue bonnet feel rather dizzy—then dined in delightful holiday fashion at one of the big, gaily-lighted restaurants; where, what with the crowds, the music, and the excitement of it all, blue bonnet found it hard to eat anything.

then back on the eight o’clock for the final fillings-in, at which not only the club en masse, but grandmother and aunt lucinda were present.

at last the finishing spray of holly was laid on the top of each generously-stored box, the covers were nailed on by mr. ashe, the addresses marked.

blue bonnet drew a long breath—“we did get them done—in time!” she waltzed debby up and down the room with its litter of paper and string, its ends of christmas ribbons and soft-tinted cotton. “but this ‘we’ wouldn’t’ve, if it hadn’t’ve been for you all.”

“to-morrow they’ll be on their way, solomon!”246 she assured him later; and later still, lying awake in her room, with the fire throwing flickering shadows over walls and ceiling, blue bonnet tried to picture to herself the unpacking of those boxes, in lonely ranch house, and, perhaps, almost as lonely parsonage.

uncle joe terry’s delight when her laughing face looked up at him from its silver frame; and carita’s joy on opening a certain envelope, in which was a printed certificate telling how for twelve long, happy months, that most welcome of all visitor, dear old saint nicholas, was to make his appearance at the judson home.

“aunt lucinda suggested that, too,” blue bonnet said to herself, sleepily. christmas was the dearest time in all the year,—she had always known that,—but this year she was finding out its wonderful possibilities more clearly every day.

two or three days later those dreadful examinations began, and like a good many other things in this world, proved upon closer acquaintance not half so dreadful as they had seemed, viewed at long distance.

“i’m getting all the questions that i know,” blue bonnet rejoiced more than once; but for all her rejoicing, she walked softly those days.

“they’re over at last!” she told her uncle, coming home one afternoon.

“and now what next, honey?”

247 “sentence—and we won’t know until the last day of school!”

but when that all-important friday arrived, blue bonnet came home jubilant.

“i’ve passed!” she announced to solomon watching for her at the gate. uncle cliff was the next to hear the news; he was on the veranda—walking up and down and thinking the afternoon unusually long. grandmother and aunt lucinda heard it next; then blue bonnet carried the glad tidings out to the kitchen.

“and now,” she came back to the veranda, “now i’m ready for a good time. and monday’ll be christmas! and to-morrow—which’ll be like christmas eve—we’re going into town! i say, uncle cliff, what larks!”