Mis' Abby Winslow, mother of seven under fifteen, looked up from her rocking-chair--Mis' Winslow always sat limp in chairs as if they were reaching out to rest her and, indeed, this occasional yielding to the force of gravity was almost her only luxury. "You ain't thinking of the children, Mis' Bates," she said, "nor you either, Jane Moran, or you couldn't talk that way. We can't have no real Christmas, of course. But I'd planned some little things made out of what I had in the house: things that wouldn't be anything, and yet would seem a little something." Mis' Mortimer Bates swept round at her. "Children," she said, "ought to be showed how to do without things. Bennet and Gussie ain't expecting a sliver of nothing for Christmas--not a sliver." Mis' Winslow unexpectedly flared up. "Whether it shows through on the outside or not," she said, "I'll bet you they are." "My three," Mis' Emerson Morse put in pacifically, "have been kept from popping corn and cracking nuts all Fall so's they could do both Christmas night, and it would seem like something that _was_ something." "That ain't the idea," Mis' Bates insisted; "I want them learnt to do without--" ("They'll learn that," Mis' Abby Winslow said; "they'll learn....") "Happening as it does to most every one of us not to have no Christmas, they won't be no distinctions drawn. None of the children can brag--and children is limbs of Satan for bragging," she added. (She was remembering a brief conversation overheard that day between Gussie and Pep, the minister's son:-- "I've got a doll," said Gussie. "I've got a dollar," said Pep. "My mamma went to a tea party," said Gussie. "My mamma give one," said Pep. Gussie mustered her forces. "My papa goes to work every morning," she topped it. "My papa don't have to," said Pep, and closed the incident.) "I can't help who's a limb of Satan," Mis' Winslow replied doggedly, "I can't seem to sense Christmas time without Christmas." "It won't _be_ Christmas time if you don't have any Christmas," Mis' Bates persisted. "Oh, yes it will," Mis' Winslow said. "Oh, yes, it will. You can't stop that." It was Mis' Bates, who, from the high-backed plush rocker, rapped with the blue glass paperweight on the red glass lamp and, in the absence of Mr. Bates, called the meeting to order. The Old Trail Town Society was organized on a platform of "membership unlimited, dues nothing but taking turns with the entertaining, officers to consist of: President, the host of the evening (or wife, if any), and no minutes to bother with." And it was to a meeting so disposed on the subject of Christmas that Simeon Buck rose to present his argument. "Mr. President," he addressed the chair. "It's Madam President, you ninny geese," corrected Buff Miles, _sotto voce_. "It had ought to be Madam Chairman," objected Mis' Moran; "she ain't the continuous president."