When the very biggest turkey that ever strutted in barnyard was
discovered steaming in the middle of the dinner-table and the report
went round in whispers that ice-cream had been seen carried in pails,
and when, in response to a pull at the bell, Matron Thomsen ushered in
a squad of smiling mamas and papas to help eat the dinner, even Gimpy
gave in to the general joy, and avowed that Christmas was "bully."
Perhaps his acceptance of the fact was made easier by a hasty survey of
the group of papas and mamas, which assured him that his own were not
among them. A fleeting glimpse of the baby, deserted and disconsolate,
brought the old pucker to his brow for a passing moment; but just then
big Fred set off a snapper at his very ear, and thrusting a pea-green
fool's-cap upon his head, pushed him into the roistering procession
that hobbled round and round the table, cheering fit to burst. And the
babies that had been brought down from their cribs, strapped, because
their backs were crooked, in the frames that look so cruel and are
so kind, lifted up their feeble voices as they watched the show with
shining eyes. Little baby Helen, who could only smile and wave "by-by"
with one fat hand, piped in with her tiny voice, "Here I is!" It was
all she knew, and she gave that with a right good will, which is as
much as one can ask of anybody, even of a snow baby.
If there were still lacking a last link to rivet Gimpy's loyalty to
his new home for good and all, he himself supplied it when the band
gathered under the leafless trees--for Sea Breeze has a grove in
summer, the only one on the island--and whiled away the afternoon
making a "park" in the snow, with sea-shells for curbing and boundary
stones. When it was all but completed, Gimpy, with an inspiration that
then and there installed him leader, gave it the finishing touch by
drawing a policeman on the corner with a club, and a sign, "Keep off
the grass." Together they gave it the air of reality and the true local
color that made them feel, one and all, that now indeed they were at
home.
Toward evening a snow-storm blew in from the sea, but instead of
scurrying for shelter, the little Eskimos joined the doctor in hauling
wood for a big bonfire on the beach. There, while the surf beat
upon the shore hardly a dozen steps away, and the storm whirled the
snow-clouds in weird drifts over sea and land, they drew near the fire,
and heard the doctor tell stories that seemed to come right out of the
darkness and grow real while they listened. Dr. Wallace is a southerner
and lived his childhood with Br'er Rabbit and Mr. Fox, and they saw
them plainly gamboling in the firelight as the story went on. For the
doctor knows boys and loves them, that is how.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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