And little Miss Lucy, kneeling on the floor of the cellar to measure more feed, said without looking up:-- "You know, since mother died we ain't never done anything for holidays. No--we can't seem to want to think about Thanksgiving or Christmas or like that." They all turned their grave lined faces toward us. "We want to let the holidays just slip by without noticin'," Miss Viny told us. "Seems like it hurts less that way." Libbie Liberty smiled wanly. "Don't you know," she said, "when you hold your hand still in hot water, you don't feel how hot the water really is? But when you move around in it some, it begins to burn you. Well, when we let Thanksgiving an' Christmas alone, it ain't so bad. But when we start to move around in 'em--" Her voice faltered and stopped. "We miss mother terrible," Miss Lucy said simply. Calliope put her blue mitten to her mouth, but her eyes she might not hide, and they were soft with sympathy. "I know--I know," she said. "I remember the first Christmas after my mother died--I ached like the toothache all over me, an' I couldn't bear to open my presents. Nor the next year I couldn't either--I couldn't open my presents with any heart. But--" Calliope hesitated, "that second year," she said, "I found somethin' I could do. I saw I could fix up little things for other folks an' take some comfort in it. Like mother would of." She was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the three lonely figures in the dark cellar of their house. "Your mother," she said abruptly, "stuffed the turkey for a year ago the last harvest home." "Yes," they said. "Look here," said Calliope; "if I can get some poor folks together,--or even _one_ poor folk, or hungry,--will you three come over to my house an' stuff the turkey? The way--I can't help thinkin' the way your mother would of, if she'd been here. An' then," Calliope went on briskly, "could you bring some fresh eggs an' make a pan o' custard over to my house? An' mebbe one o' you'd stir up a sunshine cake. You must know how to make your mother's sunshine cake?" There was another silence in the cellar when Calliope had done, and for a minute I wondered if, after all, she had not failed, and if the bleeding of the three hearts might be so stanched. It was not self-reliant Libbie Liberty who spoke first; it was gentle Miss Lucy. "I guess," she said, "I could, if we all do it. I know mother would of." "Yes," Miss Viny nodded, "mother would of." Libbie Liberty stood for a moment with compressed lips. "It seems like not payin' respect to mother," she began; and then shook her head. "It ain't that," she said; "it's only missin' her when we begin to step around the kitchen, bakin' up for a holiday." "I know--I know," Calliope said again. "That's why I said for you to come over in my kitchen. You come over there an' stir up the sunshine cake, too, an' bake it in my oven, so's we can hev it et hot. Will you do that?"