There couldn’t have been a nicer compliment to any one, my way of thinking, than the little round of smiles and murmurs that run about among us when we heard this. Abner Dawes had been, thirty years before, a nice, shy man round the village, and we all liked him, because he had such a nice, kind way with him and particularly because he had such a way with children. He used to sing ’em little songs he made up. And some of the little songs got in the paper and got copied in the city paper; and first thing we knew, a big firm sent for Abner, and he’d been gone ever since. We heard of him, now doing his children-songs on the stage, now in a big, beautiful book of children’s songs, with pictures, that had been sent back to the village. And we were prouder of him than ’most anybody we’d got. And here he was coming to the Home-coming. “We must give him the Principal Place, whatever that is,” says Mis’ Sykes, immediate. And we all agreed. Yes, Abner must have the Principal Place. We were sewing, that afternoon, on the bunting for Eppleby Holcomb’s store’s booth. Blazing red, it was--ain’t it queer how men loves red? Color of blood and color of fire; but I always think it means they’ll be ready to love not blood of war but blood-brotherhood, and not the torch to burn with, but the torch to light with--when the time comes. Yes, I bet men’s liking red means something, and I like to think it means that. And if it does, Eppleby’ll be first among men, for he didn’t want a stitch of his booth that wasn’t flaming scarlet. We had the diagram all made out on the table again, so’s to tell what colors would come next to which. And all of a sudden Mis’ Sykes put her finger in the middle of it. “Do you know what?” she says. “If that tree wasn’t in the middle there, we could have a great big evening bon-fire, with everybody around it.” “So we could. Wouldn’t that be nice?” says everybody--only me. Because the tree they meant was the Christmas tree, the big evergreen, the living Christmas tree that had stood there in the square, all lit, that last Christmas Eve, with all of us singing round it. “I can’t ever think of that being in anybody’s way,” I says, and everybody says, “Perhaps not,” and we went on tearing off the lengths of blazing red calico. And me, I set there thinking about what they’d said. I remember I was still thinking about it, and Mis’ Sykes and I were standing up together measuring off the breadths, when the front door opened. And there was standing Chris, Lisbeth’s little boy. Him and I’d got to be awful good friends almost from the first. He come over to my house quite a lot, and kneeled on a chair side of the table when I was doing my baking, and he brought me in pans of chips. And no little fellow whatever was ever sweeter. “Hello, dear,” I says now. “Come in, won’t you?” He stood quiet, eying us. And Mis’ Sykes down she drops the cloth and made a dive for him.