Meanwhile, Christmas came and went, and the New Year was rung in. The holiday season made a deal of hard work for Tom, for the store kept open every evening until Christmas and more than once he was forced to delay his departure for Derry until Sunday morning. Christmas Day was spent at home. He had purchased small gifts for everyone, including Star, who got a new collar, and he received presents from all. Uncle Israel gave him a five-dollar gold-piece, a deed of generosity as surprising as it was welcome to Tom. Sidney had thrust a small parcel into Tom’s hand the day before, and when Tom opened it Christmas morning he found a pretty gold stick-pin set with a topaz that, although he didn’t realise it, was exactly the colour of some of the big freckles that adorned his nose! In the afternoon he took his skates down to the creek and joined the merry throng of boys and girls. It was the first time he had tried the skates and they proved wonderful, besides being objects of envy to the other fellows. Jim Billings, whose father Tom had worked for last summer, remarked sneeringly after an examination of the new skates, that “Tom Pollock was gettin’ mighty stuck-up since he’d gone to the city!” The next evening Tom accompanied Sidney home and stayed to dinner and saw the big Christmas Tree that was strung with tiny electric lights of white and red and blue. And Sidney showed him all his presents, and there was a whole big lot of them, too, Tom thought. One of them was the toboggan that Sidney had expressed a wish for and another was a little easel calendar in red paper that looked something like leather if you didn’t get too close to it. Sidney told Tom, with an arm over his shoulders, that it was “just bully” and that he liked it better than almost anything he’d got. The calendar was Tom’s modest gift. After New Year’s life settled down again into the old manner. Tom studied hard at school and worked hard at the store, but he enjoyed both. Having a friend like Sidney had done away with loneliness and he no longer spent solitary evenings in his room. Once in a while Sidney came down to Locust Street, but usually Tom went to Sidney’s house. His comings and goings there were now matters of no comment. Mr. and Mrs. Morris always greeted him warmly and made him feel at home and free to come and go as he liked. Sometimes another fellow would drop in, sometimes two or three, and they had very merry times up in Sidney’s room. But Tom liked best the evenings when Sidney and he were alone. Several of the boys he had met through Sidney he liked very much, but he was apt to feel rather shy and constrained when they were around. Very often Mrs. Morris joined them for a few minutes, much to the pleasure of Tom, who still secretly adored her. Once, a month or so after their first meeting, he asked Sidney what he supposed his mother meant by her frequent allusions to his hair.