Temperance Crandall lit the candle in her front window. She could hear the children singing at the church, but she did not cross the street to attend the cantata. After a while she blew out the candle, stoked the fire, went up the cold, dark stairs to her bed. On a Pullman sleeper roaring toward New York, Mike O'Casey awoke from a fretful sleep, pulled up the blind, and found he was in Cleveland. Christmas carollers were making an ungodly racket on the station platform. He made obscene remarks about the whole idea of Christmas as well as the fool notion of attempting to run a trailer factory in Brailsford Junction. His friend O'Hallohan, the New York banker, would have to sign his note for fifty thousand dollars, or he would tell Tammany what he knew about O'Hallohan. To the tune of the "Junkman Rag" Maxine Larabee was dancing the night away in Madison, Wisconsin, with a Beta from the University of Wisconsin who would presently know the last word on legumes, rotation of crops, and soil analysis. She was very sleepy the next morning when her wealthy grandmother came into her bedroom crying "Merry Christmas." From the windows where he sat brooding Joe Valentine could see the Brailsford home ablaze with Christmas. A plan began to take form in his slow mind. If Stud Brailsford thought that he could buy him with a few groceries he was badly mistaken. Joe never forgot. He hadn't forgotten that nigger who had knifed him in Rockford, Illinois. Some black woman was probably still hunting for that shine. And Stud Brailsford--when the others were in bed--went out with his lantern to take a last look at the barns. The ponies drowsed in their box stalls, the big bull's eyes glowed in the lantern light. Stud stopped to pet the stallion and the twin Percheron colts. One of those twins would some day make a great sire. He noticed that the stars were very large and bright above his barn that night. BOOK FOUR CHAPTER XII 1 _During 1913 the Palace of Peace at The Hague was dedicated. War and cholera swept the Balkans. The munition works prospered as Germany and France greatly increased their standing armies. Irish Home Rule agitators and militant suffragettes made life miserable for British statesmen. Forty million American church-goers gave four hundred million dollars to religious organizations. American junkers and the oil interests wanted armed intervention in Mexico. Pavlowa in a syndicated newspaper feature taught America the tango and other popular steps, while Aunt Prudence in her advice to the lovelorn sternly counseled "Anxious" against kissing any man but the one she intended to marry...._ But to Peter Brailsford, enamored of woman, a trifle uncertain of his newly attained maturity, six feet tall, his muscles swelling toward the gigantic proportions of his father's, his chest deepening, and his mind exploring ever more distant horizons....