"But I'll have to wait so long then for mine." Sadie was half crying now. "That's my offer--you can take it or leave it," Olga said. "I must go on now. Think it over and tell me Saturday what you decide." "O--if I must, I must, I s'pose," Sadie yielded ungraciously. "How long will it take me to make mother's?" "Depends on how quickly you learn." "O, I'll learn quick enough!" Sadie tossed her head as one conscious of her powers. "When can I begin?" "Monday. Can you come right after school?" "Uh, huh," and with a brief good-bye Sadie was gone. Olga had no easy task with her over the making of her mother's gift. It was to be a brass stamp box, and her only thought was to get it out of the way so that she could begin on her own jewelry; but Olga was firm. "If you don't make a good job of this your lessons will end right here," she declared, and Sadie had learned that when Olga spoke in that tone, she must be obeyed. She gloomed and pouted, but seeing no other way to get what she wanted she set to work in earnest. And as the work grew under her hands, her interest in it grew. When, finally, the box was done, it was really a creditable bit of work for the first attempt of a girl barely fourteen, and Sadie was inordinately proud of it. It was December now and Christmas was the absorbing interest of the Camp Fire Girls. They were to have a tree in the Camp Fire room, but Laura told them to make their gifts very simple and inexpensive. "We must not spoil the Great Day by giving what we cannot afford," she said. "The loving thought is the heart of Christmas giving--not the money value. I'll get our tree, but you can help me string popcorn and cranberries to trim it, and put up the greenery." "Me too--O Miss Laura, can't I help too?" Jim cried anxiously. "Why, of course. We couldn't get along without you, Jim," half a dozen voices assured him before Laura could answer. "I wish our old ladies could come to our tree," Elsie Harding said to Alice Reynolds. "They couldn't. Most of them can't go out evenings, you know. But we might put gifts for them on the tree they have at the Home." "Or have them hang up stockings," suggested Louise Johnson. "Just imagine forty long black stockings strung around those parlour walls. Wouldn't it be a sight?" she giggled. "Nancy Rextrew wouldn't have her stocking hung on any parlour wall. It would be in her own room or nowhere," put in Lena. "Why not get some of those red Christmas stockings from the five cent store, and fill one for each old lady?" Mary Hastings proposed. "We could go late, after they'd all gone to their rooms, and hang the stockings, full, on their doorknobs." "Or get the superintendent to hang them early in the morning," was Laura's suggestion. "Yes, we can get the stockings and the 'fillings,'" Mary Hastings went on, "and have all sent to the superintendent's room. Then we can go there and fill them. It won't take long if we all go."