Lonzo shambled in from the shop; the tears were running down his platter face, and his huge frame shook with sobs. "She--she won't give me the el'phant!" he said. "What elephant? Cheer up, Lonzo! don't you cry, son; Christmas is comin', you know." "You said--you said--if I cleaned the dishes all up good for Christmas I could take my pick, and I picked the el'phant, and she won't give it to me!" At this juncture the pretty girl appeared, flushed and defiant. "Mr. Cheeseman, he wants that big elephant, the handsomest thing in the window; and it's a shame, and he sha'n't have it. I offered him the one you made first, that got its leg broke, and he won't look at it. There's just as much eatin' to it, for I saved the leg." "I don't want to eat it!" sobbed Lonzo. "I want to love it a spell fust." Mr. Cheeseman looked grave. "Well!" he said, "we'll see, son! You stop cryin', anyhow." He went into the shop, Calvin following him, and they looked over the low green curtain into the show-window. In the very centre, towering above the lions, camels and rabbits, stood a majestic white elephant fully a foot high. His tusks were of clear barley sugar; he carried a gilded howdah in which sat an affable personage with chocolate countenance and peppermint turban; the whole was a triumph of art, and Mr. Cheeseman gazed on it with pride, and Calvin with admiration. "It's the handsomest piece of confectionery I ever saw!" said Calvin with conviction. "It _is_ handsome, I'm free to confess!" said Mr. Cheeseman. "It cost me consid'able labor, that did. Take it out careful, Cynthy!" "Mr. Cheeseman! you ain't goin' to give it to Lonzo!" cried the pretty girl indignantly. "Certin I am!" said the old man. "I told him he should take his pick, and he's taken it. I didn't think of that figger, 'tis true, but what I say I stand to. Easy there! I guess you'd better let me lift it out, Cynthy!" Very tenderly he lifted out the glittering trophy and placed it in Lonzo's outstretched hands. The simpleton chuckled his rapture, and retired to his dim corner--to worship, one might have thought; he put his prize on a low table and grovelled before it on the floor. Mr. Cheeseman, heedless of Cynthy's lamentations, proceeded to re-arrange the show-window, trying one effect and another, head on one side and eyes screwed critically. Satisfied at length, he turned slowly and rather reluctantly toward Calvin Parks, who had been standing silently by. "After all," he said apologetically, "Christmas is for the children, and Lonzo is the Lord's child, my wife used to say, and I expect she was right." Calvin's twinkle burst into a smile. "That's all right, Mr. Cheeseman!" he said. "That suits me first-rate. I was only wonderin' whether it was just exactly what you would call trade!" CHAPTER XII CALVIN'S WATERLOO