Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs | Page 6

dear delightful soul of course, but I'm afraid he has an amorous eye."
"All Lay Readers have amorous eyes," reflected her husband. "Taken all in all it is a great asset."
"Don't be flippant!" admonished Flame's Mother. "There are reasons ... why I prefer that Flame's first offer of marriage should not be from a Lay Reader."
"Why?" brightened Flame.
"S--sh--," cautioned her Father.
"Very good reasons," repeated her Mother. From the conglomerate packing under her hand a puff of spilled tooth-powder whiffed fragrantly into the air.
"Yes?" prodded her husband's blandly impatient voice.
"Flame shall go to her Aunt Minna's" announced the dominant maternal voice. "By driving with us to the station, she'll have only two hours to wait for her train, and that will save one bus fare! Aunt Minna is a vegetarian and doesn't believe in sweets either, so that will be quite a unique and profitable experience for Flame to add to her general culinary education! It's a wonderful house!... A bit dark of course! But if the day should prove at all bright,--not so bright of course that Aunt Minna wouldn't be willing to have the shades up, but--Oh and Flame," she admonished still breathlessly, "I think you'd better be careful to wear one of your rather longish skirts! And oh do be sure to wipe your feet every time you come in! And don't chatter! Whatever you do, don't chatter! Your Aunt Minna, you know, is just a little bit peculiar! But such a worthy woman! So methodical! So...."
To Flame's inner vision appeared quite suddenly the pale, inscrutable face of the old Butler who asked nothing,--answered nothing,--welcomed nothing,--evaded nothing.
"... Yes'm," said Flame.
But it was a very frankly disconsolate little girl who stole late that night to her Father's study, and perched herself high on the arm of his chair with her cheek snuggled close to his.
"Of Father-Funny," whispered Flame, "I've got such a queer little pain."
"A pain?" jerked her Father. "Oh dear me! Where is it? Go and find your Mother at once!"
"Mother?" frowned Flame. "Oh it isn't that kind of a pain.--It's in my Christmas. I've got such a sad little pain in my Christmas."
"Oh dear me--dear me!" sighed her Father. Like two people most precipitously smitten with shyness they sat for a moment staring blankly around the room at every conceivable object except each other. Then quite suddenly they looked back at each other and smiled.
"Father," said Flame. "You're not of course a very old man.... But still you are pretty old, aren't you? You've seen a whole lot of Christmasses, I mean?"
"Yes," conceded her Father.
From the great clumsy rolling collar of her blanket wrapper Flame's little face loomed suddenly very pink and earnest.
"But Father," urged Flame. "Did you ever in your whole life spend a Christmas just exactly the way you wanted to? Honest-to-Santa Claus now,--did you ever?"
"Why--Why, no," admitted her Father after a second's hesitation. "Why no, I don't believe I ever did." Quite frankly between his brows there puckered a very black frown. "Now take to-morrow, for instance," he complained. "I had planned to go fishing through the ice.... After the morning service, of course,--after we'd had our Christmas dinner,--and gotten tired of our presents,--every intention in the world I had of going fishing through the ice.... And now your Uncle Wally has to go and have a shock! I don't believe it was necessary. He should have taken extra precautions. The least that delicate relatives can do is to take extra precautions at holiday time.... Oh, of course your Uncle Wally has books in his library," he brightened, "very interesting old books that wouldn't be perfectly seemly for a minister of the Gospel to have in his own library.... But still it's very disappointing," he wilted again.
"I agree with you ... utterly, Father-Funny!" said Flame. "But ... Father," she persisted, "Of all the people you know in the world,--millions would it be?"
"No, call it thousands" corrected her Father.
"Well, thousands," accepted Flame. "Old people, young people, fat people, skinnys, cross people, jolly people?... Did you ever in your life know any one who had ever spent Christmas just the way he wanted to?"
"Why ... no, I don't know that I ever did," considered her Father. With his elbows on the arms of his chair, his slender fingers forked to a lovely Gothic arch above the bridge of his nose, he yielded himself instantly to the reflection. "Why ... no, ... I don't know that I ever did," he repeated with an increasing air of conviction.... "When you're young enough to enjoy the day as a 'holler' day there's usually some blighting person who prefers to have it observed as a holy day.... And by the time you reach an age where you really rather appreciate its being a holy day the chances are that you've got