Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs | Page 8

her Mother. "What do you
want to do?... Stay at home and spend Christmas with the Lay Reader?"

"When you and Father talk like that," murmured Flame with some
hauteur, "I don't know whether you're trying to run him down ... or run
him up."
"Well, how do you feel about him yourself?" veered her Father quite
irrelevantly.
"Oh, I like him--some," conceded Flame. In her bright cheeks suddenly
an even brighter color glowed. "I like him when he leaves out the
Litany," she said. "I've told him I like him when he leaves out the
Litany.--He's leaving it out more and more I notice.--Yes, I like him
very much."
"But this Aunt Minna business," veered back her Father suddenly.
"What do you want to do? That's just the question. What do you want
to do?"
"Yes, what do you want to do?" panted her Mother.
"I want to make a Christmas for myself!" said Flame. "Oh, of course, I
know perfectly well," she agreed, "that I could go to a dozen places in
the Parish and be cry-babied over for my presumable loneliness. And
probably I should cry a little," she wavered, "towards the dessert--when
the plum pudding came in and it wasn't like Mother's.--But if I made a
Christmas of my own--" she rallied instantly. "Everything about it
would be brand-new and unassociated! I tell you I want to make a
Christmas of my own! It's the chance of a life-time! Even Father sees
that it's the chance of a life-time!"
"Do you?" demanded his wife a bit pointedly.
"Honk-honk!" screamed the motor at the door.
"Oh, dear me, whatever in the world shall I do?" cried Flame's Mother.
"I'm almost distracted! I'm--"
"When in Doubt do as the Doubters do," suggested Flame's Father quite
genially. "Choose the most doubtful doubt on the docket and--Flame's

got a pretty level head," he interrupted himself very characteristically.
"No young girl has a level heart," asserted Flame's Mother. "I'm so
worried about the Lay Reader."
"Lay Reader?" murmured her Father. Already he had crossed the
threshold into the hall and was rummaging through an over-loaded hat
rack for his fur coat. "Why, yes," he called back, "I quite forgot to ask.
Just what kind of a Christmas is it, Flame, that you want to make?"
With unprecedented accuracy he turned at the moment to force his
wife's arms into the sleeves of her own fur coat.
Twice Flame rolled up her cuffs and rolled them down again before she
answered.
"I--I want to make a Surprise for Miss Flora," she confided.
"Honk-honk!" urged the automobile.
"For Miss Flora?" gasped her Mother.
"Miss Flora?" echoed her Father.
"Why, at the Rattle-Pane House, you know!" rallied Flame. "Don't you
remember that I called there this afternoon? It--it looked rather lonely
there.--I--think I could fix it."
"Honk-honk-honk!" implored the automobile.
"But who is this Miss Flora?" cried her Mother. "I never heard anything
so ridiculous in my life! How do we know she's respectable?"
"Oh, my dear," deprecated Flame's Father. "Just as though the owners
of the Rattle-Pane House would rent it to any one who wasn't
respectable!"
"Oh, she's very respectable," insisted Flame. "Of a lineage so
distinguished--"

"How old might this paragon be?" queried her Father.
"Old?" puzzled Flame. To her startled mind two answers only
presented themselves.... Should she say "Oh, she's only just weaned,"
or "Well,--she was invented about 1406?" Between these two dilemmas
a single compromise suggested itself. "She's awfully wrinkled," said
Flame; "that is--her face is. All wizened up, I mean."
"Oh, then of course she must be respectable," twinkled Flame's Father.
"And is related in some way," persisted Flame, "to Edward the
2nd--Duke of York."
"Of that guarantee of respectability I am, of course, not quite so sure,"
said her Father.
With a temperish stamping of feet, an infuriate yank of the door-bell,
Uncle Wally's chauffeur announced that the limit of his endurance had
been reached.
Blankly Flame's Mother stared at Flame's Father. Blankly Flame's
Father returned the stare.
"Oh, p-l-e-a-s-e!" implored Flame. Her face was crinkled like fine
crêpe.
"Smooth out your nose!" ordered her Mother. On the verge of
capitulation the same familiar fear assailed her. "Will you promise not
to see the Lay Reader?" she bargained.
"--Yes'm," said Flame.


PART II
It's a dull person who doesn't wake up Christmas Morning with a

curiously ticklish sense of Tinsel in the pit of his stomach!--A sort of a
Shine! A kind of a Pain!
"Glisten and Tears, Pang of the years."
That's Christmas!
So much was born on Christmas Day! So much has died! So much is
yet to come! Balsam-Scented, with the pulse of bells, how the senses
sing! Memories that wouldn't have batted an eye for all the Gabriel
Trumpets in Eternity leaping to life