Terry | Page 8

of the tears that shone on his rough cheeks.
"You all a go to hell-a with your a-names! Felice, she name-a our boy and to-morrow we go Padre Jenneeng. She a name heem"--he paused with true Latin sense of the value of suspense--"She a name heem--Reechar' Terree--Ricorro!"
A moment of hesitation, of assimilation, and then a hubbub of delighted acceptance and acclaim. Terry stayed but a few minutes, realizing that much as they liked him, there would be more spontaneity at the fiesta if there were none but their own people at the table.
He went in and thanked Felice gravely for the honor she had conferred upon him, wished for them all a merry Christmas, and passed out amid a medley of thanks and benedictions.
The snowfall had ceased. He crossed to the North Side and hastened up Main Street, and though it lacked but an hour of midnight, he found Judd's jewelry store still open. He went in and found young Judd about to close up.
Judd, hollow eyed with the fatigue of the long day, studied his old friend's beaming face: "Hello, Sir Galahad!" he said.
Terry eyed him scornfully: "Hello, Rut!" He drew himself up proudly. "Behold in me a new dignity--I am now a god-father!"
Having in mind the parents' love for the elaborate, he gayly selected an ornate silver cup for the infant.
"I'll engrave it for you after the holidays," Judd offered.
"Good old boy, Judd! The initials will be R--T--R."
He buttoned his coat and went to the door: Judd was musing over the monogram: "Richard--Terry--what's the 'R' stand for, Dick?"
Terry grinned as he called back through the open door.
"Why,--Romance, of course!"
* * * * *
He tramped far out the north road through the new fallen snow, his whole being glowing. The stars sparkled through the clear cold air in myriad chorus of the message of hope that one in the East had heralded to a sadder world on another Christmas eve. The snow-flung star beams illuminated the peaceful countryside: there was no moon, no light save the great glow of the heavens, no shadows under gaunt oaks or huddled evergreens.
He was in harmony with the night. He followed the sleigh-rutted highway for several miles, then swung back to town along a woodcutter's trail that edged the lakeshore, winding through the new growths of pine and balsam whose night-black branches were outlined by the white fall.
He loved the open: there was no loneliness here.... Magic-wrought, Deane's phantom figure kept apace, matched step with step along the shore trail through the hushed woods, across the white sheen of open spaces. Ever, when summoned thus, she came to share the hours and the places that he loved best.
Love surged hot through his veins: love of friends, of living, of youth, love of a woman ... probably his gift lay at her bedside now, as she slept....
Unconsciously he slowed his pace and lifted his fine, pale face upward: his low, clear baritone flooded the broken woods, carried far out across the silent frozen lake, unechoed; it was vibrant with the very spirit of yuletide--love of man and woman.
Love, to share again those winged scented days, Those starry skies: To see once more your joyous face, Your tender eyes: Just to know that years so fair might come again, Awhile: Oh! To thrill again to your dear voice-- Your smile!
It was long past midnight when he reached town, his mood chilling indefinably at sight of its dark houses.
"You're a queer old town," he muttered. "You go to bed on this night of nights--yes, and you batten your windows tight against this glorious air--and all of the other glorious things."
Passing the suspicious village constable, he penetrated even his callous heart with the most gladsome Christmas greeting he had heard in many a year.
Home, he stirred the dying logs into flame and sank into a deep cushioned chair drawn up before the glowing embers. The long day had taken no toll of his lithe frame: sleepless, he sat long in pleasant retrospection of the day, which had brought him opportunities to contribute to the sum of peace on earth and to give pleasure to those whom he loved.
His gift to Deane had approached even his exacting criterion of what was fit for her. He envied the skin its rapturous reception, the sparkle of bright eyes its beauty would invoke. It was characteristic that his vision did not carry him to the daily contact of pink toes he had assigned as its function. And it was characteristic of him, too, that he did not think of the gifts which had come for him.
He would see the elders, he mused, and apologize for what must have seemed to them a deliberate flaunting of their standards ... he had been a little careless, lately ... he would remedy that ... it