The Blossoming Rod | Page 5

child. "George can go out and get this ten-dollar bill
changed."
"If you can't spare it, father--" suggested the boy with some new sense
of manliness, hanging back.
"I'm glad to be able to spare it," said the father soberly. "It's a good deal
of money," he added. "I suppose, of course, you'll put it in the bank,
George?"
"Now you mustn't ask what he's going to do with it," said Clytie.
"Oh, isn't it much!" cried little Mary.
"Dear me, there's the doorbell," said Clytie. "Who can it be at this hour?
Run, George, and see!"
"It's a letter for you, mother," announced George, reappearing. "There's
a man in the hall, waiting for an answer."
"It looks like a bill," said Clytie nervously, tearing open the envelope;
"but I don't owe any bill. Why, it's two and a quarter, from the tailor,
for fixing over my old suit last fall! I'm positive I paid it weeks ago.
There's some mistake."
"He says he's been here three times, but you were out."
"Have you any money for it, Clytie?" asked her husband.
Clytie looked as if a thunderbolt had struck her.

"Yes, I have; but--oh, I don't want to take it for that! I need every penny
I've got."
"Well, there's no need of feeling so badly about it," said Langshaw
resignedly.
"Give the ten-dollar bill to the man, George, and see if he can change
it." He couldn't resist a slight masculine touch of severity at her
incapacity. "I wish you'd tend to these things at the time, Clytie, or let
me know about them." He took the money when George returned.
"Here's your dollar now, Mary--don't lose it again!--and your five,
George. You might as well take another dollar yourself, Clytie, for
extras."
He pocketed the remainder of the change carelessly. After his first pang
at the encroachment on the reserve fund the rod had sunk so far out of
sight that it was almost as if it had never been. He had, of course,
known all along that he would not buy it. Even the sting of the
"Amount due" quickly evaporated.
Little Mary gave a jump that bumped her brown curly head against
him.
"You don't know what I'm going to give you for Christmas!" she cried
joyously.

II
Langshaw was one of those men who have an inherited capacity for
enjoying Christmas. He lent it his attention with zest, choosing the
turkey himself with critical care as he went through the big market in
town, from whence he brought also wreaths and branches of holly that
seemed to have larger and redder berries than could be bought in the
village. On Christmas Eve he put up the greens that decorated the
parlour and dining-room--a ceremony that required large preparations
with a step-ladder, a hammer, tacks, and string, the removal of his coat,
and a lighted pipe in one corner of his mouth; and which proceeded

with such painstaking slowness on account of his coming down from
the ladder every other moment to view the artistic effect of the
arrangements, that it was only by sticking the last branches up any old
way at Clytie's wild appeal that he ever got it finished at all.
Then he helped her fill the stockings, his own fingers carefully giving
the crowning effect of orange and cornucopia in each one, and
arranging the large packages below, after tiptoeing down the stairs with
them so as not to wake the officially sleeping children, who were
patently stark awake, thrashing or coughing in their little beds. The
sturdy George had never been known to sleep on Christmas Eve,
always coming down the next day esthetically pale and with
abnormally large eyes, to the feast of rapture.
On this Saturday--Christmas Eve's eve--when Langshaw finally
reached home, laden with all the "last things" and the impossible
packages of tortuous shapes left by fond relatives at his office for the
children--one pocket of his overcoat weighted with the love-box of
really good candy for Clytie--it was evident as soon as he opened the
hall door that something unusual was going on upstairs. Wild shrieks of
"It's father! It's father!" rent the air.
"It's father!"
"Fardie! Fardie, don't come up!"
"Father, don't come up!"
"Father, it's your present!"
There was hasty scurrying of feet, racing to and fro, and further shrieks.
Langshaw waited, smiling.
It was evidently a "boughten" gift, then; the last had been a water
pitcher, much needed in the household. He braced himself fondly for
immense enthusiasm over this.
An expression of intense excitement was visible on each face when

finally he was allowed to enter the upper room. Mary and Baby rushed
at him to clasp his leg, while his wife leaned over to kiss him as he
whispered:
"I brought out a