The Blossoming Rod | Page 6

lot of truck; it's all in the closet in the hall."
George, standing with his hands in his pockets, proclaimed loudly, with
sparkling eyes:
"You nearly saw your present! It's from mother and us. Come here,
Baby, and pull brother's leg. Say, father, do you like cut glass?"
"O-oh!" came in ecstatic chorus from the other two, as at a delightful
joke.
"It's a secret!" announced Baby, her yellow hair falling over one round,
blue eye.
"I believe it's a pony," said the father. "I'm sure I heard a pony up
here!"
Shouts of renewed joy greeted the jest.
All the next day, Christmas Eve itself, whenever two or three of the
family were gathered together there were secret whisperings, more
scurryings, and frenzied warnings for the father not to come into the
room. In spite of himself, Langshaw began to get a little curious as to
the tobacco jar or the fire shovel, or whatever should be his portion. He
not only felt resigned to not having the trout-rod, but a sort of wonder
also rose in him that he had been bewitched--even momentarily--into
thinking he could have it. What did it matter anyway?
"It's worth it, old girl, isn't it?" he said cryptically as he and Clytie met
once unexpectedly in the hall, and he put his arm round her.
"Yes!" answered his wife, her dark eyes lustrous. Sometimes she didn't
look much older than little Mary. "One thing, though, I must say: I do
hope, dear, that--the children have been thinking so much of our

present to you and saving up so for it--I do hope, Joe, that if you are
pleased you'll show it. So far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter; but
sometimes--when, of course, I know how pleased you really are--you
don't show it at once to others. That's why I hope you'll show it
to-morrow if--"
"Great Scott! Clytie, let up on it! What do you want me to do--jump up
and down and make a fool of myself?" asked her husband scornfully.
"You leave me alone!"
It was Langshaw's firm rule, vainly protested even by his wife, that the
household should have breakfast on Christmas Day before tackling the
stockings--a hurried mockery of a meal, to be sure, yet to his masculine
idea a reënforcement of food for the infant stomach before the long,
hurtling joy of the day. The stockings and the piles under them were
taken in order, according to age--the youngest first and the others
waiting in rapt interest and admiration until their turn arrived--a pretty
ceremony.
In the delicious revelry of Baby's joy, as her trembling, fat little fingers
pulled forth dolls and their like, all else was forgotten until it was
Mary's turn, and then George's, and then the mother's. And then, when
he had forgotten all about it: "Now father!" There was seemingly a
breathless moment while all eyes turned to him.
"It's father's turn now; father's going to have his presents. Father, sit
down here on the sofa--it's your turn now."
There were only a blue cornucopia and an orange and a bottle of olives
in his stocking, a Christmas card from his sister Ella, a necktie from
grandmamma, and nothing, as his quick eye had noted, under it on the
floor; but now George importantly stooped down, drew a narrow
package from under the sofa and laid it beside his father, pulling off the
paper. Inside was a slim, longish, gray linen bag. Langshaw studied it
for a moment before opening it.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" he breathed, with a strange glance round at the
waiting group and an odd, crooked smile. "I'll be jiggered!"

There in its neatly grooved sections lay the rod, ready to be put
together--not a rod, but, as his eye almost unbelievingly reassured him,
the rod--the ticket of the shop adorning it--in all its beauty of golden
shellac and delicate tip. His fingers touched the pieces reverently.
"Well, will you look at that! How did you ever think of getting it?"
"How did I think of it? Because you talked about it all the time," said
his wife scornfully, with her arms round his neck from behind, while
the children flung themselves upon him. "Oh, I know you thought you
didn't; but you did just the same. George heard you, too. We got Mr.
Wickersham to pick it out. He said it was the one you wanted. And the
reel--you haven't noticed that box there--the reel is the right kind, he
says; and the line is silk--the best. There's the book of flies too--six.
Baby's crazy over them! Mr. Wickersham said it was all just what you
ought to have. We've been saving up for the longest time; but we had to
wait, you see, for George's deportment before the things