The annual Deal reunion did not prove so complete a success as usual with John and Mack’s family all absent. Abbie went through all the preparations for the event, as she always did,—the pop-corn balls and the taffy candy, the tree and the little hidden packages, but it was never the same for her when one child was missing. This was the fourth Christmas John had been away from them. More than ever, Abbie’s thoughts were with John in that far-off land of the midnight sun, now that he was so much farther away than Nome.

What was there about John that seemed always to bring her thoughts of anxiety, Abbie wondered? From the time he was small, it seemed that she had always thought and prayed more about John than any of the others. His silence, his independence, his way of doing things without telling her, worried her. And now in Alaska, above the Arctic Circle, with no means of communication until the ice floe should go out,—what was he doing? What were his experiences? His pastimes? His temptations? What sort of women was he meeting? Abbie would stop in her work and utter a prayer for him,—and, sent as it were from the bow of a mother’s watchful care, bound by the cord of a mother’s love, the little winged arrow on its flight must have reached Some one,—Somewhere.

The Dr. Fred Bakers were out at Christmas. Grace, twelve, and Fred Jr., eight, were the only children at the Christmas reunion that year.

Isabelle and Harrison, though, came from Chicago, enthusiastic over their music. They were both studying and practicing hours every day, and singing in a suburban church choir. They each had a few music pupils. Isabelle looked stylish in her brown silk shirtwaist and wide brown serge skirt with fifteen gores, stiffened with buckram.

The two stayed a day after the Fred Bakers had gone.

“Don’t you get tired of all the extra noise and work, Mother?” Isabelle wanted to know when they were alone.

“Oh, my! No, dear,” Abbie returned. “When you have children, Isabelle, you’ll understand what I mean.”

“I might as well tell you now, Mother,—we’re not having children.”

“Not . . . what, Isabelle?”

“I’d really rather be honest with you than hear you talk that way. We’re not having a family.”

“Why, Isabelle, you talk as though . . . as though . . .”

“But I mean it. We’re really not well enough off. You know, yourself, Mother, that Harrison and I will never be rich and what’s more, neither one of us really cares. Mack has a good business head on him and is well on the way now to being well-to-do. Doctor and Margaret seem to have the ability to lay up treasures where moth can corrupt. No telling what John will do. He may be a big attorney some day. We don’t know Grace’s future when she’s only twelve. But all Harrison and I care for is our art. Music is our very life. Knowing that we’re going to be so devoted to it and perhaps never be well enough off, we’re just not having children.”