Annabel praised the wrappings, and then, holding the box to her ears, she shook it, acting out a pantomime of curiosity over its contents. All of this she performed with a little girl’s sense of wonder that was unbecoming to her; in repose, her face was pretty enough, but this posturing seemed to sharpen and distort her small features. “Dare I open it?” she said. “As a rule I wouldn’t open a stick of gum till Christmas morning, but I just don’t think I can wait. Shall I do it?”

“I don’t care.”

“All right then, here goes!”

The box contained six ball-point pens, purchased through the mail from the crippled war veteran in North Dakota. Each pen was of a different color and each had ANNABEL WILLIAMS stamped on it in gold.

“Why, what are they?” she said.

“Ball-point pens!”

“Ball-point? The kind that slides off the paper?”

Clinton said, “Yeah, but they’ve got your name stamped on ‘em in gold.”

“And they’re lovely. But my tenth anniversary pen is still good as new. —Awwh, bless your heart, lover, that’s very sweet. But you know how everyone admires my handwriting, how graceful it is, and six of them, my heaven, won’t they look pretty on my desk? That’s what I’ll do, I’ll put them on my desk. What ever made you get six?”

“They’re different colors, and I thought, like say, if you wore a blue dress, then . . .”

“Oh! For different outfits! Well, you’ve got the biggest darned heart of anybody. Here, I’ll leave the box open so people can see.”

The sight of these pens, sitting at the base of the tree where she placed them, caused in Clinton a sudden wave of hatred for himself and for Annabel and, more than ever before, for this house they lived in. Its barnlike proportions were suddenly dwarfed, and he felt that its walls pressed in on them like those of a tiny jail cell.

“You know, Annabel, I think all this crap in here’s gonna make everybody feel lousy.”

“All of what ‘crap’?”

“I don’t mean crap exactly, but this Christmas stuff. I mean, I think this family’s got to the point where Christmas’d be better if we didn’t make such a big do over it.”

Annabel’s hand went to her chin. “I can’t believe my ears,” she said.

“Okay, excuse me, maybe I’m wrong, that’s all.”

“Clinton, just answer me something: do you think I went to all this agony for myself?”

“Look, please just forget I said anything. All of a sudden I just got kind of nervous is all.”

At this moment, the front door opened. Ralph Williams entered. “Just a moment, gentlemen,” he said to whomever the people were who waited for him on the porch. “Just one moment.”

He closed the door softly and approached the pouf where Annabel sat, her face distorted by an equal mixture of pain and puzzlement.

“Now listen to me, Annabel.” Ralph lowered his head and pinned her to silence with his eyes. “On our front porch there stand three children of God, orphans of misfortune, whom I have invited to spend this night and tomorrow under my roof. Shut up.”