“I’m mighty weak yet,” she said to Hager, “but I’m sure much better than I was. I don’t want to have the grippe no more.... Sandy, look in the mail-box and see has the mail-man come by yet.”

As the little boy returned empty-handed, he heard his mother talking about old man Logan, who used to be a carpenter.

“Maybe he can make it,” she was saying, but stopped when she heard Sandy behind her. “I guess I’ll lay back down now.”

Aunt Hager wrung out the last piece of clothes that she had been rinsing. “Yes, chile,” she said, “you go on and lay down. I’s gwine make you some tea after while.” And the old woman went outdoors to take from the line the frozen garments blowing in the sharp north wind.

After supper that night Aunt Hager said casually: “Well, I reckon I’ll run down an’ see Brother Logan a minute whilst I got nothin’ else to do. Sandy, don’t you let de fire go out, and take care o’ yo’ mama.”

“Yes’m,” said the little boy, drawing pictures on the oilcloth-covered table with a pin. His grandmother went out the back door and he looked through the frosty window to see which way she was going. The old woman picked up the boards that his mother had piled near the alley fence, and with them in her arms she disappeared down the alley in the dark.

After a little, Aunt Hager returned puffing and blowing.

“Can he do it?” Annjee demanded anxiously from the bedroom when she heard her mother enter.

“Yes, chile,” Hager answered. “Lawd, it sho is cold out yonder! Whee! Lemme git here to this stove!”

That night it began to snow again. The great heavy flakes fell with languid gentility over the town and silently the whiteness covered everything. The next morning the snow froze to a hard sparkling crust on roofs and ground, and in the late afternoon when Sandy went to return the Reinharts’ clothes, you could walk on top of the snow without sinking.

At the back door of the Reinharts’ house a warm smell of plum-pudding and mince pies drifted out as he waited for the cook to bring the money. When she returned with seventy-five cents, she had a nickel for Sandy, too. As he slid along the street, he saw in many windows gay holly wreaths with red berries and big bows of ribbon tied to them. Sandy wished he could buy a holly wreath for their house. It might make his mother’s room look cheerful. At home it didn’t seem like Christmas with the kitchen full of drying clothes, and no Christmas-tree.

Sandy wondered if, after all, Santa Claus might, by some good fortune, bring him that Golden Flyer sled on Christmas morning. How fine this hard snow would be to coast on, down the long hill past the Hickory Woods! How light and swift he would fly with his new sled! Certainly he had been a good boy, carrying Aunt Hager’s clothes for her, waiting on his mother when she was in bed, emptying the slops and cutting wood every day. And at night when he said his prayers: