A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others

THE CHRISTMAS GOBLINS.
BY CHARLES DICKENS

In an old abbey town, a long, long while ago there officiated as sexton and gravedigger in the churchyard one Gabriel Grubb. He was an ill conditioned cross-grained, surly fellow, who consorted with nobody but himself and an old wicker-bottle which fitted into his large, deep waistcoat pocket.

A little before twilight one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself toward the old churchyard, for he had a grave to finish by next morning, and feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he went on with his work at once.

He strode along until he turned into the dark lane which led to the churchyard – a nice, gloomy, mournful place into which the towns-people did not care to go except in broad daylight, consequently he was not a little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song about a Merry Christmas. Gabriel waited until the boy came up, then rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times to teach him to modulate his voice. And as the boy hurried away, with his hand to his head, Gabriel Grubb chuckled to himself and entered the churchyard, locking the gate behind him.

He took off his coat, put down his lantern, and getting into an unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so with right good will. But the earth was hardened with the frost, and it was no easy matter to break it up and shovel it out. At any other time this would have made Gabriel very miserable, but he was so pleased at having stopped the small boy's singing that he took little heed of the scanty progress he had made when he had finished work for the night, and looked down into the grave with grim satisfaction, murmuring as he gathered up his things:

 
"Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one,
A few feet of cold earth when life is done."
 

"Ho! ho!" he laughed, as he set himself down on a flat tombstone, which was a favorite resting-place of his, and drew forth his wicker-bottle. "A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas box. Ho! ho! ho!"

"Ho! ho! ho!" repeated a voice close beside him.

"It was the echoes," said he, raising the bottle to his lips again.

"It was not," said a deep voice.

Gabriel started up and stood rooted to the spot with terror, for his eyes rested on a form that made his blood run cold.

Seated on an upright tombstone close to him was a strange, unearthly figure. He was sitting perfectly still, grinning at Gabriel Grubb with such a grin as only a goblin could call up.

"What do you here on Christmas Eve?" said the goblin, sternly.

"I came to dig a grave, sir," stammered Gabriel.

"What man wanders among graves on such a night as this?" cried the goblin.

"Gabriel Grubb! Gabriel Grubb!" screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the churchyard.

"What have you got in that bottle?" said the goblin.

"Hollands, sir," replied the sexton, trembling more than ever, for he had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought his questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins.

"Who drinks Hollands alone, and in a churchyard on such a night as this?"

"Gabriel Grubb! Gabriel Grubb!" exclaimed the wild voices again.

"And who, then, is our lawful prize?" exclaimed the goblin, raising his voice.

The invisible chorus replied, "Gabriel Grubb! Gabriel Grubb!"

"Well, Gabriel, what do you say to this?" said the goblin, as he grinned a broader grin than before.

The sexton gasped for breath.

"What do you think of this, Gabriel?"

"It's – it's very curious, sir, very curious, sir, and very pretty," replied the sexton, half-dead with fright. "But I think I'll go back and finish my work, sir, if you please."

"Work!" said the goblin, "what work?"

"The grave, sir."

"Oh! the grave, eh? Who makes graves at a time when other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?"

Again the voices replied, "Gabriel Grubb! Gabriel Grubb!"

"I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel," said the goblin.

"Under favor, sir," replied the horror-stricken sexton, "I don't think they can; they don't know me, sir; I don't think the gentlemen have ever seen me."

"Oh! yes, they have. We know the man who struck the boy in the envious malice of his heart because the boy could be merry and he could not."

Here the goblin gave a loud, shrill laugh which the echoes returned twenty-fold.

"I – I am afraid I must leave you, sir," said the sexton, making an effort to move.

"Leave us!" said the goblin; "ho! ho! ho!"

As the goblin laughed he suddenly darted toward Gabriel, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth. And when he had had time to fetch his breath he found himself in what appeared to be a large cavern, surrounded on all sides by goblins ugly and grim.

"And now," said the king of the goblins, seated in the centre of the room on an elevated seat – his friend of the churchyard – "show the man of misery and gloom a few of the pictures from our great storehouses."

As the goblin said this a cloud rolled gradually away and disclosed a small and scantily furnished but neat apartment. Little children were gathered round a bright fire, clinging to their mother's gown, or gamboling round her chair. A frugal meal was spread upon the table and an elbow-chair was placed near the fire. Soon the father entered and the children ran to meet him. As he sat down to his meal the mother sat by his side and all seemed happiness and comfort.

"What do you think of that?" said the goblin.

Gabriel murmured something about its being very pretty.

"Show him some more," said the goblin.

Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grubb. He saw that men who worked hard and earned their scanty bread were cheerful and happy. And he came to the conclusion it was a very respectable sort of a world after all. No sooner had he formed it than the cloud closed over the last picture seemed to settle on his senses and lull him to repose. One by one the goblins faded from his sight, and as the last one disappeared he sank to sleep.

The day had broken when he awoke, and found himself lying on the flat gravestone, with the wicker-bottle empty by his side. He got on his feet as well as he could, and brushing the frost off his coat, turned his face toward the town.

But he was an altered man, he had learned lessons of gentleness and good-nature by his strange adventures in the goblin's cavern.

THE SONG OF THE STAR.
BY REV. C. H. MEAD

"Oh, boys; you can count me out on that – all I can get goes to my mother and sisters for Christmas."

The speaker was a manly little newsboy, with good features, a clean face and bright eyes. His clothes looked neat, though they were adorned with numerous patches.

"But see here, Will. Christmas only comes once a year, and why shouldn't we fellers have our banquet as well as the silk-stockings? What would they know about things going on in the world anyway, if we newsboys didn't supply 'em with papers? All in favor of having a banquet, hold up yer hands!"

Up went a score of hands – some dirty, some clean and some speckled, but Will's hand remained down. "See here, Will, what's the reason you won't stay by us?"

The boy hesitated a moment and then said: "Boys, it's mighty close times up at our house; fried chicken and pound cake don't come our way, turkeys roost too high for us, and, and – well, boys, if you must know it, about the only good thing we kids have up there is our mother's love. See these patches! My mother put them on. See these stockings! My mother has been mending this same pair of stockings for more than a year, and she washes and irons them after I've gone to bed at night. Every stitch of mother's needle and thread is a stitch of love, and one night not long ago, I opened my eyes and saw my mother's tears dropping on the sleeve of my coat at the same time she was putting the patch on this elbow. I tell you, boys, the best thing I've got in the world is my mother, and the best Christmas gift I ever had is my mother's love. If I had a million dollars, I'd give them all to my mother in return for her love. No, no, boys; no banquet for me, as long as I know my mother is starving herself that we children may have more to eat."

"Well," replied one of the boys, "if I had a mother like that, maybe I'd feel the same way; but all we get at our house is a good licking from a drunken mother, and I'm going in for a square meal at Christmas, if I never has another."

The boys, gathered on the sidewalk by one of the parks, were suddenly startled by a cry "Look out there!" and the next moment a runaway horse dashed into their midst; little Will was knocked over, and was soon carried into a neighboring drug store, all unconscious of what had happened. It was soon discovered that his arm was broken, and his body bruised in a number of places. The moment he regained consciousness and found what had occurred, he said:

"Take me to my mother; she will take care of me somehow, though this isn't exactly the kind of a Christmas gift I meant she should have. Say, boys, one of you go up to our house, and tell her easy about this; don't burst in sudden and scare her, but tell her it isn't dangerous, and – well, just tell her I love her."

The boys wiped their eyes and one of them said, "This busts up our banquet, fellers; I'll go and tell Will's mother, and, say, fellers, shan't I tell her we will give our banquet money to help her out at Christmas?"

A hearty "You bet we will," was the response, as big Tom sped away to carry the news to Will's mother, while kind hands helped carry the injured boy to his home. It was a poor home into which he was borne, but everything was as neat and tidy as could be. A woman stood at the door, and it needed but one glance to know that she was the mother of Will. Poverty and hunger had failed to rob her of her beauty, and there was an air of refinement about her that told of better days and happier surroundings.

"Christmas hasn't come yet, mother," said Will, "but I have. Don't you worry; I'll come out of this all right, and we will have a good Christmas yet."

The mother kissed him tenderly as she said, "No, I will not worry, so long as I have God, and you, and Josie, and Maggie, and Tot. When Christmas comes round, Will, it will be a good day whatever it brings."

"It will bring yer heaps of things, Mrs. Sandford," blurted out big Tom, "for we fellers has given up havin' a banquet, and are going to bring yer something that Will can't bring now. Don't yer worry a bit," and here the rough fellow burst into tears, and rushed out of the house.

A few more days, and then Christmas Eve came round, and a bright night it was. Will lay sleeping on the bed, his mother near by, pretending to read, but in reality using the dear old Bible as a shield to hide the tears that trickled down her cheeks. The mother was thinking, and thinking fast, too. It was only a little over thirteen years since her father had closed the door in her face and told her never to return. The man she loved was not the fashionable fop her father had selected for her as a husband, and secretly she had given her hand to the man to whom long before she had given her heart. All went well, until three years ago, when her husband died suddenly, and she found herself with no means and four children to take care of. Too proud to apply to her father for help, she struggled on as best she could, leaning hard on the God whom her mother had taught her to love.

Her children were a comfort to her, for they had inherited the natural goodness of both their parents. Her tears now fell fast, for as she thought, she also listened to the voices of her two youngest children who were standing over by the window together.

"Say, Maggie, does yer see dat bright star up dere? I wonder if dat is de star what de shepherds seen! If it is, it seems to be looking right down at us. Maybe Jesus is in dat star, and if He is, He won't forget us, will He?"

And Tot looked at Maggie as the latter said: "Jesus loved little children, Tot, when He was on the earth, and I guess He loves them yet. That's a very bright star – it must be the one that was seen by the shepherds at Bethlehem."

"I think so, too," said Tot, "and may be Josie will hear some of dem 'good tidings' while she is out. Oh! Maggie, Jesus must love mother; she is so good, and I think He has sent that star to tell us to look out for good news."

And where was Josie all this time? The mother thought she had gone into a neighbor's, where she frequently went, and so felt no anxiety.

Out in the streets of the big city, side by side walked plenty and poverty, wealth and wretchedness, happiness and hunger, gladness and grief. Some carried bundles in their arms, while others carried burdens in their hearts. Over all, the good God watched, and down upon all the bright star shone. But what is that? Suddenly on one of the streets the people stopped and listened. On the steps of a stoop leading up to a lighted mansion stood a little girl who looked like a bright angel from heaven. Far above, overhead, shone the bright star that Maggie and Tot had seen; it was their star and it was her star, for Josie, too, had discovered it, and somehow felt that the star that had brought "good tidings of great joy" to the shepherds on Bethlehem's plains, had come again and to bring once more "good tidings." She had mounted the steps to get nearer the star, and then all unconscious of the people, in a rich, sweet voice, she sang: —

 
I think, when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men;
How He called little children, as lambs to His fold;
I should like to have been with Him then.
 
 
I wish that His hands had been placed on my head,
That His arms had been thrown around me;
That I might have seen His kind look, when He said,
"Let the little ones come unto Me."
 

As she sang, her gaze was fixed on the star, and even her hands were lifted toward it. The people looked at her; an angel had appeared in their midst – her face, her voice, her upturned eyes, her uplifted hands, held them spell-bound, until some one looking up in the direction she pointed, cried out: "See that star!" Heavenward went the gaze of the multitude, and once more there seemed to come to them a voice, saying: "Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." The face of Josie was illumined and even the multitude that had gathered, failed to alarm her. The star with its "good tidings" was over her head and in her heart as well. "Who are you, my child?" said a gentleman who had come up on the steps where she stood. "Please, sir, I am Josie Sandford." The gentleman gave a start and said, "Sandford, Josie Sandford? Pray where do you live, Josie?" She told him, and in response to other questions, told of mother, brother and sisters.

"Oh, sir; do you see the star? I am sure it has some 'good tidings' for us at our house, and I must hurry home and tell mother all about it. Good-bye."

Away sped the child until she reached her home, and then entering the room quietly, she went up to her mother and said: "Have you seen the star, mother?" Maggie and Tot cried out, "We've seen it; come, mother, and look quick." The mother went quietly to the window, and there beheld a star of wonderful brightness, and as she gazed, her face took on a new light and into her heart came a great peace. The sleeping boy was awakened by the voices, and he, too, made his way to the window and looked at the star. "At evening time it shall be light."

It had come, and – something else had come, too, for steps were heard on the stairs, followed by a knock on the door, on opening which, in came a company of newsboys headed by big Tom. They bore bundles and baskets, provisions and poultry, sunshine and sugar, toys and turnips, good-will and grapes, cheer and celery, and things that no one but those who had lacked for them, would ever have thought of. Big Tom was the spokesman for the happy company.

"If yer please, Mrs. Sandford," he said, "there's our banquet. We wasn't going to come until to-morrow morning, but when we got the things all together, we just couldn't wait any longer, so we've brought 'em to-night, and if it isn't too soon, ma'am, we wishes you, and Will, and Josie, and Maggie, and Tot a 'Merry Christmas,' doesn't we, boys?"

"Indeed we does!" responded the boys. The faces of that mother and her children were a sight to behold. Smiles and tears greeted the boys, and the mother and her three girls had a kiss for each of them. Then Tot said: "I knowed it. I knowed it! De star had Jesus in it, and I knowed He see Maggie and me looking up at it."

"Well, boys," said Mrs. Sandford, "you shall have your banquet, for I want you all to take Christmas dinner with us to-morrow."

"Yes, boys, you shall all take dinner with Mrs. Sandford and her children to-morrow, but it must be at the home of her parents and not here," said a gentleman who had not been noticed as he stood in the hallway.

Mrs. Sandford started as the owner of the voice entered the room, and little Josie sprang toward him at the same moment. She resembled her mother and was her namesake as well. The gentleman stretched out his arms toward Mrs. Sandford as he said to her:

"Josie, can you forgive me for the harshness with which I drove you years ago from my door? God only knows how I have suffered, and for years I have hunted high and low for you, and have advertised time and again. But all was in vain, until to-night I saw your face and heard your voice once more, as my grandchild, Josie, stood singing on the steps and gazing at the star. In her I found you again, and oh, how your mother and I have prayed for this time to come."

Long before he had finished, the daughter was in her father's arms once more, and the children were clinging to their new-found grandparent. The newsboys looked on in wonder, and suddenly little Tot ran to the window and then cried out – "Oh, grandpa, the star is here yet, and it shines brighter than before," and she threw a kiss up to the star.

Christmas morning came and found them all in a home of plenty. A chair that had long stood vacant at that table, was once more filled, and near it were four other chairs for the new-found grand-children. Was it a "Merry Christmas," did you inquire? Just ask those newsboys who came at two o'clock if they ever had such a banquet before or since, or whether they ever saw a home in which the "Star of Bethlehem" shone with greater splendor. And over the earth the star still shines, and will continue to shine until all mankind shall yet have a "Merry Christmas."

INDIAN PETE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT.
BY HERBERT W. COLLINGWOOD

The moon was just peeping over the pines as Pete Shivershee slunk down the road from the lumber camp into the forest. Pete did not present a surpassingly dignified appearance as he skulked through the clearing, but he was not a very dignified person even at his best.

Most persons would have said, I think, that Pete's method of departure was hardly appropriate for one who had been selected by the citizens of Carter's Camp to go on an important mission. But Pete had his own reasons for his actions. He crept along behind the stumps and logs till he reached the forest. Then, as if the shadow gave him fresh courage and dignity, he drew himself upright, and started at a sharp trot down the road toward the village.

We have said that Pete had reasons for his conduct. They were good ones. In the first place, he was an Indian. Not a "noble son of the forest," such as Cooper loved to picture, but a mean, dirty, yellow-faced "Injun." Lazy and worthless, picking up a living about the lumber camps, working as little as he could, and eating and drinking as much as possible: such was the messenger. The mission was worse yet.

It was Christmas Eve. The snow covered the ground, and the ice had stilled for the time the mouth of the roaring river. It was Saturday night as well; and for some time past the lumbermen had been considering the advisability of keeping the good old holiday with some form of celebration suited to the occasion.

The citizens of Carter's Camp were not remarkably fastidious. They knew but one form of celebration, and they had no thought of hunting out new ones. The one thing needful to make a celebration completely successful was – liquor. This they must have in order to do justice to the day.

The temperance laws of Carter's were very strict. Not that the moral sentiment of the place was particularly high, but it had been noticed that the amounts of labor and whisky were in inverse proportion. The more whisky, the less labor. It was a pure question of political economy. The foreman had often stated that he would prosecute to the fullest extent of the law the first man caught bringing whisky into camp. The foreman did not attempt, perhaps, to deny that his knowledge of the law was somewhat crude. He had forcibly stated, however, that should a case be brought before him, he would himself act as judge and jury, while his fist and foot would take the place of witness and counsel. There was something so terrible in this statement, coming as it did from the largest man in camp, that very little whisky had thus far been brought in.

Christmas had come, and the drinking element in Carter's Camp proposed that Pete Shivershee – the "Injun" – be sent to town for a quantity of the liquid poison, that the drinkers might "enjoy" themselves.

Bill Gammon found Pete curled up by the stove. He took him out of doors and explained the business in hand. Bill prided himself somewhat on his ability to "git work out of Injuns." Pete muttered only "all right." He took the money Bill gave him, and then slunk away down the road for the forest, as we have seen him.

* * * * *

Bill felt so confident of the success of his experiment that he did not hesitate to inform the boys that Pete was "dead sure" to return. He would stake his reputation upon it.

Pete was in a hard position. If he loved anything in this world, it was whisky. If there was anything he feared, it was Bill's fist. The two were sure to go together. The money jingling in his pocket suggested unlimited pleasures, but over every one hung Bill's hard fist. He ran several miles through the forest, till, turning a corner of the road, he came upon a little clearing, in which stood a small log house. Pete knew the place well. Here lived Jeff Hunt with his wife, a French woman, and their troop of children.

Jeff was a person of little importance by the side of his wife, though, like all "lords of creation," he considered himself the legal and proper head of the family, as well as one of the mainstays of society. His part of the family government consisted, for the most part, in keeping the house supplied with wood and water, and in smoking his comfortable pipe in the corner, while his wife bent over her tub.

Mrs. Hunt was the only woman near the camp, and so all the laundry work fell to her. Laundry work in the pine woods implies mending and darning, as well as washing and ironing, and the poor little woman had her hands full of work surely. It was rub, rub, rub, day after day, over the steaming tub, with the children running about like little wolves, and Jeff kindly giving his advice from his comfortable corner. And even after the children were in bed at night, she must sit up and mend the clean clothes.

What a pack of children there were! How rough and strong they seemed, running about all day, all but poor little Marie, the oldest. She had never been strong, and now at last she was dying of consumption. She could not sit up at all, but lay all day on the little bed in the corner, watching her mother with sad, beautiful eyes.

The brave little Frenchwoman's heart almost failed her at times, as she saw how day by day the little form grew thinner, the eyes more beautiful, the cheeks more flushed. She knew the signs too well, but there was nothing she could do.

Pete was a regular visitor at Jeff's and always a welcome one. His work was to carry the washing to and from camp. He came nearer to feeling like a man at Jeff's house than at any other place he knew of. Everyone but Mrs. Hunt and little Marie called him only "Injun," but they always said "Mr. Shivershee." The "Meester Shivershee" of the little Frenchwoman was the nearest claim to respectability that Pete felt able to make. One night while carrying home the clothes, he dropped them in the mud. He never minded the whipping Bill Gammon gave him half as much as he did poor Mrs. Hunt's tears, to think how her work had gone for nothing.

As Pete came trotting down the road, Jeff stood in front of his house chopping stove-wood from a great log. A lantern, hung on a stump, provided light for his purpose. Pete stopped from sheer force of habit in front of the house, and Jeff, glad of any chance to interrupt his work, paused to talk with him.

"Walk in, Injun," said Jeff, hospitably. "Yer clo'es ain't quite ready, but the woman will hev 'em all up soon – walk in."

It suddenly came over Pete that this was his night for taking the clothes home, but his present errand was of far more importance than mere laundry work.

"Me no stop. I goin' ter town. Great work. Large bizness." By which vague hints he meant no doubt to impress Jeff with a sense of the dignity of his mission, and yet cunningly to keep its object concealed.

"Goin' to town, be ye? Great doin's ter camp ter-morrer, I s'pose. I'll be round ef I kin git away, but walk in, Injun, an' git yer supper, an' see the wimmin," and Jeff opened the door for Pete to pass in.

The thought of supper was too much for Pete and he slunk in after Jeff and stood in the corner by the door. The room was hardly an inviting one, and yet if Pete had been a white man some thoughts of "home, sweet home," must have passed through his mind. But he was only a despised "Injun."

A rough board table was laid for supper at one side of the room. In the corner little Marie lay with the firelight falling over her poor thin face. Pete must have felt, as he looked at her, like some hopeless convict gazing through his prison bars upon some fair saint passing before him. She seemed to be in another world than his; there seemed between them a gulf that could not be bridged. Three of the larger children were sobbing in the corner, while the rest formed a sorrowful group about an old box in which were two or three simple plants frozen and yellow. Mrs. Hunt was frying pork over the hot stove. As she looked up at Pete, he noticed that she had been crying.

Jeff was the very prince of hosts. He made haste to make Pete feel at home.

"Set by, Injun. So the boys is goin' ter kinder cellybrate ter-morrer, be they?"

But Pete felt that his mission must not be disclosed. "What matter is with kids?" he asked, to change the subject.

"Oh, they're jest a-yellin' about them flowers," explained Jeff. "Ye see they hev been a-trainin' some posies indoors against ter-morrer, ye know. Ter-morrer's Christmas, ye see, an' them kids they hed an idee they'd hev some flowers fer ter dekerate thet corner where the little gal is. Little gals, when they ain't well, like sech things, ye know."

Pete nodded. He was not aware of this love of diminutive females, but it would not show very good breeding to appear ignorant.

"Wall, ye see," continued Jeff, "they kep the flowers away from the little gal, meanin' ter s'prise her like. But jest this afternoon they gut ketched by the frost, an' now there they be stiffer'n stakes. It is kinder bad, ain't it – 'specially ez it's Christmas, too?"

"What Crissmus?" put in Pete.

"Oh, Christmas? Wall, it's a sorter day like. It's somethin' like other days, an' yet it ain't. But then, Injun, I don't s'pose ye would understand ef I wuz ter tell ye." And Jeff concealed his own ignorance, as many wiser and better men have done, by assuming a tone too lofty for his audience.

But Mrs. Hunt could explain, even if Jeff could not. She paused on the way to the stove with a dish of pork in her hand.

"It eez the day of the good Lord, Meester Shivershee. It eez the day when the good Lord He was born, and when all people should be glad." But the little woman belied her own creed as she thought of little Marie and the dead flowers.

I hardly think Pete gained a very clear idea of the day, even from Mrs. Hunt's explanation. It was, I fear, all Greek to him.

"What flowers fer?" he asked, as, in response to Jeff's polite invitation, he "sat by" and began supper.

"Wall, it's a sorter idee of the wimmin," explained Jeff. "Looks kinder pooty to see flowers round; ye see, kinder slicks up a room like. All these things hez ter come inter keepin' house, ye see, Injun." With which broad explanation Jeff helped himself to a piece of pork.

But Mrs. Hunt was bound to explain too. Her explanation was certainly more poetic.

"It eez the way we show our love for the good Lord, Meester Shivershee. What is more beautiful than the flowers? We take the flowers, and with much love we place them upon the walls, and we make others happy with them, and the good Lord, who loves us all, He is pleased," – but here, seeing the sobbing children and the frozen plants, she could not help wiping her eyes upon her apron.

The little sufferer on the bed saw this action. Her voice was almost gone. "Never mind, mamma," she whispered; but the beautiful eyes were filled with tears, for she knew that mamma would mind – that she could not help it.

Pete listened to all this attentively. "Injun" that he was, of course he could not understand it all, and yet he could hardly help seeing something of the sorrow that the loss of the flowers had brought upon the family. He finished his supper, and then slunk out at the door again. Jeff followed him out.

"Little gal ever git well?" asked Pete.

"No; I don't s'pose she will," answered Jeff. "There ain't no hopes held out fer her. Makes it kinder bad, ye see. Nice, clever little gal as ever lived, too. Stop in an' git yer clo'es when ye come back, will ye?"

"All right," muttered Pete, as he trotted away toward the town.