Chapter 2 BUSY DAYS.

Mary was watching at the library window when Gene returned from her shopping trip with her arms filled with packages-long ones, square ones, round ones, flat ones. The little girl's eyes shone with an eager light as she helped to carry them upstairs. She clapped her hands and danced about the room as Gene opened one after another.

There were rolls of crepe paper; bolts of narrow ribbon, green, red, and white with tiny sprays of holly; a big sheet of dark green cardboard; another of blotting paper; spools of coarse silk; a package of calendar pads; and a box of outline pictures ready to be colored with paints or crayolas.

"I think these will be just the thing for the calendars, Mary. You can color them, and we shall mount them on this dark green cardboard and paste one of these tiny calendars under each. You may either use ribbon to hang them by or crochet a cord of this silk. I knew that you would not wish to send your father and mother each a calendar, so I thought we could make a blotter for your mother and use one of these long, narrow pictures for the cover."

"Gene, you are just wonderful for thinking up things! I didn't know what in the world to make for Mother. Do you know of anything for Aunt Mandy?"

"I can show you an easy way to make a whisk broom holder."

"That will be just the thing, Gene! Dear, me! These pictures are all so pretty that I don't know which to choose for Father's calendar. Let us make his present first. Here is a snow scene. I shall paint that. It is so warm in Italy that Father will be glad to have something cool-looking hanging over his desk. If we have time to make them, I think I shall send Father and Mother each a calendar and a blotter. Father can take his to his office, you know."

Together they worked and chatted until dusk, when Mary had two pictures colored, and Gene had everything ready for the next day's work.

"Letters! Letters!" called the Doctor from the foot of the stairs.

"Why, Gene! I never thought of the postman this afternoon. I was so busy." And Mary ran down to hear the first real news of her dear ones.

"Oh, what lovely fat letters, Uncle!"

"Yes, indeed. This one from your father is in the form of a diary. He wrote a little every day and mailed it on the steamer before it reached Queenstown, as I told you he would do."

The little girl listened breathlessly to every word of those two letters, and her eyes filled with tears when she heard all the loving messages which they contained.

"By this time they have that fine, long letter we wrote them ten days ago. That was a nice little surprise for them, because they wouldn't expect us to write until we had heard from them. So we are one ahead on surprises."

"But Father s'prised us with the cablegram from Liverpool, Uncle."

"So he did. Well, we are quits at any rate."

After dinner, Mary proposed that they spend the evening before the fire in the sitting-room. The Doctor saw that Gene hesitated and asked kindly, "Won't you join us?"

"You see so little of each other, Doctor, that I think you should have this time together every evening."

"But we would like to have you with us, too, Gene," urged Mary.

"Perhaps I shall join you later, dearie. I really ought to write to my mother this evening. It will make her very happy to know that I have at last found a little sister."

During the week that followed, a busier little girl than Mary could scarcely have been found in New York City. So well did she work that she was able to finish not only two blotters, two calendars, the horse reins and the whisk broom holder, but also a little card for Tom, Aunt Mandy's grandson, whom Mr. Selwyn had taken with him to Italy. A whole evening was spent in carefully wrapping each gift in white tissue paper, tying it with bright ribbon, and sealing it in every possible place with heads of jolly old Santa Claus.

Among the many gifts which the Doctor had brought home during the week were the following: For Mr. Selwyn, a large, framed photograph of Mary, an enlarged copy of a kodak picture which he had taken of her after her parents had gone away; for his sister, a beautiful black lace mantilla which, as he explained to the little girl, her mother would wear on her head when she had an audience with the Pope; for the babies, tiny gold chains and miraculous medals. Nor had he forgotten Aunt Mandy and Tom. The table in the playroom was scarcely large enough to hold all the gay-looking packages; and they were just about to carry them down stairs to pack them in the strong, wooden box in the lower hall when who should appear in the doorway but the two servants-Liza with a big plum pudding decked with sprays of holly, and old Susie with an immense fruit cake.

"We 'lowed dey wouldn't see nuffin lak dis yeah obah yondah in dat savage land whah dey's done gone to, nohow, Massa Frank," chuckled the old cook. "What yo' spects dem Eyetalians knows 'bout fruit cake an' plum puddin', huh?"

"They certainly know nothing about the kind you make, Susie, or we would have them all inviting themselves to our Christmas dinner."

"I'se got a few t'ings what I made ma own self, Massa Frank, ef'n yo' reckons dey'll be room fo' dem in dat box."

"We shall find room for them, Liza, or get a larger box. Bring them along."

At last the box was packed; and as the Doctor reached for the hammer to nail down the cover, Mary caught his hand in both of hers and held it to her cheek while she murmured wistfully, "Wouldn't it be lovely if we could pack ourselves in the box and go, too, Uncle?"

"I, for one, strongly object to traveling in a packing box, little one; and I think you would be begging to be taken out after the express man had bumped you down the front steps. Never mind. A box will arrive from Italy one of these fine days, and we shall have a great time opening it. If it should come while I am not here, no fair peeping!"

"As if I would, Uncle!"

The next morning, Mary began a calendar for her uncle.

"I don't have to hurry with anything now, Gene, even with Aunt Mary's gift. We always take her presents to her Christmas afternoon."

But the little girl was puzzled about a gift for Gene herself. The Doctor would not allow her to use her eyes at night, because they had been weakened by her long illness; and she could think of no excuse for locking herself in her room while she made the present she had in mind. At last one evening at dinner, her uncle solved the question for her by asking: "Gene, will you kindly look over Mary's wardrobe and see what she will need in the way of new frocks, shoes, and so on? I fear that I shall have to ask you to do some shopping for her before she will be ready for the trip South. I have never tried to buy so much as a pair of shoes for a young lady."

"Indeed, Doctor, I shall be only too glad to select anything she needs." For Gene, like all girls, loved to shop, especially when every penny did not have to be counted twice before it was spent.

Mary clapped her hands and laughed so gleefully that the Doctor looked at her in surprise. "Hm! There is mischief in your eye, young lady. We may look out for something, Gene, on the day you go shopping."

A little later when alone with Mary, he drew a letter from his pocket. "I had a few lines from Aunt Mary to-day, and this little note for you came in the same envelope. Shall I read it to you?"

"Please, Uncle. Writing is so hard for me to read. Big people write such a funny way. They make points instead of curves at the top and bottom of m's, n's, and u's, so that I can hardly tell which is which."

"Yes, we grown-ups should be more careful when writing to little folks. Now, let us see what Aunt Mary has to say: 'My dear Mary, Mother Johanna is so very busy these days that she has asked me to write this little note for her and invite you to spend Christmas with us at Maryvale. Your little friends are all around me telling me what to say to you. They wish you to come out Friday morning, for they have many, many things to do to aid Santa Claus, and they know what a great help you will be to them. Eight of them will spend the holidays here, so you will have plenty of company. Do not disappoint us. Your loving Aunt Mary.' Well, what do you think of that?"

"It is just lovely for Mother Johanna to invite me, Uncle; but, of course, I won't go."

"And why not, pray tell me?"

"Go to Maryvale and leave you alone for Christmas!"

"But I do not intend to be left alone. I, too, am invited. Aunt Mary tells me that Father Hartley, the chaplain, will be happy to have me spend a few nights at his cottage, and I am looking forward to a very good time indeed."

"But--but, Uncle,--oh, it will be bad enough not to have Father and Mother and the babies home for Christmas, but if I have to be away from you, too--"

"You do not understand, dear. I shall be with you during the day-at meals and all-and in the evening until bedtime. Indeed, you will see far more of me than if we remain at home."

"But--but we won't be in the same house at night. Father Hartley's cottage is as far from the convent as--as--"

"Why, pet, it is right on the convent grounds, not more than two hundred yards away."

"But you can't come when I am asleep and kiss me good-night."

"Whatever put such an idea into your head? So you think I go prowling about the house at night at the risk of waking you and having you think I am a burglar?"

"If you don't come, Uncle, I must dream that you do; but it seems very strange that I should have the same dream every night at the same time."

"If you are asleep, how do you know the time?"

"W--ell, I must wake up a little, for I hear the big clock at the foot of the stairs strike ten just after you have gone."

"Just after I have gone! So you take it for granted that I do go into your room every night, eh? then why not prove it? At Maryvale, I can not possibly go to you at ten o'clock at night." The Doctor was more than anxious that the little girl should accept the invitation, for he well knew how very lonely this Christmas would be for her at home. "I was so sure that you would like to go, that I have made plans for a jolly time. One of them is that we shall send that big, old-fashioned sleigh, which has stood in the barn for years, out to Maryvale, and I shall take you and your little friends for a sleigh ride every day. Perhaps Aunt Mary and some of the Sisters could go with you. And then we could help Santa Claus in regard to the tree and some gifts for those little girls who do not go home for Christmas. If we do go, Gene will be able to spend Christmas at her own home. Don't you think you had better sleep over it, Goldilocks, before sending your regrets to Mother Johanna? You might change your mind when it is too late."

But the thought of making the holidays happier for the little girls who could not go home and, more than all, for Gene, was quite enough to win Mary over to her uncle's view of the matter.

"I have already changed my mind, Uncle. We won't send our regrets."