Adam thought he had won a victory.  “Ef you’d heard me flabbergast the parson!” he used to say, with a jealous anxiety to keep Christ out of the visible Church, to shut his eyes to the true purity in it, to the fact that the Physician was in His hospital.  To-night some more infinite gospel had touched him.  “Good evenin’, Mr. Pitts,” he said, meeting the Baptist preacher.  “Happy Christmas, Sir!” catching a glance of his broken boots.  “Danged ef I don’t send that feller a pair of shoes unbeknownst, to-morrow!  He’s workin’ hard, an’ it’s not for money.”

The great Peace held even its erring Church, as Adam dully saw.  The streets were darkening, but full even yet of children crowding in and out of the shops.  Not a child among them was more busy or important, or keener for a laugh than Adam, with his basket on his arm and his hand in his pocket clutching the money he had to lay out.  The way he had worked for that!  Over-jobs, you know, done at night when Jinny and the baby were asleep.  It was carrying him through splendidly, though:  the basket was quite piled up with bundles:  as for the turkey, hadn’t he been keeping that in the back-yard for weeks, stuffing it until it hardly could walk?  That turkey, do you know, was the first thing Baby ever took any notice of, except the candle?  Jinny was quite opposed to killing it, for that reason, and proposed they should have ducks instead; but as old Jim Farley and Granny Simpson were invited for dinner, and had been told about the turkey, matters must stay as they were.

“Poor souls, they’ll not taste turkey agin this many a day, I’m thinkin’, Janet.  When we give an entertainment, it’s allus them-like we’ll ask.  That’s the Master’s biddin’, ye know.”

But the pudding was yet to buy.  He had a dirty scrap of paper on which Jinny had written down the amount.  “The hand that woman writes!” He inspected it anxiously at every street-lamp.  Did you ever see anything finer than that tongue, full of its rich brown juices and golden fat? or the white, crumbly suet?  Jinny said veal:  such a saving little body she was! but we know what a pudding ought to be.  Now for the pippins for it, yellow they are, holding summer yet; and a few drops of that brandy in the window, every drop shining and warm:  that’ll put a soul into it, and—­He stopped before the confectioner’s:  just a moment, to collect himself; for this was the crowning point, this.  There they were, in the great, gleaming window below:  the rich Malaga raisins, bedded in their cases, cold to the lips, but within all glowing sweetness and passion; and the cool, tart little currants.  If Jinny could see that window! and Baby.  To be sure, Baby mightn’t appreciate it, but—­White frosted cakes, built up like fairy palaces, and mountains of golden oranges, and the light trembling through delicate candies, purple and rose-color.  “Let’s have a look, boys!”—­and Adam crowded into the swarm outside.