enough.  But in this December air, now, her still rounded cheek grew red, her breast heaved, her eyes sparkled, glad as a child would be, simply because it was cold and Christmas was coming; while the child Jem, with his tougher, less sappy animal nature, jogged gravely beside her, head and eyes down.  As for her every-day life, nobody’s fires burned, nobody’s windows shone like Martha Yarrow’s; not a pound of butter went to market with the creamy, clovery taste her fingers worked into hers.  She put a flavor, an elastic spring, into every bit of work she did, making it play.  The very nervousness of the woman, her sudden fits of laughter and tears, impressed you as the effervescence of a zest of life which began at her birth.  Nobody ever got to the end, or expected to get to the end, of her stories and scraps of old songs.  Then, every day some new plan, keeping the whole house awake and alive:  when Tom’s birthday came, a surprise-feast of raspberries and cake; when Jem’s new trousers were produced, they had been made up over-night, a dead secret, ten shining dimes in the pocket, fresh from the mint; even the penny string of blue beads for Catty, bought of Sims the peddler, was hid under her plate, and made quite a jollification of that supper.  You may be sure, the five years just gone in that house had been short and merry and cozy enough for the children.  Before that—­Here Jem’s memory flagged:  he had been a baby then; Catty just born; yet, somehow, he never thought of that unknown time without the furtive, keen glance into his mother’s face, and a frightened choking in the heart under his puny chest.  Somewhere, back yonder, or in the years coming, some vague horror waited for him to fight.  To-night, (always at Christmas, although then the glow and comfort of all days reached its heat,) this unaccountable dread was on the boy; why, he never knew.  It might be that under the hurry and preparation of Martha Yarrow on that day some deeper meaning did lie, which his instinct had discerned:  more probably, however, it was but the sickly vagary of a child grown old too fast.

They hurried along the path now to reach the house and shut the night outside, for every moment the cold and dark were growing heavier; the snow rasping under their feet, as its crust cracked; overhead, the sky-air frozen thin and gray, holding dead a low, watery half-moon; now and then a more earthy, thicker gust breaking sharply round the hill, taking their breath.  It was only a step, however, and Tom was holding the house-door open, letting a ruddy light stream out, and with it a savory smell of supper.  Tom halloed, and that blue-eyed pudge of a Catty pounded on the window with her fat little fist.  How hot the fire glowed!  Somehow all Christmas seemed waiting in there.  It was time to hurry along.  Even Ready came out, shaking his shaggy old sides impatiently in the snow, and began to dog them, snapping at Jem’s heels.  Like most old people, he liked his ease, and was apt to be out of sorts, if meals were kept waiting.  Ready’s whims always made Martha laugh as she did when she was a young girl:  they knew each other then, long before Jem was born.