As the surrey swept even with the sidetracked tramp, the bright-eyed girl, seized by some merry, madcap impulse, leaned out toward him with a sweet, dazzling smile, and cried, “Mer-ry Christ-mas!” in a shrill, plaintive treble.

Such a thing had not often happened to Whistling Dick, and he felt handicapped in devising the correct response.  But lacking time for reflection, he let his instinct decide, and snatching off his battered derby, he rapidly extended it at arm’s length, and drew it back with a continuous motion, and shouted a loud, but ceremonious, “Ah, there!” after the flying surrey.

The sudden movement of the girl had caused one of the parcels to become unwrapped, and something limp and black fell from it into the road.  The tramp picked it up, and found it to be a new black silk stocking, long and fine and slender.  It crunched crisply, and yet with a luxurious softness, between his fingers.

“Ther bloomin’ little skeezicks!” said Whistling Dick, with a broad grin bisecting his freckled face.  “W’ot d’ yer think of dat, now!  Mer-ry Chris-mus!  Sounded like a cuckoo clock, da’ts what she did.  Dem guys is swells, too, bet yer life, an’ der old ’un stacks dem sacks of dough down under his trotters like dey was common as dried apples.  Been shoppin’ for Chrismus, and de kid’s lost one of her new socks w’ot she was goin’ to hold up Santy wid.  De bloomin’ little skeezicks!  Wit’ her ‘Mer-ry Chris-mus!’ W’ot d’ yer t’ink!  Same as to say, ‘Hello, Jack, how goes it?’ and as swell as Fift’ Av’noo, and as easy as a blowout in Cincinnat.”

Whistling Dick folded the stocking carefully, and stuffed it into his pocket.

It was nearly two hours later when he came upon signs of habitation.  The buildings of an extensive plantation were brought into view by a turn in the road.  He easily selected the planter’s residence in a large square building with two wings, with numerous good-sized, well-lighted windows, and broad verandas running around its full extent.  It was set upon a smooth lawn, which was faintly lit by the far-reaching rays of the lamps within.  A noble grove surrounded it, and old-fashioned shrubbery grew thickly about the walks and fences.  The quarters of the hands and the mill buildings were situated at a distance in the rear.

The road was now enclosed on each side by a fence, and presently, as Whistling Dick drew nearer the house, he suddenly stopped and sniffed the air.

“If dere ain’t a hobo stew cookin’ somewhere in dis immediate precinct,” he said to himself, “me nose has quit tellin’ de trut’.”

Without hesitation he climbed the fence to windward.  He found himself in an apparently disused lot, where piles of old bricks were stacked, and rejected, decaying lumber.  In a corner he saw the faint glow of a fire that had become little more than a bed of living coals, and he thought he could see some dim human forms sitting or lying about it.  He drew nearer, and by the light of a little blaze that suddenly flared up he saw plainly the fat figure of a ragged man in an old brown sweater and cap.