Miss Doc had carefully piled the presents in a tidy pyramid against the wall, in the corner designated, after which she had covered the pile with a sheet.  This sheet came off in a hurry.  The pup filled his mouth with a yard of the white material, and, growling in joy, shook it madly and raced away with it streaming in his wake.  Miss Doc and Mrs. Stowe gave chase immediately.  Tintoretto tripped at once, but even when the women had caught the sheet in their hands he hung on prodigiously, and shook the thing, and growled and braced his weight against their strength, to the uncontainable delight of all the little Stowe contingent.

Then they fell on the presents, to which they conveyed little Carson, in the intimate way of hugging in transit that only small mothers-to-be have ever been known to develop.

“Oh, papa, look at the funny old bottle!” said Susie, taking up one of the “sort of kaliderscopes” in her hand.

“Papa, mamma, look!” added Rachie.

“Papa—­yook!” piped Ellie, as before, laying violent hands of possession on the toy.

“You can have it,” said Susie; “I’m goin’ to have the red wagon.”

“Oh, papa, look at the pretty red wagon!”, said Rachie, dropping another of the kaleidoscopes with commendable promptness.

“Me!—­yed yaggon!” cried Ellie.

“Children, children!” said the preacher, secretly amused and entertained.  “Don’t you know the presents all belong to little Carson?”

“Well, we didn’t get anything but mittens and caps,” said Rachie, in the baldest of candor.

“Go ahead and enjoy the things,” instructed Jim.  “Skeezucks, do you want the little girls to play with all the things?”

The little fellow nodded.  He was happier far than ever he had been in all his life.

“But they ought to play with one thing at a time, and not drop one after another,” said the mild Mrs. Stowe, blushing girlishly.

“I like to see them practise at changin’ their minds,” drawled the miner, philosophically.  “I’d be afraid of a little gal that didn’t begin to show the symptoms.”

But all three of the bright-eyed embryos of motherhood had united on a plan.  They sat the grave little Carson in the red-painted wagon, with his doll held tightly to his heart, and began to haul him about.

Tintoretto, who had dragged off an alphabetical block, was engrossed in the task of eating off and absorbing the paint and elements of education, with a gusto that savored of something that might and might not have been ambition.  He abandoned this at once, however, to race beside or behind or before the wagon, and to help in the pulling by laying hold of any of the children’s dresses that came most readily within reach of his jaws.

The ride became a romp, for the pup was barking, the wheels were creaking, and the three small girls were crying out and laughing at the tops of their voices.  They drew their royal coach through every room in the house—­which rooms were five in number—­and then began anew.