“I want you for a friend always.  If you can stand it, I would like my story to be a part of yours.  If you say so, we’ll stick to the same boat and pole her over the shoals and carry her across the bends and see if we can get to good going in deep water.  When the channel will permit, we can put in a steam engine.’

“We love this big awkward giant.  His feet are set in the straight way and we think that he is going to make his mark in the world.

“When I went to sleep he lay in the trundle bed, with two candles burning on the stand beside him, reading that big green book of mine entitled The Works of William Shakespeare.  He had brought a law book with him, but he got interested in William Shakespeare and couldn’t let it alone.  He said that he was like a mired horse whenever he began to read a play of the immortal bard, and that he had to take his time in getting out.  When he went away next morning he borrowed Samson’s pack basket.  I felt bad because we couldn’t go and make any arrangements with Santa Claus for the children.  Joe was dreadfully worried, for Betsey had told him that Santa Claus never came to children whose father and mother were sick.  Christmas Eve Abe came with the pack basket chock-full of good things after the children were asleep.  He took out a turkey and knit caps and mittens and packages of candy and raisins for the children and some cloth for a new dress for me.  Mrs. Kelso had come to spend the night with us, although Samson and I were so much better it really wasn’t necessary.  I made her go up the ladder to bed before midnight.  That evening a short, fat Santa Claus came in with a loaded pack.  He had a long, brown beard and a red nose and carried a new clay pipe in his mouth and was very much bundled up.

“We called the children.  They stood looking at Santa Claus, and Santa Claus stood looking at them.  He gave them mufflers and some candy hearts and tried to pick them up.  They ran away and he chased them under our bed and got hold of Joe’s foot and tried to pull him out, and Joe hollored like a painter, and Santa Claus dropped his pipe and sat down on the floor and began laughing.  I saw it was Bim Kelso.  Abe left with her, and I suppose they went back to the village and around in a regular Santa Claus spree.

“Mrs. Kelso said that she had been making a beard of pieces of buffalo skin and fitting up an old suit of her father’s clothes that afternoon.  I wonder what she’ll do next.  It’s terrible to be so much in love and not quite seventeen.  Harry is as bad as she is.  I wish they had been a little older before they met.

“Joe said yesterday that he was going back to Vergennes.

“‘How are you going to get there?’ I asked.

“‘Abe’s going to make me a pair o’ wings, and I’m going to smash right up through the sky and go awa-a-y off to Vergennes and play with Ben and Lizzie Tyler.  Abe says there ain’t no bad roads up there.’