This Christmas was going to be different. So far as Mr. and Mrs. Bugbee were concerned the Christmas before had been a total failure, disillusioning, disappointing, fraught with heart-burnings. But this coming one—well, just let everybody wait and see. They’d show them.

“It’s going to be so dog-goned different you’d be surprised!” said Mr. Bugbee. He said it after the plan had taken on shape and substance and, so saying, raised a hand in the manner of a man who plights a solemn troth.

But first the plan had to be born. It was born on a day in October when Mr. Bugbee came into the living-room of their light-housekeeping apartment on West Ninth Street just around the corner from Washington Square. The living-room was done in Early Byzantine or something—a connoisseur would know, probably—and Mrs. Bugbee was dressed to match the furnishings. She was pretty, though. Her friends said she reminded them of a Pre-Raphaelite Madonna, which either was or was not a compliment dependent on what privately the speaker thought about the Pre-Raphaelite school. Still, most of her friends liked it, being themselves expertly artistic. She had the tea things out—the hammered Russian set. This was her customary afternoon for receiving and presently there would be people dropping in. She lifted her nose and sniffed.

“Whew!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been? You smell like a rancid peppermint lozenge.”

“Been down in the storeroom in the basement getting out my winter suits,” he said. “Messy job. I broke up a party.”

“Whose?” she asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Moth were celebrating their woolen wedding,” he explained. “They furnished the guests and I did the catering. You ought to see that heavy sweater of mine. It’s not heavy any more. I’m going to write a chapter to be added to that sterling work ‘Advice to an Expectant Moth-er.’”

“Oh dear!” she said. “That’s the trouble with living in one of these old converted houses.”

“This one has backslid,” he interjected. “Insectivorous, I call it. There were enough roaches down there to last a reasonable frugal roach-collector for at least five years. Any entomologist could have enjoyed himself for a week just classifying species.”

“And I fairly saturated your clothes with that spraying stuff before I packed them away,” she lamented. “And as for camphor balls—well, if I used up one camphor ball I used ten pounds.”

“You must have been a poor marksman. So far as I can judge you never hit a single one of ’em. And so all summer, while we flitted from place to place, gay butterflies of fashion that we are, they’ve been down there intent on family duties, multiplying and replenishing my flannel underwear, as the Scriptures so aptly put it. Devoted little creatures, moths! They have their faults but they have their domestic virtues, too. I wish they didn’t have so much of my golf sweater. It looked like drawn-work.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Gave it back to them. All or none—that’s my motto. But I piled the rest of the duds on my bed. By prompt relief work much of it may be salvaged.”

“Then for heaven’s sake close the door before I choke.”

He closed the door and came and sat down near her and lighted a cigarette. He wore the conventional flowing Windsor tie to prove how unconventional he was. But he did not wear the velveteen jacket; he drew the line there, having a sense of humor. Nor were his trousers baggy and unpressed. They were unbagged and impressive. Mr. Bugbee was a writer, also a painter. He was always getting ready to write something important and then at the last minute deciding to paint instead, or the other way around. What between being so clever at the two crafts he rarely prosecuted either.

But then as regards finances this pair did not have to worry. There was money on both sides, which among our native bohemians is a rare coincidence. He had inherited some and Mrs. Bugbee had inherited a good deal. So they could gratify a taste for period furniture and practice their small philanthropies and generally make a pleasant thing of living this life without the necessity of stinting.

It was agreed that they had such happy names—names to match their natures. His was Clement and hers was Felicia. It was as if, infants at the baptismal font though they were, they had been christened and at the same time destined for each other. Persons who knew them remarked this. Persons also made a play on their last name. While these twain were buzzing about enjoying themselves, their intimates often called them the Busy Bugbees. But when an idealistic impulse swept them off their feet, as occasionally it did, the first syllable was the one that was accented. It was really a trick name and provided some small entertainment for light-hearted members of the favored circle in which the couple mainly moved. It doesn’t take much to amuse some people.

“Just to think!” mused Mrs. Bugbee. “It seems only a week or two ago since we were wondering where we’d go to spend the summer. Time certainly does fly.”

“And what a small world it is,” amended Mr. Bugbee. “Why, we were sitting right here in this room when that subject first came up and, lo and behold, only five short months afterward we meet again on the very same spot. Where do they get that stuff about a fellow so rarely running into an old friend in New York?”

“You’d better save that cheap wit of yours for somebody who’ll appreciate it,” said Mrs. Bugbee, but she smiled an indulgent wifely smile as she said it. “Yes, indeed, time does fly! And here winter is almost upon us.” She lifted her voice and trilled a quotation: “‘And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?’” Mrs. Bugbee loved to sing. She sang rather well, too. About once in so often she thought seriously of taking up grand opera. Something always happened, though. With the Bugbees something always did.

“Don’t you be worrying your head about him,” said Mr. Bugbee. “Being a wise old bird, the robin will be down in Georgia dragging those long stretchy worms out of the ground. I wish they’d put as good a grade of rubber into elastic garters as they do into those Southern worms. It’s what we’ll be doing ourselves, poor things, that gives me pause.”

“First thing anybody knows Thanksgiving will be here.” She went on as though she had not heard him. “And then right away I’ll have to begin thinking about Christmas. Oh dear!” She finished with a sigh.

“Damn Christmas!” Mr. Bugbee was fervent.

“Why, Clem Bugbee, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

So he altered it: “Well, then, damn the kind of Christmas they have in this vast and presumably intellectual city! Giving other people things they don’t want that cost more money than you can afford to spend, because they are going to give you things you don’t want that cost more than they can afford to spend. Every retail shop turned into a madhouse with the inmates all running wild. Handing out money on all sides to people who hate you because it’s not more and you hating them right back because you’re being held up this way. Everybody and everything going stark raving crazy on Christmas Eve. Nervous prostrations. Jams in the streets. Sordidness, greed, ostentation, foolish extravagance. Postmen and clerks and expressmen dying on their feet. Truck-drivers spilling the sort of language that’s still regarded as improper except when spoken on the stage. Then it becomes realism, but the truck-driver, not being artistic but just a poor overworked slob of a vulgarian, he’s maybe arrested for using obscenity.

“Christmas Day, and you go around with ‘Merry Christmas’ on your lips and murder in your heart. And drink egg-nogs made out of amateur whisky. And eat too much. And go to fool parties where you’re bored stiff. Then the bills piling in. And the worthless junk piling up around the flat. And everything. Do I seem bitter? I do? Well, I am!”

“It’s easy enough to talk—goodness knows every rational human being deplores the commercialism and the—the mercenaryism—”

“Where did you get that word?”

“Made it up. It’s a good word and it’s mine and I like it. And don’t interrupt. As I was saying, we all deplore the mercenaryism and the materialism and the senseless display that’s crept into Christmas, and a lot of people spout about it just as you’re doing, but nobody does anything to try to reform it. At least nobody has since they started the custom of sending Christmas cards instead of gifts. But that was a mistake; it’s been overdone into an evil. There’s a passion to see who can buy the most expensive cards; and you spend weeks beforehand making up the lists and addressing the envelops, and the cards cost as much as the presents used to cost and make ever so much more bother getting them out. Look at what happened to us last Christmas! Look at what’s sure to happen this Christmas! And all you do is stand there—sit there, I mean—and spout at me as though I were to blame. Suggest a way out, why don’t you? I’d be only too delighted if you would.”

“I will,” proclaimed the challenged party. He thought hard. “We’ll run away from it—that’s what we’ll do.”

“Where do we run?”

“That’s a mere detail. I’m working out the main project. In advance we’ll circulate the word that we’re escaping from the civilized brand of Christmas; that on December twenty-fifth we’re going to be far, far beyond the reach of long-distance telephones, telegraph lines, wireless, radio, mental telepathy, rural free delivery routes, janitors with their paws out for ten-dollar bills and other well-wishers; that we’re not going to send any presents to our well-to-do friends and are not expecting any from them; that we’re not even figuring on mailing out a single, solitary, dad-busted greetings card. There’s plenty of time ahead of us for putting the campaign through. We’ll remember our immediate relatives and your pet charities and any worth-while dependents we can think of. And then we’ll just dust out and forget to leave any forwarding address.”

“We could try Florida again,” suggested Mrs. Bugbee.

“The land of the sap and the sapodilla—we will not! What’s Florida now except New York with a pair of white duck pants on?”

“Well, the climate there is—”

“It is not! It’s all cluttered up with real-estate agents, the climate is. Besides I never could see the advantages of traveling eighteen hundred miles in mid-winter to get into the same kind of weather that you travel eighteen hundred miles in midsummer to get out of.”

“Well, then, we might run up to Lake Placid or the Berkshires. Of course it’ll be too early at either place for the regular season, but I suppose there’ll be a few people we know—”

“You don’t grasp the big theory at all. This is not to be an excursion, it’s an exploring expedition. We’re not a couple of tourists out for winter sports and chilblains on our toes. We’re pioneers. We’re going forth to rediscover the old Christmas spirit that’s sane and simple and friendly. If there is a neighborhood left anywhere in this country where the children still believe in Santa Claus we’re going to find it. And we’ll bring the word back when we come home and next year thousands of others will follow our examples, and generations yet unborn will rise up and bless us as benefactors of the human race. I shouldn’t be surprised if they put up monuments to us in the market-place.”

“You might as well be serious about it. And not quite so oratorical.”

“I am serious about it—I was never more serious in my life. Beneath this care-free exterior a great and palpitating but practical idea has sprouted to life.”

“Well, since you’re so practical, kindly sprout the name of the spot where we’re to spend Christmas. I’m perfectly willing to try anything once, even against my better judgment, but you can’t expect me to get on a train with you without at least a general notion as to the name of the station where we get off.”

Mr. Bugbee’s brow furrowed; then magically it unwrinkled. “I have it!” he said. “We’ll take the Rousseau cottage up at Pleasant Cove. The Rousseaus are sailing next Tuesday for Europe to be gone until spring. Only yesterday Rousseau offered me the use of his camp any time I wanted it and for as long as I pleased. I’ll see him tomorrow and ask him to notify his caretaker that we’ll be along about the second week in December.”

“But it’s eight miles from the railroad.” Her tone was dubious.

“So much the better. I wish it was eighty miles from one.”

“And right in the middle of the mountains.”

“You bet it is. I want to be right in the heart of the everlasting peaks. I hope to get snowed in. I crave an old-fashioned white Christmas. I’m fed up on these spangled green, blue, red, pink, purple and blind ones. I want to mingle with hardy kindly souls who have absorbed within them the majesty and the nobility of their own towering hills. I want to meet a few of the real rugged American types once more. I’m weary of these foreigners you see in the subway reading newspapers which seem to be made up exclusively of typographical errors. I yearn to hear the idioms of my native tongue spoken. You remember that gorgeous week we spent with the Rousseaus six summers ago, or was it seven? Anyhow you must remember it—those quaint ruralists, those straightforward sturdy honest old mountaineer types, those characters redolent of the soil, those laughing rosy-cheeked children?”

“I seem to recall that some of them were sallow, not to say sickly-looking.”

“December’s winds will remedy that. December’s eager winds will—”

“How about servants? We’ll need somebody surely. And I doubt whether Emile and Eva would be willing to go.”

“Gladly would I leave behind those two whom you have heard me, in sportive moments, refer to as our Dull Domestic Finnish. Being aliens, they wouldn’t match the surroundings. No doubt some sturdy country lass would be glad to serve us.” Mr. Bugbee reverted again to the elocutionary. “We’ll throw ourselves into the Yuletide joy of the community. We’ll get up a Christmas tree. We’ll hang up our stockings. We’ll finance a holiday festival for the grown folks—it won’t cost much. You can organize a band of singers and teach them carols and Christmas waits. We’ll live and revel, woman, I tell you we’ll live.”

Before his persuasive eloquence the lingering traces of Mrs. Bugbee’s misgivings melted away. Herself, within the hour, she called up Mrs. Rousseau to inquire regarding housekeeping details in the bungalow on the slopes behind Pleasant Cove.

Their train got in at six-ten A.M., which in December is generally regarded as being very A.M. indeed. But the Bugbees didn’t much mind having to quit their berths at five-thirty. The sunrise repaid them. There was an eastern heaven that shimmered with alternating, merging, flowing bands of tender pinks and tenderer greens. Mrs. Bugbee said right off it reminded her of changeable silk. Mr. Bugbee said it reminded him of stewed rhubarb. He also said that when he reflected on the pleasing prospect that by coming up here they would miss the Baxters’ annual costume ball on Christmas night he felt like halting about once in so often and giving three rousing cheers.

He furthermore said he could do with a little breakfast. He did with a very little. Mrs. Bugbee had brought along a vacuum bottle of coffee and four sandwiches but they were rather small—sandwiches of the pattern usually described in cook-books as dainty; and the stopper of the vacuum bottle could not have been quite air-tight, for the coffee had turned lukewarm during the night.

They emerged from the smelly sleeper into a nipping morning. There was snow on the ground, not a great deal of snow but enough. The two adventurers rather had counted on a sleigh-ride through the woods but here they suffered a disappointment. A muffled figure of a man clunked in rubber boots toward them from the platform of the locked-up station. This was the only person in sight. The stranger introduced himself with a broad yawn and a fine outgushing of frosty breath.

“Name’s Talbot,” he stated when the yawn had run its course. “I look after the Rousseau camp winters. Boss writ me word to meet you folks. Huh, got quite a jag of baggage, ain’t you? I could go round the world twice’t with less than that. Well, let’s be joggin’.”

He relieved Mrs. Bugbee of her two hand-bags and led the way to a bespattered flivver which crouched apprehensively in a maze of frozen wheel tracks behind the shuttered building, Mr. Bugbee following with a heavy suitcase in either hand and a blanket-roll swung over his shoulder by its strap.

“Likely you’ll be a mite crowded, but that’s your own fault, fetchin’ so much dunnage with you,” stated their guide. “You two had better ride in the back there and hold a couple of them biggest grips on your laps. I guess I kin wedge the rest of it into the front seat alongside of me. All set?” he asked. “Let’s move then.”

The car slewed on its tires, then settled deeply into the frozen ruts, jouncing and jerking.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier traveling with a sleigh?” inquired Mr. Bugbee, speaking rather brokenly between jolts.

“Don’t do much sleddin’ in this country any more—not till later, anyway, when the weather gits set,” vouchsafed Mr. Talbot. “A thaw’s liable to come and then where would you be with your sled runners? Besides, purty near ever’body up here keeps an ottermobile. Set tight!” he commanded. “We’re about to hit a rough place.”

But by the time he had uttered his warning they had hit it.

“Yes, indeed,” went on Mr. Talbot, “ottermobiles is come into quite general use. You folks ever been here before? Yes? Then prob’ly you remember the old Turnbull Tavern that used to stand at the forks over to the Cove? Well, it’s gone. Tore it away to put up a fillin’ station. We got two fillin’ stations—that one and one other one—and they’s talk of a third one in the spring.”

Above the obstruction of a suitcase which he balanced precariously upon his knees, Mr. Bugbee peered across a landscape which so far as the immediate foreground was concerned mainly consisted of vistas and aisles of stumps, with puddles of ice and spindly evergreens interspersed and a final garnishing of slashed-off faded limbs.

“My recollection is that the wilderness used to come right down to the tracks,” he said.

“Ef by wilderness you mean standin’ spruce timber, then your recollection is right,” answered Mr. Talbot over his shoulder and through the folds of a woolen throat comforter. “But it’s mostly been lumbered off for pulp. They’re figgerin’ some on strippin’ the ridges of the hard woods next,” he added with a touch of local pride for local enterprise.

The car took the first steep rise into the range, buck-jumping and slewing like a skittish colt. Frequently it seemed to shy from bump to bump. The task of steering engaged Mr. Talbot. He addressed his vibrating passengers but rarely.

“Got a party booked to chore for you,” he told Mrs. Bugbee over his shoulder. “Name of Anna Rapley. Widder woman. Had quite a job of it gittin’ her to agree to do it. She told me to tell you her wages would be twenty-five a week fur ez long ez you stay.”

“Twenty-five a week?” echoed Mrs. Bugbee rather blankly.

“That’s whut she says. Says it’s her reg’lar price fur a special job like this one is. Says to tell you to take it or leave it, just ez you please. Says it don’t make a bit of difference to her either way. Independent, that’s her.”

“Oh, I’m sure we won’t quarrel over the wages!” Mrs. Bugbee hastened to explain. “Of course she’s competent?”

“Oh, spry enough so fur ez that goes, but strictly between you and me, watch her!” He twisted his head and punctuated the speech with a slow, significant wink.

“Watch her for what?”

“I ain’t sayin’. I ain’t even hintin’ at nothin’. All I’m tellin’ you in confidence is—watch her. She’s a good friend of my folks so mebbe I shouldn’t ’a’ said that much. Just keep your eyes open, that’s all.”

On through to their destination there was silence between the visitors—the silence of two persons engrossed in inner contemplations. As for Mr. Talbot, he was concerned with restraining his mettlesome conveyance.

At their journey’s end, the bungalow where it nestled against a background of mountains half a mile on beyond the clumping of small houses that was the village, made a gladdening sight for the Bugbees, what with its broad front windows shining redly in the clear cold and a slender spindle of smoke rising straight up the air from the mouth of its big stone chimney. Mrs. Bugbee hurried inside to establish liaison with the widow who was a friend to the Talbot family. Her husband tarried on the snow-piled veranda with his belongings piled about him.

“Let’s see, now,” Mr. Talbot said speculatively. “There’s your fare over from the depot—we’ll call that six dollars even for the two of you. And two dollars more fur your valises, I guess that’d be fair, considerin’. That comes to eight. Then there was some odds and ends I done myself fur you yistiddy ez an accommodation—shovelin’ out this path here and so forth. That’ll be about six dollars, I sh’d say.”

Mr. Bugbee unpocketed a fold of bills.

“Hold on,” bade Mr. Talbot. “Then I got you in three cords of firewood at ten dollars a cord; that mounts up to thirty more. You’re lucky I ain’t chargin’ you full city prices,” he continued, studying Mr. Bugbee’s expression. “There’s some around here would, namin’ no names. But you folks bein’ sent on by Mr. Rousseau I’m makin’ you a rate on that firewood. Thanky.”

He accepted payment.

“Oh, yes, there’s an order of provisions in the house, too, but the account fur them’ll be rendered in your reg’lar weekly bills. I’ll make the deliveries without extry cost,” he promised generously. “Just call freely fur more stuff ez you need it. I run the leadin’ grocery down below, you understand. There’s an opposition grocery but I wouldn’t recommend no stranger to do his tradin’ there unlessen he checked off the statements mighty close. Well, good-by and see you later.”

Mr. Bugbee, mechanically holding a depleted roll in his numbed grasp, watched the flivver as it lurched back down the highway. “But at least the sunrise was an unqualified success,” he remarked softly to himself. He further comforted himself with the philosophies that first impressions did not necessarily count and that a poor beginning often made a good ending and that to all rules there were exceptions, et cetera, et cetera.

Lack of space forbids that we should trace our two sojourners step by step and day by day through the ensuing fortnight. A few vignettes, a few small thumb-nail views of them, taken in the privacy of their fireside, will suffice, this chronicler hopes, progressively to suggest the course of developments in pursuance of their ambitions for the happiness of the dwellers in that isolated hamlet of Pleasant Cove.

For example, an intimate little scene was enacted before the hearthstone on the second evening but one following their arrival.

Mr. Bugbee was wrestling manfully with a cigar of an exceedingly formidable aspect. That morning he had made a lamentable discovery. It was that he had forgotten to bring along two boxes of his favorite brand of specially cured Havanas which were purchased expressly with that intent. His pocket case was almost empty when he became aware of the oversight. He looked upon it in the light of a tragedy; a confirmed smoker will appreciate how laden with tragic possibilities such a situation might become. He had wired for a supply to be forwarded immediately, but in these parts immediately might be a relative term. So to bridge over the emergency he had procured some substitutes from Mr. Talbot’s somewhat restricted stock.

It was with one of the substitutes that now he contended. He freed an intake of smoke and choked slightly, then coughed fretfully.

“It is called ‘Jake’s Choice,’” he said. “I read it on the box. It was an exceedingly beautiful box—a regular whited sepulcher of a box. I wonder who Jake was? Probably a friend of the manufacturer. But I’ll say this much for him—he was no customer! It may have its good qualities. It’s certainly very durable and it has splendid powers of resistance—fights back every inch of the way. But for smoking purposes it is open to the same criticisms that a rag carpet is.”

“Why don’t you throw it in the fire, then?” suggested Mrs. Bugbee. “When I came in here a minute ago I thought for a second the flue must be defective.”

“I’d have you know I’m not to be daunted by an enemy that I could crush—maybe—in the palm of my hand. Besides, it’s easy enough for you to give such advice—you with plenty of your favorite cigarettes on hand. But cigarettes are not for me—I’m what they call a man’s man.”

“Speaking of cigarettes—” began Mrs. Bugbee, but got no further. It would seem that Mr. Bugbee was not to be diverted from his present morbid mood.

“Now you take Jake’s peculiar Choice,” he went on. “I wish I’d had the job of christening this article. I’d have labeled it the ‘R.C.N.W.M.P.’”

“What does that stand for?”

“Royal Canadian Northwestern Mounted Police—to give the full title.”

“I don’t see the application.”

“You would if you knew the motto of that magnificent force—‘Always Gets Its Man.’” Again he coughed.

“Speaking of names, Anna—”

“You were speaking of cigarettes a moment ago.”

“I tried to but you interrupted. Anyhow, cigarettes and Anna are all mixed up with what I wanted to say in the first place.”

“You refer to our culinary goddess?”

“Of course.”

“Does she smoke?”

“No—never.”

“Then why drag in Anna’s cigarettes, if she doesn’t use ’em?”

“I didn’t. It’s my cigarettes.”

“Well, why then Anna as a factor in this discussion?”

“I’m coming to that. Speaking of names—”

“We are not speaking of names any more. Pray be coherent.”

“We are—at least I am. Speaking of names, do you know what she calls me? She calls me ‘Miss Fleeceyou,’ like that.”

“In view of the salary Anna is drawing down I’d call that a touch of subtle irony,” stated Mr. Bugbee. “But I see no reason why she should address me as ‘Mr. Clammy.’ I’m not clammy—I leave it to any impartial judge. I’ll not start complaining yet, though. I have a foreboding of worse things to follow. I foresee that when the feeling of formality wears off and we get on an easier social footing she’ll call me ‘Clam.’ I decline to be just plain Clam to Anna or anybody else. If I’ve got to be a clam I’m going to be a fancy one.”

“You drift about so! What I’ve been trying for the last five minutes to tell you was that Anna has been confiding to me that some of the older inhabitants are taking exception to us—to me, rather. It seems they’ve already found out that I smoke cigarettes. They regard that as sinful or at least highly improper. There’s been talk. She told me so.”

“I wonder how they learned of your secret vice!” mused Mr. Bugbee. “It can’t be that Anna is a gossip—heaven forbid! Have you been detected in any other shameful practice?”

“Not exactly detected—but, well, criticized. She tells me that certain persons, including one of the two ministers—the Reverend Mr. Peters is the one—have been discussing my costume.” She glanced down at her trim riding-breeches and her smart high-laced boots, which with her soft flannel shirt gave her the look of a graceful, good-looking boy. “And I thought I was dressed so appropriately!”

“I believe there is still a prejudice in certain remote districts against the human female leg,” said her husband. “Just what fault do the merry villagers find with your get-up?”

“One man at the post-office spoke of these”—she touched a slender Bedford-corded thigh—“of these as choke-bore pants. He said there ought to be a law against a woman parading the public streets with a pair of choke-bore pants on. He said it this afternoon and Anna heard about it and came right straight and told me.”

“Strong language for a minister of the Gospel to be using,” commented Mr. Bugbee. “Still, the comparison is apt. Choke-bore, eh? Not so bad for a backwoods preacher. The man has traveled and seen the world.”

“It wasn’t the minister, stupid! It was another man. At that the minister—I mean the Reverend Mr. Peters, not the other one—glared at me today as though he were thinking unutterable things. I thought then he might be miffed because I’d been to see the other minister first. He behaved so—so stand-offish and sort of hostile when I told him about our plan for having a joint Christmas tree for both Sunday Schools. But since I talked with Anna I’m pretty sure it must have been my clothes he didn’t like. I’m afraid some of these people are going to be rather difficult, really I am!”

“I’m going to be a trifle difficult myself unless those cigars get here soon,” said Mr. Bugbee. “Say, they seem to be having unusually long and silent nights up here this winter, don’t they?” he added. “I never thought I’d become so city-broke that I’d miss the plaintive call of the taxicab mooing for its first-born. Gee—it’s nearly nine o’clock. If the lights in this house aren’t turned out pretty soon some unacquainted passers-by—if any such there be—will suspect the presence of burglars on the premises.”

It was on Friday afternoon of that week that a female villager called. She had a keen and searching gaze—that was the first thing to be noticed when the door had been opened in response to her knock. And the second striking thing about her was that on taking a seat she seemed to sink into herself sectionally rather in the style of certain nautical instruments.

The collapsible-looking lady stayed on for upwards of an hour. Upon leaving, she uncoupled joint by joint, as it were, becoming again a person of above the average height. Mr. Bugbee, who after a mumbled introduction and a swift appraisal of the visitor had betaken himself to another part of the house, reentered the living-room upon her departure.

“Who,” he asked, “who is yon gentle stranger with the telescopic eye and the self-folding figure? I failed to catch the name.”

“Miss Teasdale—a Miss Henny Teasdale.”

“Did you say Henny—or do my ears deceive me?”

“Yes; it’s short for Henrietta, I think.”

“And long for Hen. I’ll think that, if you don’t mind. If I’m not too inquisitive, might I make so bold as to inquire what brought her hither?”

“She came to tell me some—well, some things. She said she felt it to be her Christian duty to walk up here and tell me these things.”

“For example, what?”

“For one thing she thinks we make a mistake in——” Mrs. Bugbee, who appeared slightly flustered, left this sentence uncompleted and built a second one of fresh materials: “Clem, why is it that people have to be so narrow and so critical of other people’s motives and so everything?”

“I give it up. But to return to the lady whose fighting name is Henny?”

“Oh, yes! Well, she told me that quite a good many of the members of one of the congregations here rather resent the fact that the pastor of the other congregation is the chairman of my committee that’s getting up the Christmas entertainment. And they aren’t going to cooperate or let their children come either. There are two cliques, it seems, and they’re both awfully cliquey.”

“A common fault of cliques, I believe. And what else?”

“And she says some of the young people think our celebration is going to be too tame for them. So they’re planning to import special music from over at the junction and throw a jazz party, as they put it, on the same night. It seems there’s a barber over at the junction who plays the saxophone and he has an orchestra of four pieces; that’s the one they’re going to hire.”

“Every junction has a barber who plays the saxophone. But formerly the favored instrument was the guitar, though in exceptional cases the harmonica or mouth-organ might be preferred. Proceed, please; you interest me deeply.”

“And she says that there’s a good deal of curiosity—curiosity was the word she used—about our private lives. There actually seems to be a suspicion that we’re some sort of refugees or fugitives or something, and that we’re trying to ingratiate ourselves with the residents here in order to work some scheme on them later. At least she hinted that much. But this Miss Teasdale doesn’t share in this sentiment at all. She said so several times. She said she only came up as a friend to let me know what was going on. She hasn’t any ax to grind herself, she says. She doesn’t believe in all this envy and jealousy, she says.”

“I don’t believe the ax is her favorite weapon. I seem to picture her in the privacy of the home circle brewing a great jorum of poison-ivy tea. Perchance she revealed more?”

“Quite a lot more. She says we’re being imposed on shamefully in regard to the prices we’re paying for things. She says we picked the wrong people to deal with and that if we’d just come to her first she could have saved us money. She says that Anna is charging us about three times what she’d expect from a neighbor for the same services. Still, I gather that there’s a sort of feud between her and Anna, so she may be biased. And she says that this man Talbot—”

“All of which reminds me. I had to order more firewood this morning. Due, I take it, to post-war conditions in Europe the price is now twelve dollars a cord. The egg market also shows an advance, influenced no doubt by disquieting advices from Morocco. Well, if we will meddle in world affairs we must pay the price.”

“I believe that practically was about all she said,” wound up Mrs. Bugbee. “Where’s my fur coat and muffler? I’ve got to hurry down to the Masonic Hall. I called a rehearsal for three o’clock and I’ll probably be late as it is.” Mrs. Bugbee lost her worried look. “I’m certain of one thing: I’m not going to be disappointed in my Christmas carols. Not that they have such good voices. But such enthusiasm as all eight of them show! And how they’re looking forward to midnight of Christmas Eve! And how willing they are to practice!”

As the festival drew nearer, unforeseen complications ensued. Inspired by an affection which the holiday spirit had quickened, various persons back in New York chose to disregard the advertised views of the Bugbees touching on the overworked custom of exchanging gifts. Their hiding-place was known too, as now developed. By express and by parcel-post came packages done up in gay wrappings and bearing cards and sprigs of holly and inevitably containing the conventional remembrances, the customary loving messages. The opening of each box served to enhance an atmosphere of homesickness which was beginning to fill the Rousseau bungalow.

“Well, I’ve done the best I could,” wailed Mrs. Bugbee despairingly. “Of course we have to make some return for all this.” She indicated a litter of brilliant paper and parti-colored ribbon bindings on the floor about her.

“Why do we?” he countered, he having just returned from the settlement. “Those darned fools knew how we felt about this business.”

“Because we just do, that’s why! They’d never forgive us. So while you were gone I wrote out a telegram to Aunt Bessie and telephoned it down to the junction. I gave Aunt Bessie the names of everybody who’d sent us something and told her what stores we have charge accounts at and begged her as a tremendous favor to get each one of them something, no matter what, and send it around to them. It wouldn’t have done any good to wire the stores direct—they’re too rushed to pay any attention. And poor Aunt Bessie will be up to her ears in her own Christmas shopping and of course it’s a dreadful imposition on her and of course she won’t have time to pick out suitable presents or anything. But what could I do?”

“I’ll tell you what you could have done,” said Mr. Bugbee, fixing an accusing eye upon his wife. “You could have dissuaded me from this mad folly, this wild impulse to flee to the wildwood for Christmas. Back there in October had you but done this our associates might even now be saying: ‘Poor Bugbee had a brain-storm but what did Bugbee’s little woman do? She saved him from himself, that’s what Bugbee’s little woman did!’ But no, woman-like, you fed the flames of my delusion. And now it’s too late to turn back. Madam, you have but yourself to blame, I refuse to offer you my pity. Anyhow, I need it all for personal use.”

“What else has happened now?” she asked in the resigned tone of one who is prepared for any tidings however grievous and hard to bear.

“I decline to furnish the harrowing details,” he replied. “Suffice it to say that one rift shows in the encompassing clouds. In certain local quarters our intentions may be misinterpreted, that I grant you; it would be wasting words to claim otherwise. But today, mark you, I struck the trail of at least one prospective beneficiary who’ll surely respond to our overtures with gratitude. He’s going to be our reward—perhaps our only one—for making this trip.”

“After certain recent experiences I’d love to meet him.”

“Your desire shall be gratified. Let me tell you about him: You remember that starved-looking shabby chap that we’ve seen several times plowing past here through the drifts on his way to the village or back again? And always alone?”

“Yes, I do. We were speaking of him yesterday, saying how forlorn he seemed and how solitary.”

“That’s our candidate. The name is Sisson. He came into the post-office an hour ago and I got a good look at him—at close range he’s even more melancholy than he is viewed from a distance—and after he was gone I asked a few discreet questions about him. He’s a mystery. About six weeks ago he moved into a tumble-down cabin about a mile up the mountain behind this clearing and he leads a sort of solitary hermit existence up there. Nobody ever goes to see him and he never comes to see anybody and nobody knows anything about him except that occasionally he gets an official-looking letter from Washington. The postmistress told me that much.”

“I believe I can guess.” Mrs. Bugbee’s voice warmed sympathetically. “He’s probably a poor shell-shocked veteran that has hid himself away on account of his nervous condition. And he’s been writing to the Government trying to get it to do something about his pension or his disability allowance or something—poor neglected hero! I just feel it that I’m right about him. You know yourself, Clem, how my intuition works sometimes?”

“Well, in a way I rather jumped at that conclusion too,” said Mr. Bugbee. “So I dusted out and overtook the nominee and introduced myself and walked along with him. As a matter of fact I just left him. I invited him in but he declined. He behaved as though he distrusted me, but before I quit I succeeded in getting him to promise faithfully that he’d drop in on us late on Christmas Eve. I realized that he wouldn’t care to show himself among the crowd down at the hall.”

“I think that’s a splendid arrangement,” applauded Mrs. Bugbee. “Just perfectly splendid! And the next thing is, what are we going to give him?”

“Not too much. We don’t want him to get the idea that we look on him as an object of charity. Just one timely, suitable small present—a token, if you get what I mean; that would be my notion.”

“Mine, too,” chorused Mrs. Bugbee. “But the question is, what?”

They had quite a little dispute over it. She voted first for a pair of military hair-brushes, the Herbert Ryders, of East Sixty-ninth Street, having sent Mr. Bugbee a pair and he being already the possessor of two other pairs. But as Mr. Bugbee pointed out, an offering even remotely suggestive of the military life possibly might recall unpleasant memories in the mind of one who had suffered in the Great War. So then she suggested that a box containing one-half dozen cakes of imported and scented violet soap might be acceptable; there was such a box among the gifts accumulating about the room. But, as Mr. Bugbee said, suppose he was sensitive? Suppose he took it as a personal reflection? They argued back and forth. Eventually Mr. Bugbee found an answer to the problem.

“I’m going to hand him my last full quart of old Scotch,” he announced with a gesture of broad generosity. “He’ll appreciate that, or I miss my guess.”

He had the comforting feeling of having made a self-sacrifice for the sake of a stranger. He had the redeemed feeling of one who means to go the absolute limit on behalf of his fellow man. For Mr. Bugbee had brought with him but three bottles of his treasured pre-Prohibition Scotch. And the first bottle was emptied and the second had been broached and half emptied and only the third precious survivor remained intact.

It was a lovely yet a poignant feeling to have.

On the night before Christmas it was raining. By morning probably the underfooting would be all one nice icy slickery glare but now everything was melting and running. As the Bugbees, man and wife, slopped along up the gentle slope leading from the highway to their front door they were exchanging remarks which had been uttered several times already on the homeward journey but each, with variations, was still repeating his, or as the case was, her contributions to the dialogue, just as persons will do when a subject for conversation happens to be one that lies close to the speakers’ heart.

“The little ones,” she was saying, “they almost repaid me for all the trouble we’ve been to and all the pains we’ve taken. Their glee was genuine. Sometimes, Clem, I think there ought to be a law against anybody celebrating Christmas who’s more than twelve years old—I mean celebrating it with gifts.”

“Second the motion!” His tone was grim. One might even say it was bitter.

“But some of these older ones—turning up their noses right before our eyes at the little presents that we’d bought for them. What did they expect—diamond bracelets? Do they think we’re made out of money?”

“Well, I’m not, for one. I settled Brother Talbot’s account for the past two weeks this afternoon. That man’s talents are wasted here. He ought to be operating a fleet of pirate ships.”

“There was one thing that I haven’t had the courage to tell you about yet.” She blurted the rest in a gulped staccato: “With me it was absolutely the last straw. And I’m ashamed of myself. But my heart was so set on the singing! That’s my only excuse for being so weak.”

“Go on. I’m listening.”

“Well, you know yourself, Clem, how hard I’ve worked at drilling those eight men and boys for my Christmas carols? And how I’ve explained to them over and over again about the meanings of all those beautiful Old World customs such as the English have? And I thought they’d caught the spirit—from the very first they seemed so inspired. But tonight—just a little while ago when you were busy with the tree—they took me aside. They said they wanted to tell me something. And Clem—they—they struck!”

“Struck for what?”

“For money. Said they wouldn’t sing a note unless I paid them for their back time.”

“And what did you do?”

“I paid them,” she confessed. “Five dollars apiece. That is, all but the leader. He—he got ten.”

Mr. Bugbee made no comment on this disclosure. But his silence fairly screamed at her. “Wipe your feet before you come into the house,” he said. He kicked the muddied snow off his boots and opened the door.

They entered where efforts had been made to create a showing of holiday cheer. There were greens about and a sprig of synthetic mistletoe dangled above the lintel, and on the mantel was a composition statuette of good Saint Nicholas, rotund and rosy and smiling a painted smile. In the act of crossing the threshold they were aware of the presence of a visitor. Very rigidly and rather with the air of being peevish for some reason, a lantern-jawed person stood in the middle of the floor.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Bugbee advancing to make the stranger welcome. “How do you do? It’s Mr. Sisson, isn’t it? My husband told me you were coming.”

“He said eleven o’clock.” Mr. Sisson’s voice was condemnatory. “It’s nearly twenty past.”

“I’m so sorry—we are a trifle late, aren’t we? Detained down in the Cove, you know.”

“Personally I alluz make it a point to be on time, myself.” Mr. Sisson accepted the outstretched hand of his hostess and shook it stiffly but he did not unbend. He aimed a sternly interrogative glance at Mr. Bugbee: “Whut business did you want to have with me?”

“No business,” explained that gentleman. “Pleasure, I hope. We asked you here so that we might wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

“And to offer you a small remembrance,” supplemented Mrs. Bugbee. “And here it is—with our very best compliments.” She took from a side table a longish, roundish parcel enclosed in white tissue with ribbon bindings and a bit of imitation holly caught in the bow-knot at the top. She put it in his somewhat limp grasp.

Immediately though, his clutch on the object tightened. He fingered its contours. “Feels to me sort of like a bottle,” he opined.

“It is,” said the jovial Mr. Bugbee. “Open it and see.”

The recipient opened it. He tore away the festal wrappings, and held the contents to the light. His eye seemed to kindle. “Looks to me sort of like licker,” he said.

“That’s what it is.”

Mrs. Bugbee was hovering alongside awaiting the expected outburst of gratitude, puzzled though that it should be so long delayed.

“Mind ef I taste it right here?”

“Not at all.”

“Got a corkscrew handy?”

“I think I can locate one.”

“And a glass?”

Mrs. Bugbee brought a tumbler. Mr. Bugbee found a corkscrew.

Deftly Mr. Sisson unstoppered the bottle. Into the glass he poured a taste of the liquid. He did not invite them to share with him. There was about him no suggestion that he meant to make a loving-cup of it. He sipped briefly. “That’s sufficient—I jest wanted to make sure,” he stated. “This here is a stimilent containing’ more’n one-half of one percent alcohol by volume.”

“I should say it is. That Scotch was made back in—” He checked, for Mr. Sisson was behaving very peculiarly indeed.

Mr. Sisson was recorking the bottle and sliding it carefully into a side pocket of his overcoat. From other pockets he brought forth a revolver, a folded document of an official and formidable appearance, it having a seal upon its outermost side, and finally a clanking pair of very new looking, very shiny handcuffs. He laid these one by one upon a convenient table-top and next he cast a determined and confounding stare upon the startled faces of Mr. and Mrs. Bugbee.

The lady’s fascinated eyes were fixed for the moment upon the horrifying steeliness of those glinting cuffs, and spasmodically she thrust her hands wrist deep in her ulster pockets. It was evident that, be this daunting intruder’s purposes what they might, Mrs. Bugbee did not mean to be manacled without a struggle. But Mr. Bugbee stood unresistingly and blinked like a man coming out of a distressful trance and not sure yet that he is out.

“You’re both under arrest,” expounded Mr. Sisson. “Fur endeavorin’ to ply a third party with alcoholic stimilents.”

“But—but we gave it to you—of our own free will!” faltered Mrs. Bugbee.

“Givin’, sellin’ outright or barterin’, the law don’t recognize no difference. Anything you say further kin be used ag’inst you. Still, I guess there’s evidence aplenty to convict. Prob’ly it’ll go the worse with you fur offerin’ it to an officer of the law. That’s whut I am—an officer of the law. Here’s my credentials to prove it. And ef you don’t believe me, here’s my badge.” He flipped back a lapel to display a large and silverish decoration pinned under the flap.

“You can’t do this outrageous thing to us,” declaimed Mr. Bugbee, now fully emerging from coma. His cheeks were blazing. “It’s incredible!”

“It’s done done,” said their accuser calmly. His manner became more menacing, his tone more emphatic. “Don’t think, young man, jest because I’m kind of a new hand at this line that you kin work any bluff on me. I’ve been studyin’ to go into the detective business fur quite some time, havin’ took a full course in the Unsleepin’ Eye Correspondence Detective College, Dayton, Ohio. After I got my diplomy I came on up here to perfect myself in my callin’. Then a new notion come over me and I took it up with the Government about gittin’ onto the revenue enforcement department.” He spoke on in the proud yet unboastful way of one who is sure his hearers will be interested in following the successive steps of a brilliant career. “I been writin’ back and forth fur quite a spell with them Washington authorities.”

“Oh!” The understanding exclamation popped from Mrs. Bugbee of its own accord.

“Whut’s that?” demanded Mr. Sisson.

“I—I only just said ‘oh,’” explained Mrs. Bugbee weakly.

“I thought so.” It was as though Mr. Sisson made a mental note of this admission to be incorporated into the testimony. “But it seems like the Government force is all full up at present. So only last week I got a commission from the county to do shadderin’ and hunt down these here Prohibition violators and I been workin’ on hidden clues ever since. I’m whut they call an independent secret operative. Ez it happens, though, you’re my first case—my first two cases I should say.

“Point is that now I’ve got you I don’t know whut to do with you. Can’t git you over to the county-seat tonight, late as ’tis and the roads the way they are. And tomorrer bein’ Christmas the judge won’t want to set to hold you fur trial. Prob’ly”—he caressed the handcuffs tentatively—“prob’ly I’ll have to keep you ez prisoners right here under guard fur the next forty-eight hours or so. Prob’ly that would be the best way. Whut do you think?”

Mr. Bugbee made a sign to Mrs. Bugbee that she should withdraw. She did so with backward apprehensive glances.

“My wife’s not trying to escape,” explained Mr. Bugbee. “She’s only going into the next room for a few minutes. She’s had a shock—in fact she’s had several shocks this evening.”

He waited until the latch clicked, then to their captor he said simply: “How much?”

“Which?”

“I think you got my meaning the first time. How much?”

“Looky here,” cried Mr. Sisson indignantly, “ef you’re aimin’ to question my honor lemme tell you I got a sacred reputation at stake.”

“That is exactly my aim. What is the current quotation on honor in this vicinity?”

“Oh, well, if you’re willin’ to talk reasonable, come on over here closer so’s nobody can’t overhear us.”

Five minutes later Mr. Bugbee went over and opened the hall door. “You can come out now,” he said. “Our Christmas guest has gone. And all is well.”

Mrs. Bugbee came out. She still was pale. “What—what did you do with him?” She asked it tremulously.

“I have just corrupted the noble soul of the only truly unselfish individual we have met to date in these mountains. I might add that corruption comes high hereabouts. City prices prevail.” He took her in his arms and kissed her. “Let us now give thanks for deliverance from a great peril. We ought to do more than just give thanks. How about a little Christmas gift from each to the other?”

“But we decided that this year we’d spend that money up here.” She winced.

“Circumstances warrant a redecision. Besides, I’m thinking of useful presents—presents which will bring joy to both of us. A couple of those lovely light green railroad tickets back to New York! You give me one; I’ll give you one.”

“Oh, Clem!” She hugged him.

“Oh, Felice!” He hugged her. “Where’s that time-table? I saw a folder around here the other day. If we caught a morning train out of the junction tomorrow we might get in in time for the Baxters’ party tomorrow night. Everybody we know—and like—will be there.”

“But you know it’s a costume party—fancy dress. And we haven’t any costumes.”

Airily he gestured away her quavering objections. “Say, do you know one thing?” he said. “This place is incomplete. It needs a motto. If I had time to spare I’d write one out and stick it up as a souvenir of our visit. I’d write on it the words ‘E Pluribus Your’n,’ meaning: ‘It’s all for you, dear Rousseau, the Bugbees have had enough.’... Now then, if I could just find that time card? Oh, there it is, yonder behind the clock. We can put in the rest of the night packing, and bright and early tomor—”

He broke off, listening. From without came the advancing sound of slushy foot-treads in a considerable number.

The tramping drew nearer and ended just outside. Masculine voices were uplifted in song:

“That ain’t right—wrong key!” they heard a dominating voice cutting in to check the vocal flow. “Git set fur a fresh start.”

“My Christmas minstrels,” said Mrs. Bugbee.

“Our little band of strikers,” murmured Mr. Bugbee. He hurried to the mantel, plucked something from it, then leaped nimbly thence to a front window and crouched behind its curtains, his posture tense. “Here’s where I also join the last-straw club,” said Mr. Bugbee softly to nobody in particular.

Once again the unseen troubadours essayed the opening measures of their serenade:

Mr. Bugbee snatched a sash up and made a movement as of hurling a heavy object into the drizzling night. It was a heavy object, too, judging by the yelp of pain which followed its outward flight. “I’ll peace-on-earth you!” he said, closing the window.

A confusion of noises betokening a retreat died away in the distance.

“Did you throw something?” asked Mrs. Bugbee.

“I did,” said Mr. Bugbee. “What’s more, I hit something—something in the nature of a solid ivory dome. My darling, congratulate me not only on my accuracy but on my choice of a missile. I am pleased to inform you that I have just beaned the inspired leader of your coterie of private Christmas choristers with a heavy plaster image of dear old Santa Claus.... Let me have a look at this schedule.... Ah, here it is. We can catch a through train at ten-five and—by Jove, look, that’s luck!—it will put us into Grand Central in ample time to make the Baxters’ Christmas party.”

“But we’ve nothing to go in—it’s fancy dress. I told you that five minutes ago,” protested Mrs. Bugbee.

“Don’t worry,” said Mr. Bugbee. “We’ll go just as we are—as a couple of All-Day Suckers!”