IT was a January night, very cold. The snow which was always on the mountains looked down on the snow which sometimes melted from the valleys, and seemed to smile at it in a hard, cold way, for supposing itself to be of any importance at all. The white cross made by the peculiar shape of the mountains, and the action of the sun on the snow, gleamed in the moonlight more beautiful than usual to Teddy Simpson, as he pushed back the overcoat several times too large for him, thrust his hands into his pockets, and leaned against the snow-covered hill to think. Hundreds of stars twinkled down upon him, brighter and more filled with jewels than they ever are in any other sky, I think; but Teddy’s thoughts were not of them.

He was waiting for the teamster whose route lay along this mountain side, and who always brought the mail from the distant settlement, as well as any supplies or packages which the miners might need. Not that Teddy expected any mail! Bless your heart, he had never received a letter in his life, nor even a paper through the mails. To have done so even once would have almost taken his breath away. Yet he was deeply interested in the teamster’s wagon; as he stood still in the moonlight to think, there was an eager look in his eyes, and he listened for the sound of the cracking whip with such an air of expectancy as his face did not often wear. The fact is, Teddy Simpson had planned a wonderful surprise for his mother which his friend the teamster was helping him to carry out. Very poor they were, he and his mother; she cooked for the miners, and washed for them, and mended their clothes, but the miners, too, were poor, and could pay but little. The truth is, the people who lived and worked in this beautiful, desolate region were all poor together. Teddy had had plans, beautiful plans, for the Christmas three weeks behind him, and had failed in them. He and his mother knew all about Christmas; had not she hung up her stocking every year of her life until she was a great girl fifteen years old? Teddy never had, because Santa Claus seemed never to get so far West as where he lived; but while the father was alive Teddy always had at least one Christmas present, if it was nothing but a picture cut from some of the illustrated papers of the tourists, and framed by his mother with some bits of bright paper laid away for such purposes. Teddy had been a man grown now for two years—at least he felt like one—with no time for such trifles; but he had longed to make a bright Christmas for the miner’s family with five little children, their nearest neighbors. If his mother had not had a sick day when he was obliged to do her work as well as he could, and in doing it wasted some of the material and lost a good deal of time, he thought he should have accomplished it. As it was, he could not get the Christmas treat ready for them, but promised himself that another year he would be on hand. Then he had turned his thoughts to a surprise for his mother. That, too, had been a Christmas plan, but failing then, he resolved that he would not wait for the next season. The surprise was nothing more nor less than a half-pound of the best tea which the silver half-dollar he had sent by the teamster could supply. The poor little overworked mother was very fond of tea; he had often heard her say that a good cup of it after a hard day’s work seemed to rest her as nothing else would; but since the father died, she had bravely put it aside as one of the luxuries which they could not now afford.

If there were time to tell you how long and hard Teddy had worked for that extra half-dollar, never taking a cent for it from the regular wages of the day which he earned as his share of the family support, you would not wonder that he had grown almost feverish in his anxiety as the weeks went on, lest he should fail in having the right amount. He had accomplished it, and the day had come for the teamster to go on his fortnightly trip, and the day and evening had arrived for his return, and here at a bend in the road Teddy waited for him.

Away in the distance on the still frosty air broke at last the sound of a cheery whistle, and Teddy held himself still and listened. Jim Coon, the teamster, was a friend of his, and Teddy did not believe he would whistle if anything so cruel had happened as that the supply grocer had been out of tea.

“Halloo!” said Jim, as he came with a flourish around the bend in the snowy road, “waitin’, be you? I thought it was a ghost froze stiff to the rocks. Climb up here, and we’ll be home in a jiffy. Beats all what a hurry this team has been in this afternoon—all owing to you, I s’pose. O, yes! I got it, safe and sound; the very best kind of tea ever brought to these parts, Joe Derrick says, and he put in a good big half-pound of it, I’m witness to that.”

Then Teddy drew a long breath, and immediately the longing which he had kept in the background came to the front; also the problem over which he had been studying for weeks. Wouldn’t it on the whole have been better to have gotten a quarter of a pound of tea and spent the rest of the money in sugar? mother did so like a little sugar with her tea. But then, a quarter of a pound seemed such a very little bit, and the winter was long in this mountain region, and there was no telling when he would have a chance to get any more. But he wished, O, so much! that he knew how to get just a little sugar; that would make the present complete.

“I got somethin’ else,” said Jim, with a curious note of suppressed excitement in his tones; “somethin’ for you.”

“For me?” echoed Teddy, amazed.

“Yes, sir, for you; Teddy Simpson is the name on the box, as large as life.”

“On the box!” In his astonishment and excitement all that Teddy could do was to echo Jim’s words.

“Yes, sir, on the box; a good-sized box, and as heavy as though it had been stuffed with lead. Come by freight; got there yesterday just about an hour before I drove into town; come all the way from New York State, too.”

After that, the quarter of a mile between Teddy Simpson and home seemed endless. A box by freight for him! What would mother think, and the neighbors! Above all, what could be in the box?

Before it was half-unpacked the question became what was not in it? Two suits of clothes for Teddy, two new dresses for his mother—or dresses quite as good as new—a warm, bright shawl, and a fur hood. Shoes, and stockings, and socks, and mittens, and oh! books, and papers, and pictures, and more books. Was ever anything so wonderful? Then there were toys—dolls, and balls, and tops, and wooden dogs, and wax cats, and cloth elephants—and some little bits of dresses and sacks which could fit only the children further down the mountain. Teddy felt this, even before he discovered that these were all labeled, “For Teddy to give to his friends, the little Perkinses.” Moreover, there was a little leather bag in the very bottom of the box, drawn together by a bright cord and securely tied, which when opened was found to contain seventeen bright silver dollars, the gifts of the cousins and aunts and uncles for Teddy to use as he thought best. Do you want to know what he thought of first? A whole pound of sugar to go with that half-pound of tea which was still lying snugly in his overcoat pocket, where Teddy meant to leave it until the next morning. Such a box as that, and a half pound of tea in the bargain, he considered altogether too much for his mother’s nerves in one evening.

Such a wonderful morning as it was—such a wonderful day, indeed! The Perkinses were hopelessly wild all day, and their poor little half-discouraged mother was not much better.

The next time teamster Jim went over the snow road between the mountains he carried a fat little letter written in Teddy’s best round hand—and he was by no means a bad writer; his mother had taught him. In this letter he described to the cousins just how he stood by the rocks and waited for Jim Coon’s team, just how surprised he was, just how the box was opened, just what he and his mother exclaimed as long as they had any breath for exclaiming, just how the Perkinses acted the next day—at least as well as language would do it—and altogether wrote so surprising a letter that Hortense said, drawing a long sigh of delight: “Isn’t it lovely? Hasn’t this been a long Christmas? It is better than the Christmas-tree a great deal, isn’t it?”

“It is the jolliest Christmas I ever had,” said Holly.

“And it has taught us how to have some more jolly ones,” said Tom.

As for Tom’s father, he said: “That boy Teddy is a smart fellow; he ought to have an education. There ought to be a good school out there. Why wouldn’t that be a good place for us to send Richard Winston? He would be a grand fellow to work among just such people.”

So the “long Christmas” is in a fair way to grow longer, you see, for every cousin in the three homes is interested in Tom’s father’s idea, and so is Richard Winston.

Pansy.