III.

"You are a brave boy," cried Hortense's father, uncle Gerald.

"You've saved her life," exclaimed Hortense's mother.

Hortense disengaged herself from her parents, and ran up to her cousin, putting her arms around him.

"I wasn't good. I wouldn't go up stairs when he told me, and I climbed up on the window-sill to lean out and see Santa Claus coming, and I slipped, and the window came down on my fingers, and I rolled around on the shed and most pulled him off."

"And you needn't try to hide your hand," said uncle Thomas, where they were visiting, "because we all see that it is bleeding."

At that there was a second rush for the hero of the hour, and the excited relatives each had to examine for himself and herself George Edward's thumb torn by the catch of the blind as he pulled himself up.

To save him from further sympathy, his mother seconded his proposition to have the Christmas stockings then and there.

"I know it is only quarter-past two," she said laughingly, "but these young folks won't sleep a wink if we send them to bed, nor I fancy will we elders do much better. Let us all go up to our rooms, give ourselves just ten minutes to array ourselves in something more festive and befitting the occasion than"—

"These bath wrappers, mackintoshes, and gossamer waterproofs," finished somebody in the group for her.

"O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what a Christmas frolic," cried two of the other mammas, not waiting for her to finish.

"O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what fun!" cried the young people.

George Edward swelled with pride at his mother's popularity. "Come on," he cried, "see who gets down first."

At that there was a regular stampede, old as well as young taking part, uncle Thomas only remaining to light the Christmas candles on the mantel and in the tall candlesticks on the piano underneath the holly and pine branches.

When the company assembled again in the library it was hard to believe that it was the same one so lately within those walls, and it was marvelous how much in the way of adornment could be accomplished in ten moments by one who gave "his whole mind to it." Some of the neckties however were tied on the way down stairs, and even boots buttoned in the same convenient resting-place, but these were only trifling matters when the general dress-parade was so fine, and nobody noticed any little discrepancy of attire in another.

The children planted themselves before the row of stockings hanging in the candlelight, and before the fire on the hearth, now poked up to its duty, and crackling away in all the proper Christmas jollity. They pretended not to be excited, but it was pretty hard work.

At last Bamford said, "Hortense is in a dreadful hurry. It's too bad to keep her waiting. Let's begin."

"So she should," said uncle Thomas, with a twinkle in his eye, "have hers at once. Hurry up, Hortie, and pull it off the nail. Bamford is so big I suppose he's going to wait till the last."

Bamford glared at him, and burst out: "Indeed I'm not. We are all children tonight."

"That's right, my boy," said uncle Thomas approvingly, "only say what you mean at first, and not get things over other people's shoulders. Now, one, two, three, see who gets his Christmas stocking first."

It carried the older part of the company back to their young days to see the scramble that followed, and they laughed until the tears came, to witness the gale the children were in. It was a Christmas frolic pure and simple, and pretty soon every soul in the room was engaged in it; the end was a shower of comfits and bonbons scattered in approved style after the stockings were declared really empty, yielding nothing more from vigorous shakings.

"I never was so rich in my life," cried George Edward in a burst of gratitude, patting his pile of presents. "It was just the jolliest stocking my Santa Claus ever brought," and he marched up to put his arm around his mother's neck.

"I don't think I got as much as I did last year when I staid at home," remarked Fisher slowly and examining once more his pile. It was an awful speech to make, and it showed the soul of the boy. But it was forgiven as a slip of the tongue due to Christmas hilarity.

What a gala day! Nobody thought of being tired till well on into the night again, and then games and Christmas songs around aunt Ruth's cottage piano, being over, they one and all began to think of bed, and to speak even lovingly of the old routine to-morrow.

"I shall help you shovel the snow off, uncle Thomas, in front of the house," declared Bamford.

"So will I," cried George Edward, coming out of a yawn; "oh dear, I feel full of candy to my ears. I'd like a good pinch of salt."

"I'm almost sick of caramels," acknowledged Effie, daintily laying one by one in her bon-bon box to pick out a plain lemon drop. "Wouldn't it be dreadful to have to eat them always?"

George Edward made a wry face. Then he twisted his mouth up into a funny little pucker. "Let's make a candy bag and drop it at Tim Ryan's door to-morrow," he cried.

Tim Ryan was the man who took care of uncle Thomas' furnace, and swept out his store. He lived two blocks off in a dingy tenement house.

Effie closed her fingers involuntarily on her caramel with old-time fondness.

"Candy isn't good for poor folks," said Bamford sententiously, and cramming his mouth full of taffy.

"They get so little, it surprises their digestive apparatus," said uncle Thomas dryly. "I don't believe our contributions however in that line will harm them."

Hortense turned a stiff little back upon her precious candy pile, most of it saved with provident forethought to eat in the following days when amusements would run low. Could she?

She swallowed very hard an obstacle in her throat, said no in big letters to her own small mind, then ran over to George Edward, both hands full of sweets, and said in an odd little way all her own: "There, that's to make the poor people sick." A shout greeted her; but her mother kissed her, and Hortense was satisfied.

The baby of the group must not shame them all. So it was quite a respectable pile that at last lay in a good-sized paper bag tied with a flaming red ribbon, all ready for the expedition to Tim Ryan's after breakfast the next morning.

The candy did not injure the Ryans big and little, we will only say, but they came out of the feast with blooming sticky faces, and hearts full of gratitude toward the "Allen childer."

And then in two days they were all, that merry company, back once more in their homes, happy in the memory of the good time they had had, and full of pluck and enthusiasm for school and home life.

It was about this time that Jared Lewis, a rather dull boy in No. 9, the room that held George Edward in school-hours, broke out one day in the reading class with a new idea before them all. Jared was of a somewhat dull turn of mind, I have said. Certainly not a brilliant boy. But he held to a thought with wonderful pertinacity that once got into his mind; nothing could shake it.

They happened in the reading upon an abridged version of the Eastern legend of St. George and the Dragon, woven into a touching little English tale. We all know the stirring legend of the patron saint of England, Germany, and Venice, and of all chivalrous soldiers in the army battling against cruelty and injustice. It makes the blood leap in one's veins to read or to tell it, and one longs to grasp the good sword and go out to fight in the great world with the noble army of martyrs who enroll themselves on the side of the weak and suffering. There was many a sober little face, and one or two who pretended the light was bad for their eyes when Jared had stumbled through his rendition of the closing part. But he was so full of his new idea that his countenance was radiant and he cried in a loud assured tone, "Why, he goes to our school—he's here to-day."

"Who?" cried the teacher, and the children thrilled too suddenly, began to titter nervously.

"George Edward Allen," said Jared confidently. "He's Saint George, and he's always fighting a Dragon. He knocked a boy down yesterday for yanking a cat's tail."

The children stopped laughing, and, sharing his enthusiasm, nodded "yes, yes," to Jared. George Edward on the back seat studying his geography raised his head at the commotion. His face turned as red as fire and he made as though he would shoot his book through the air at the speaker's head. Jared went on in admiration more forcible than elegant: "He's always for the littlest dog in the fight, against the big fellows. I'd like to know if that isn't St. George."