THE three days before Christmas passed more slowly than any other days in Tommy’s life. As usual the hands of his cuckoo clock remained stationary in spite of the steady movement of the pendulum; but to Tommy’s unspeakable annoyance, although the chimney-piece clock seemed to tick louder than ever, he could scarcely see its hands move at all.

To make matters worse school had broken up and it was too wet and too cold for the children to play much out-of-doors. So all day long Tommy was in the kitchen trying to find something to do to fill up the time. When Ruthie was with him they quarrelled, and when she left him he was more miserable still.

Then Aunt Keziah Kate gave him some balls of coloured wool and Granny taught him to crochet. This was most engrossing for a time. He used a stubby forefinger as hook, pulling the loose loops as tight as possible, and slowly and laboriously made lengths of uneven chain. Later he taught Ruthie to make chains too, but was angry when he found that her chains were not only better done than his, the loops being much more even, but that she did quite six inches while he did only three.

At last, in spite of the slowly moving hands of the clock, it was Christmas Eve.

The whole day was one long excitement. At breakfast-time Tregennis, Mrs. Tregennis and Tommy were all in a state of high tension. The evening before, when Tommy was in bed and asleep, Tregennis had brought home a goose, which he handed with pride to his wife.

“Well,” she exclaimed, “an’ where did ee get that bird?”

“A drawin’,” answered Tregennis, laconically. He was always a man of few words.

“A drawin’! My blessed fÄather! an’ how much did ee pay?”

“Only sixpence, Ellen, an’ he weighs twelve pound.”

“Sixpence!” breathlessly. “I don’t know how ee dare take such risks. You might easily ’a’ lost, and ’twould just ’a’ been a good sixpenny-bit wasted.”

“But I didn’t lose, I won, an’ here do be the bird; an’ as plump a one as’ll be eaten by any o’ the best in Draeth.”

“Well, well,” said Mrs. Tregennis, and resumed her knitting, momentarily neglected; “an’ what a Christmas dinner we shall have—as good as the gintry! Go round now to wanst, an’ ask GranfÄather, an’ Granny an’ Keziah Kate. We’ll mebbe never have another goose.”

After breakfast, therefore, on Christmas Eve the goose had to be plucked. Work for Tregeagle Mrs. Tregennis said this was, with Tommy playin’ round all the time, and all the feathers all a-blowin’ no one knew where every time the kitchen door was opened.

Tommy stuck the biggest feathers in his hair, and was a wild red Indian; some of the smaller, fluffier ones he put by in his box of treasures; all the rest Mammy tried to save to help to make a cushion for the upstairs sitting-room.

When Mrs. Tregennis was in the middle of cleaning the goose she was interrupted by a loud knock.

“See who’s there, Tommy,” she said, “an’ shut the kitchen door so as the feathers won’t fly.”

Tommy obeyed and opened the outer door a few inches only, with the instinctive caution of childhood, and peeped through the gap.

“Fer your Mammy, Tommy,” said the station carman, indicating an enormous package at his feet.

In his excitement Tommy forgot all about being careful and flung open the kitchen door. A gust of wind seized the feathers and whirled them round the room. Mrs. Tregennis’s anger was checked by the entrance of the carman, swaying with a square, solid-looking package done up in sacking. When he dumped it down on the kitchen floor more feather flew, but by this time Mrs. Tregennis was past thinking of flying feathers.

“’N what is this, Sam?” she demanded, “a joke?”

“’Tis a pretty heavy joke,” said the carman, first straightening his shoulders, then with a large, red handkerchief wiping condensation drops from his moustache, “’n a joke as has cost some folks good money to send from London.”

“Then there do be some mistake, Sam Trimble, for I know no one to London, an’ this’ll not be mine.”

But the address on the label showed plainly that the package was indeed for Mrs. T. Tregennis, of Chapel Garth.

Even the goose was forgotten when Sam Trimble had closed the door behind him. Mrs. Tregennis washed her fingers so hurriedly under the tap that she left red streaks on the runnerin’ towel when she dried her hands there.

“Have you had the scissors, Tommy? Find Mammy’s scissors, quick, ma handsome.”

After a search, they remembered at the same time that the scissors had been used before the goose could be cleaned, and they were found lying under the neck of the bird just where Mrs. Tregennis had put them before Sam Trimble knocked.

The sacking was sewn with stout cord and the scissors were blunt, therefore it was some little time before the opening made was wide enough for Mrs. Tregennis to pull out the padding of straw. Under the straw something hard revealed itself to the touch, but there were more stitches to be cut through before the contents could be withdrawn. Then Tommy held on as firmly as he could at one end of the sacking while Mammy tried to pull out whatever it was that was so carefully packed within. Something rolled to the floor as she pulled, and after a glance at it she snatched it up and furtively hid it underneath her apron.

“What’s that, Mammy?” said Tommy, all alert.

“That,” pointing disdainfully to the pile of straw, “’n do we pay for your schoolin’, Tommy Tregennis, an’ you not so much as to know as that’s called straw!”

“But there was somethin’ as fell, an’ you——”

“You’m but a noosance an’ in the way, Tommy. Run an’ see if your Daddy’s on the quay, and if he be tell him to come an’ help clear up.”

When Tommy had gone Mrs. Tregennis took from underneath her apron a brown paper parcel, on which was written: “From Tommy’s Ladies, for his Christmas stocking.” She put it among the potatoes and fire-wood in the dark kitchen cupboard, and had only just time to kneel down and pull out more straw when Tommy bounded into the kitchen and again made the feathers fly.

“Can’t see Daddy nowheres, Mammy!”

“And much trouble you’ve taken to find he, my son. However, never mind, I’ve done it.” With a final push and one last pull a simple but well-made fumed-oak book-case came into view.

Mrs. Tregennis lifted it from the ground. “Come on, Tommy,” she said.

“Where be we a goin’, Mammy?”

“Why, to show it, of course, to your GranfÄather and Granny and Aunt Keziah Kate; an’ Aunt Martha, an’ Auntie Jessie an’ Ruthie an’ all.”

The partly dressed goose was forgotten and left with its head dangling dejectedly over the edge of the kitchen table. Thus, half an hour later, Tregennis found it in the midst of a litter of feathers and blood and straw.

He had just finished clearing up when Mrs. Tregennis and Tommy returned, and excitedly called him into the sitting-room on the left-hand side of the door. In front of the book-case he stood in silence.

“’Tis from the ladies,” Mrs. Tregennis said, in answer to his unspoken question.

“The ladies, not——”

“Yes, from Tommy’s Ladies.”

“Ellen,” said Tregennis, passing a toil-worn hand over the smooth, polished wood, “’tis a’most like bein’ in church; ’tis like they hymn-boards, an’ pulpits an’ such. ’Tis a’most like bein’ in church.”

“An’ not a penny under fifteen shillin’ Martha says it must have cost. An’ to think as they just knocked at the door; no bikes nor nothin’; not so much as a paper parcel in their hands, well, well!” With a last look at the book-case Mrs. Tregennis returned to the kitchen and finished her work on the neglected goose.

That very afternoon the fumed-oak book-case was nailed up in the best sitting-room. Until now many books belonging to Nelson’s sevenpenny library, left behind by visitors, had been piled up on the top of the grandfather clock. These were all taken down, dusted and arranged in red and gold rows along the two lower shelves, while the top shelf Mrs. Tregennis reserved for some of her choicest ornaments.

“Tom,” she said, when this was done, “to-morrow after dinner we’ll have a fire, and sit here. ’Tis unusual, I’ll admit, but, after all, ’tis Christmas time, and ’tis no good bein’ small an’ lookin’ small both; and here we’ll sit; so there!”

As soon as tea was over Tommy wished to go to bed. He was anxious to intercept Santa Claus in his descent of the chimney, and, if possible, exercise a certain selective power in the matter of toys. In his inmost heart he was exceedingly glad that he had dislodged the sack of paper. Had it still been in the chimney it would have been quite impossible for Santy to slip through with his burden, and what would have been the good of Daddy’s labelled stocking then?

As soon as Tommy was in bed Mrs. Tregennis withdrew from the potatoes the parcel she had hidden there early in the day. It contained a brown jersey suit and a good big box of chocolates of many kinds.

When Tommy wakened on the morning of Christmas Day and sleepily demanded that the candle should be lit, Daddy’s stocking, with the label pinned on the leg, held nuts and two oranges and two apples, while a trumpet stuck out at the top. On the floor below lay a drum, and a brown jersey suit and a box of chocolates. These Santy had clearly meant for some other boy, but had dropped them by mistake in his haste to be gone.

Tommy was naturally delighted at receiving more than his share, but he could not help being afraid that Santy might discover his loss and soon return. By way of preventing this he suggested that the stuffed sack should at once be replaced in the chimney and kept there for the whole of the day.

The lids with their long lashes drooped heavily over the sleepy blue eyes, and Mammy lifted Tommy presents and all, into the big bed. Soon he was breathing regularly through parted lips, and did not waken until Daddy was ready to carry him pick-a-back down the stairs, to be washed and dressed in front of the kitchen fire.