After all, should he give Miss Jorgensen a present or not? Miss Melling there was no question about. She was always giving him presents, and she wasn’t the worst person in the world, even if she was so fussy about boys wiping their feet. The last time he was at Kingthorpe she had given him a silver pencil holder without any reason whatever! It wasn’t his birthday or anything. Yes, he would certainly give her something—that was settled.
The hardest to find presents for were Uncle Isaac and Jeremias. Poor Jeremias was sick now; he had been in bed for a whole month with pains in his back and everywhere. Johnny Blossom had been to his house to see him every day that he had thought of it, and that was almost every day. Jeremias lay there alone all day long, except that Maria Kopp went in morning and evening to look after him a little. It was easy enough to get into the little house, for it was never locked. Any one could lift the latch and step in; then the thing to do was to get Jeremias a dipper of water and to fix up the fire. Jeremias would say, “Thank you kindly, sir” (he always said that), and then Johnny Blossom would dash out, fastening the door again with only the heavy old latch.
At home that day they had been baking the Christmas cakes. Johnny Blossom had eaten not a little of the raw dough, and his sister Asta and he had made some cakes of remarkable shapes (though rather dingy from much handling), which they were allowed to bake.
It was while they were busy with the cakes that it had dawned upon Johnny Blossom that there was no time to spare, and that he must decide upon his presents at once.
The present for Father was an easy matter. The ruler that Johnny had just finished in the sloyd class was exactly the thing; and Mother should have the knife box. Carve their names nicely on the things, and those two presents would be ready.
Then he would make—h’m—seven baskets of pretty colored paper and fill them with peppermint drops. Everybody liked peppermint drops.
This left only Uncle Isaac and Jeremias and Tellef, and there would be about twenty cents to spend on their presents. Oh, yes! He could manage very well.
Suddenly he had a brilliant idea. That beautiful frame that he had carved in the autumn, he would give that to Uncle Isaac, with a pretty card on which he would write: “A hearty Christmas greeting from an affectionate boy. Johnny Blossom.”