When Mary went home she was more like her accustomed self than she had been for days. She went dancing into the house with the eggs, and immediately set about the writing of her Christmas letters in her usual resourceful way. Mrs. Ware looked up, much amused, to see her piling some fresh orange peel and bits of broken cedar on the table beside her ink-bottle.
"There's nothing like that combination of smells to make you think that Santa Claus is coming straight down the chimney," exclaimed Mary gravely, catching her mother's amused glance. "You may think it is foolish, but really it makes all the Christmases I have ever known stand right up in a row in front of me, whenever I smell that smell."
She rubbed a bit of the fresh peel and then a piece of the cedar between her palms to bring out the pungent fragrance, and afterwards, from time to time, bent over it for another whiff to bring her new inspiration.
By the twentieth of December the last letter and the last out-of-town package but one was started on its way. Gay's box of ferns, a mass of luxuriant, feathery greenness, sat on a window-sill, waiting for its time to go. The crate in which it was to be shipped stood ready in the wood-shed, even to the address on the express-tag. Then time began to drag. The next two days, although the shortest in the year, seemed many times longer than usual.
"It's like trying to keep things hot when somebody is late and keeps dinner waiting," complained Mary. "If you can't eat when it's all ready, some of the things are sure to dry up and some to get cold. I was worked up to quite a festive state of mind day before yesterday, but my enthusiasm is all drying up and cooling off now."
"Here's something to warm it over again," announced Norman, coming in from the express office with a box on his shoulder. "Here's the first gift to arrive. Let's open up right now, and open each thing that comes after this _when_ it comes instead of waiting for one grand surprise on Christmas morning. You never will try my way, and it would spread the pleasure out and make it last lots longer if you only would. You're bound to get more enjoyment out of each thing if you give your undivided attention to it."