"Yes, but I mustn’t read you yours. That’s a surprise, but you can hear grandpa’s. You see, I’m going to give him a pen because he hates to have anybody else use his pens, and Dick’s always doing it." Peggy cleared her throat. "This is grandpa’s poem.
"Now, here’s a pen for the best of men, And I wish it were purest gold. It could not write, in a whole long night, Half the love my heart does hold. Not for Dick’s abuse, but for father’s use, Is the pen I here present. May it long keep bright and continue to write, As well as the maker meant."
"I’m going to write some poetry, too, for my Christmas presents," said Dorothy, fired to emulation. "I’m going to say,
"This is for Aunt Peggy Because she’s eggy."
"But I wouldn’t be _eggy_, I hope," exclaimed Peggy, laughing with an abandon rare in the last ten days. "So your poetry wouldn’t fit."
Dorothy’s face fell. "Oh!" she exclaimed, with perhaps a glimmering appreciation of the truth that art is long. "Oh! I didn’t know that poetry had to be true." She gave up her ambition for the time being. "What’s grandma’s poetry, Aunt Peggy?"
Peggy unfolded the slip of paper willingly. She was proud of that attempt.
"We could have a jolly Christmas though old Santa Claus should go. We could do without a turkey at a pinch. And to spare the cheerful holly and the festive mistletoe Would be rather in the nature of a cinch. There is only one thing needed, as you’ll readily agree, One essential that surpasses every other, For of all absurd endeavors, the most imbecile would be, Just to try to have Christmas without mother."
"I’m going to have a Christmas ’thout my mover," Dorothy remarked unexpectedly, and Peggy read on rapidly to avoid arguing the point.
"Though the chimney corner stockings should be limp on Christmas day, Though the postman on his rounds should fail to ring. Though of all our friends and neighbors there was not a one to say, ’Merry Christmas,’ or some other proper thing. Still I think we could be happy, meet the day with faces bright, Drawing just a little closer to each other. But there isn’t one among us who could keep his spirits light, If we had to spend a Christmas without mother.
Dorothy had heard poetry enough by now. She moved about the room, keeping her plump hands tightly folded, in her effort to comply with Peggy’s caution not to touch. And Peggy, working busily at the construction of the Jack Horner pie, found Dorothy’s presence no drawback to her progress. As a matter of fact there is such a thing as hurrying till one is unable to accomplish anything. The distraction of Peggy’s thoughts by the artless questions and the refreshingly original observations of her small niece was helpful rather than hindering. Her tense nerves relaxed. She laughed out half a dozen times, as if Christmas preparations were a joyful matter instead of soul-straining, nerve-racking ordeal, through which one must pass in order to be worthy of the pleasures beyond.