Rosie suggested eagerly. "That is, I'm going to buy it if I make enough money at the fair. Does your father shave himself?"

"Oh, Adolph, his valet, always shaves him," Maida answered.

Rosie's brow knit over the word _valet_-but Maida was always puzzling the neighborhood with strange expressions. Then her brow lightened. "My father goes to a barber, too," she said. "I've heard him complaining lots of times how expensive it is. And the other day Arthur told me about a razor his father uses. He says it's just like a lawn-mower or a carpet-sweeper. You don't have to have anybody shave you if you have one of them. You run it right over your face and it takes all the beard off and doesn't cut or anything. Now, wouldn't you think that would be fun?"

"I should think it would be just lovely," Maida agreed. "That's just the thing for papa-for he is so busy. How much does it cost, Rosie?"

"About a dollar, Arthur thought. I never paid so much for a Christmas present in my life. And I'm not sure yet that I can get one. But if I do sell two dollars worth of candy, I can buy something perfectly beautiful for both father and mother."

"Oh, Rosie," Maida asked breathlessly, "do you mean that your mother's come back?"

Rosie's face changed. "Don't you think I'd tell you that the first thing? No, she hasn't come back and they don't say anything about her coming back. But if she ever does come, I guess I'm going to have her Christmas present all ready for her."

Maida patted her hand. "She's coming back," she said; "I know it."

Rosie sighed. "You come down Main Street the night before Christmas.

d.i.c.ky and I are going to buy our Christmas presents then and we can show you where to get the little razor."

"I'd love to." Maida beamed. And indeed, it seemed the most fascinating prospect in the world to her. Every night after she went to bed, she thought it over. She was really going to buy Christmas presents without any grown-up person about to interfere. It was rapture.

The night before the fair, the children worked even harder than the night before Halloween, for there were so many things to display. It was evident that the stock would overflow windows and shelves and show cases.

"We'll bring the long kitchen table in for your things, Arthur,"

Maida decided after a perplexed consideration of the subject.

"d.i.c.ky's and Rosie's things ought to go on the shelves and into the show cases where n.o.body can handle them."

They tugged the table into the shop and covered it with a beautiful old blue counter-pane.

"That's fine!" Arthur approved, unpacking his handicraft from the bushel-baskets in which he brought them.

The others stood round admiring the treasures and helping him to arrange them prettily. A fleet of graceful little boats occupied one end of the table, piles of bread-boards, rolling-pins and "cats,"

the other. In the center lay a bowl filled with tiny baskets, carved from peach-stones. From the molding hung a fringe of hockey-sticks.

Having arranged all Arthur's things, the quartette filed upstairs to the closet where d.i.c.ky's paper-work was kept.

"Gracious, I didn't realize there were so many," Rosie said.

"Sure, the lad has worked day and night," Granny said, patting d.i.c.ky's thin cheek.

They filled Arthur's baskets and trooped back to the shop. They lined show case and shelves with the glittering things-boxes, big and little, gorgeously ornamented with stars and moons, caps of gold and silver, flying gay plumes, rainbow boats too beautiful to sail on anything but fairy seas, miniature jackets and trousers that only a circus rider would wear.

"d.i.c.ky, I never did see anything look so lovely," Maida said, shaking her hands with delight. "I really didn't realize how pretty they were."

d.i.c.ky's big eyes glowed with satisfaction. "Nor me neither," he confessed.

"And now," Maida said, bubbling over with suppressed importance, "Rosie's candies-I've saved that until the last." She pulled out one of the drawers under the show case and lifted it on to the counter.

It was filled with candy-boxes of paper, prettily decorated with flower patterns on the outside, with fringes of lace paper on the inside. "I ordered these boxes for you, Rosie," she explained. "I knew your candy would sell better if it was put up nicely. I thought the little ones could be five-cent size, the middle-sized ones ten-cent size, and the big ones twenty-five cent size."

Rosie was dancing up and down with delight. "They're just lovely, Maida, and how sweet you were to think of it. But it was just like you."

"Now we must pack them," Maida said.

Four pairs of hands made light work of this. By nine o'clock all the boxes were filled and spread out temptingly in the show case. By a quarter past nine, three of the W.M.N.T.'s were in bed trying hard to get to sleep. But Maida stayed up. The boxes were not her only surprise.

After the others had gone, she and Granny worked for half an hour in the little shop.

The Sat.u.r.day before Christmas dawned clear and fair. Rosie hallooed for d.i.c.ky and Arthur as she came out of doors at half-past seven and all three arrived at the shop together. Their faces took on such a comic look of surprise that Maida burst out laughing.

"But where did it all come from?" Rosie asked in bewilderment.

"Maida, you slyboots, you must have done all this after we left."

Maida nodded.

But all Arthur and d.i.c.ky said was "Gee!" and "Jiminy crickets!" But Maida found these exclamatives quite as expressive as Rosie's hugs.

And, indeed, she herself thought the place worthy of any degree of admiring enthusiasm.

The shop was so strung with garlands of Christmas green that it looked like a bower. Bunches of mistletoe and holly added their colors to the holiday cheer. Red Christmas bells hung everywhere.

"My goodness, I never pa.s.sed such a day in my life," Maida said that night at dinner. She was telling it all to Granny, who had been away on mysterious business of her own. "It's been like a beehive here ever since eight o'clock this morning. If we'd each of us had an extra pair of hands at our knees and another at our waists, perhaps we could have begun to wait on all the people."

"Sure 'twas no more than you deserved for being such busy little bees," Granny approved.

"The only trouble was," Maida went on smilingly, "that they liked everything so much that they could not decide which they wanted most. Of course, the boys preferred Arthur's carvings and the girls Rosie's candy. But it was hard to say who liked d.i.c.ky's things the best."

Granny twinkled with delight. She had never told Maida, but she did not need to tell her, that d.i.c.ky was her favorite.

"And then the grown people who came, Granny! First Arthur's father on his way to work, then Mrs. Lathrop and Laura-they bought loads of things, and Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Doyle and even Mr. Flanagan bought a hockey-stick. He said," Maida dimpled with delight, "he said he bought it to use on Arthur and Rosie if they ever hooked jack again.

Poor Miss Allison bought one of Arthur's 'cats'-what do you suppose for?"

Granny had no idea.

"To wind her wool on. Then Billy came at the last minute and bought everything that was left. And just think, Granny, there was a crowd of little boys and girls who had stood about watching all day without any money to spend and Billy divided among them all the things he bought. Guess how much money they made!"

Granny guessed three sums, and each time Maida said, triumphantly, "More!" At last Granny had to give it up.

"Arthur made five dollars and thirty cents. d.i.c.ky made three dollars and eighty-seven cents. Rosie made two dollars and seventy cents."

After dinner that night, Maida accompanied Rosie and d.i.c.ky on the Christmas-shopping expedition.

They went first to a big dry goods store with d.i.c.ky. They helped d.i.c.ky to pick out a fur collar for his mother from a counter marked conspicuously $2.98. The one they selected was of gray and brown fur. It was Maida's opinion that it was sable and chinchilla mixed.

d.i.c.ky's face shone with delight when at last he tucked the big round box safely under his arm. "Just think, I've been planning to do this for three years," he said, "and I never could have done it now if it hadn't been for you, Maida."

Next d.i.c.ky took the two little girls where they could buy razors.

"The kind that goes like a lawn-mower," Rosie explained to the proprietor. The man stared hard before he showed them his stock. But he was very kind and explained to them exactly how the wonderful little machine worked.

Maida noticed that Rosie examined very carefully all the things displayed in windows and on counters. But nothing she saw seemed to satisfy her, for she did not buy.

"What is it, Rosie?" Maida asked after a while.