"Is--is THIS your Santa Claus?" she faltered.

"Yes'm," answered Georgie.

"Jedediah Cahoon!" cried Thankful. "Jedediah Cahoon!"

For Georgie's "Santa Claus" was her brother, the brother who had run away from her home so long ago to seek his fortune in the Klondike; whose letter, written in San Francisco and posted in Omaha, had reached her the month before; whom the police of several cities were looking for at her behest.

"Auntie!" cried Emily again.

Thankful shook her head. "Help me to a chair, Emily," she begged weakly.

"This--this is--my soul and body! Jedediah come alive again!"

The returned gold-hunter swallowed several times.

"Thankful," he faltered, "I know you must feel pretty hard agin me, but--but, you see--"

"Hush! hush! Don't speak to me for a minute. Let me get my bearin's, for mercy sakes, if I can. . . . Jedediah--HERE!"

"Yes--yes, I'm here. I am, honest. I--"

"Sshh! You're here now, but--but where have you been all this time? For a man that is, I presume likely, loaded down with money--I presume you must be loaded down with it; you remember you'd said you'd never come back until you was--for that kind of a man I must say you look pretty down at the heel."

"Thankful--"

"Have you worn out your clothes luggin' the money around?"

"Auntie, don't. Look at him. Think!"

"Hush, Emily! I am lookin' at him and I'm thinkin', too. I'm thinkin'

of how much I put up with afore he run off and left me, and how I've worried and laid awake nights thinkin' he was dead. Where have you been all this time? Why haven't you written?"

"I did write."

"You wrote when you was without a cent and wanted to get money from me.

You didn't write before. Let me be, Emily; you don't know what I've gone through on account of him and now he comes sneakin' into my house in the middle of the night, without a word that he was comin', sneakin' in like a thief and frightenin' us half to death and--"

Jedediah interrupted. "Sneakin' in!" he repeated, with a desperate move of his hands. "I had to sneak in. I was scairt to come in when you was up and awake. I knew you'd be down on me like a thousand of brick.

I--I--Oh, you don't know what I've been through, Thankful, or you'd pity me, 'stead of pitchin' into me like this. I've been a reg'lar tramp--that's what I've been, a tramp. Freezin' and starvin' and workin'

in bar-rooms! Why, I beat my way on a freight train all the way here from New Bedford, and I've been hidin' out back of the house waitin' for you to go to bed, so's I'd dare come in."

"So's you'd dare come in! What did you want to come in for if I wa'n't here?"

"I wanted to leave a note for you, that's why. I wanted to leave a note and--and that."

He pointed to the ring and the bit of tissue paper on the table.

Thankful took up the paper first and read aloud what was written upon it.

"For Thankful, with a larst merry Christmas from brother Jed. I am going away and if you want me I will be at New Bedford for two weeks, care the bark Finback."

"'I am goin' away'," repeated Thankful. "Goin' away? Are you goin' away AGAIN?"

"I--I was cal'latin' to. I'm goin' cook on a whaler."

"Cook! You a cook! And," she took up the ring and stared at it, "for the land sakes, what's this?"

"It's a present I bought for you. Took my last two dollar bill, it did.

I wanted you to have somethin' to remember me by."

Thankful held the gaudy ring at arm's length and stared at it helplessly. There was a curious expression on her face, half-way between laughing and crying.

"You bought this--this thing for me," she repeated. "And did you think I'd wear it."

"I hoped you would. Oh, Thankful, if you only knew what I've been through. Why, I was next door to starvin' when I got in here tonight.

If I hadn't eat somethin' I found in the b.u.t.try I would have starved, I guess. And I'm soaked, soppin' through and--"

"There, there. Hush! hush! Jedediah, you're gold-diggin' ain't changed you much, I guess. You're just as helpless as ever you was. Well, you're here and I'm grateful for so much. Now you come with me out into the kitchen and we'll see what can be done about gettin' you dry. Emily, if you'll just put that child to bed."

But Georgie had something to say. He had listened to this long dialogue with astonishment and growing dismay. Now the dismay and conviction of a great disappointment overcame him.

"I don't want to go to bed," he wailed. "Ain't he Santa Claus? He SAID he was Santa Claus. Where are my presents? Where's my air-gun? I want my presents. Oh--Oh--Oh!"

He went out crying. Emily ran to him.

"Hush, hush, Georgie, dear," she begged. "Come upstairs with sister--come. If you don't you may be here when the real Santa comes and you will frighten him away. Come with me; that's a good boy. Auntie, I will be down by and by."

She led the disappointed and still sobbing boy from the room. Thankful turned to her brother.

"Now you march out into that kitchen," she commanded. "I'll get you warm first and then I'll see about a bed for you. You'll have to sleep up on the third floor tonight. After that I'll see about a better room to put you in."

Jedediah stared at her.

"What--what," he faltered. "Do you mean--Thankful, do you mean you're goin' to let me stay here for--for good?"

"Yes, of course I do. You don't think I'll let you get out of my sight again, do you? That is, unless you're real set on goin' gold-huntin'.

I'm sure you shan't go cook on any whaler; I've got too much regard for sailors' digestions to let you do that."

"Thankful, I--I'll work my hands off for you. I'll--"

"All right, all right. Now trot along and warm those hands or you won't have any left to work off; they'll be SHOOK off with the shivers. Come, Jed, I forgive you; after all, you're my brother, though you did run away and leave me."

"Then--then you're glad I came back?"

"Glad!" Thankful shook her head with a tearful smile. "Glad!" she repeated. "I've been workin' heavens and earth to get you back ever since I got that pitiful letter of yours. You poor thing! You MUST have had a hard time of it. Well, you can tell me all about it by and by. Now you march into that kitchen."

Another hour had pa.s.sed before Mrs. Barnes reentered the living-room.

There, to her astonishment, she found Emily awaiting her.