"Gott in Himmel! Donner und Blitzen!" he thundered in tones that had not been heard in that store since the baker had discovered salt instead of sugar on a large batch of cinnamon kuchen.

The alarmed clerks stared at the baker in consternation. Two or three of the new ones retreated to the door, but the braver hurried to their irate employer, who stood glowering like a thunder-cloud and pointing to a certain round object reposing innocently on a table.

"Der Teufel! Was meint das? Das geht nicht," shrieked the baker, who was apt, under excitement, to fall into his native tongue. "Who has not his pudding got? Wo ist dat Hans Kleinhardt?"

The head clerk could not be found, and as none of the other clerks knew aught of the Christmas pudding scheme, the direst misunderstanding ensued. In the midst of the excitement the front door opened and Katrina rushed in, her cheeks aglow and her enthusiasm beautiful to behold were there no puddings in the case.

"Oh, Father, I ran in--" she began, then stopped suddenly. A glance at her father told her that some dreadful thing had happened to disturb the peaceful serenity that usually pervaded Herr Baumgartner's establishment. The baker turned to her.

"Vat did you do mit dose Christmas puddings, already?"

"Why, Father," answered Katrina, "I wrapped them up and put them on the table by the door, just as you told me to, before I went to the sleigh-ride. They must be here somewhere."

A vigorous search for the puddings ensued, but it was a fruitless quest.

After a little, when the baker had calmed down somewhat, Katrina ventured to tell her errand.

"I came in to see if the Widow M'Carty's cake had been sent to her, and if it hasn't, the sleigh-ride party is here and we will drive down and take it to her."

"Dat cake? I know nodings about it. Did any von send the Widow M'Carty her cake?" turning to the clerks.

"The Widow M'Carty's cake!" cried all the clerks in unison. "Why, I sent it to her!"

"The Widow M'Carty's cake!" chorused twelve highly excited drivers.

"Why, I took it to her!"

"Mein Gott! Mein Gott!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the baker as the fate of his puddings dawned upon him. "Twelve cakes to the Widow M'Carty, und day was all puddings!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'TWELVE CAKES TO THE WIDOW M'CARTY!'"]

_Eighth Episode_

WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE TEN-O'CLOCK ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Great is the mission of the plum pudding to elevate and refine. Poor Mrs. M'Carty, who had been too tired even to throw a stick at the Dooleys, and had meant only to wait for the return of the children to seek her much-shared bed, now began to bethink herself of active preparations for the unexpected festivities of the morrow.

The fire was encouraged to bestir itself, a kettle of water was put on to heat, and pails and scrubbing-brush were brought from the lean-to.

At this juncture the returned sightseers burst into the room, Katy and Norah both talking at once. Terence and Denny were not far behind in their utterances, and though perhaps more coherent, were certainly not less enthusiastic. It was well that the eloquence of tongues spoke in their wonder-filled eyes, for otherwise no mere mortal could have interpreted the steadily rising tones and varied inflections which were excitedly mingled in a Babel of sounds.

The sc.r.a.ping of snow and the confusion attendant upon their sudden entrance filled Mrs. M'Carty with new alarm, but she collected her wits enough to whisper with desperate vehemence, while she waved her scrubbing-cloth wildly:

"Whist now, will you, and mind that I don't hear another word out of your heads, or you'll be waking up Granny, for upon my soul, her eyes ain't been shut more than this blessed two minutes. I hope to goodness you won't be disturbing her, for I be just going to do up her cap for the Christmas. Now off with yourselves to bed, and not another word out of your heads to-night, till to-morrow. Och, Katy dear! What would you be telling me that for again? Sure you've repeated it three times, not counting the twice of Terence's. Now, now, boys, will you mind your mother, and go to bed like good children, and be getting up bright and early with Christmas morning faces on you?"

The boys obeyed and were soon deep in dreams in which "cops" were selling newspapers out in the cold, and newsboys were in Huyler's warming their feet while ladies in fluffy furs treated them to candy and ice-cream.

The widow bestowed a grateful look on the two lads asleep in the bunk which had been built in the little jog between the kitchen and lean-to. Then she tiptoed past them into the inner room where she found Katy and Norah whispering excitedly and with no prospect of cessation until their mother's voice reminded them of their promise to be quiet.

"Now, child of grace, get into the bed," she said to Katy, "and don't be keeping yourselves awake till the morning, and don't be forgetting to say your prayers."

Mrs. M'Carty slipped back to the kitchen, where Grandad sat dozing in his one-armed rocking-chair, and immediately began to busy herself with fresh energy.

"Off with your shirt, Grandad," she said, cheerfully, as the old man gave a sleepy jerk to his head. "It's the best one you have, and I'll wash it out in a minute and iron it to-night. You can wrap that old shawl about you, and while your shirt's a-soaking, I'll give you a brush over with a bit of soap and water, for it'll be that lively in the morning, there'll never be the bit of a chance, at all; and I'm not one to leave till the proper time them things I've the opportunity of doing now."

The shirt being consigned to the soaking process, Bridget next attacked her father. When his ablutions were finished, she pinned a shawl around his shoulders, and moved his chair nearer the fire. With his cheeks glowing from their recent administration of soap and water, Grandad watched the washing and starching of his blue gingham shirt, thinking the while of its stiffness, which would encase him on the morrow, but at the same time regarding it as one of those trials to be borne without complaint.

Mrs. M'Carty hung the shirt close to the fire to dry, while she "scrubbed thot strip in front of the sthove;" then she left the strip, "bekase," as she said in her state of bewilderment and joy, "Oi musht do the shirt whiles the irons is hot, an' it do beat all how fasht thim irons does het oop whin ye ain't waitin' on thim." So, getting up from her knees, and leaving a good-sized puddle for future attention, she proceeded to pound the iron on Grandad's shirt and one neck-cloth, turning now and then to the sweet-tempered old man, who sat smiling at her as she bustled to and fro.

"Ye'll be that fine to-morrow," said Bridget, "that you'll not be after knowing yourself, sure. And your hair will be combed that smooth, you'll look ten years younger. It does be, I mind, it's the hair that adds the years to your life."

Grandad Rafferty, his spirits undepressed by what sufferings the ordeal of starch and comb might have in store for him, tapped his empty pipe on the edge of the stove and responded softly,--

"'Tis ye, Biddy M'Carty, would hearten up a ghost, so ye would."

"It's a quare way ye have of jabberin' all through the night that a body can't get a wink of slape," came the querulous tones of Granny from her pallet in the farther corner of the inner room. "An' it's that cold in here--an' why in the world do ye be burnin' the fire in the night an' wasthin' the wood, an' we'll be sittin' 'round freezin'

to-morra with no fire at all,--so we will."

For a moment Bridget's spirits fell, but the next instant they rose again.

"Wait a bit, now, Granny, and I'll be bringing you a warm iron to your feet, and before you know it you'll be dreaming of the smell of fresh peat coming in the door."

"Dhramin' is it, Oi'd be?" growled Granny, and in a moment more her cane was heard thumping vigorously on the floor. Bridget and Grandad had scarcely more than time to exchange a sympathetic glance when Granny appeared with her red flannel petticoat over her nightgown and a black and white shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She came hobbling in, sniffing the sudsy moisture and complaining:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'IT'S MORE ROOMETIZ FOR ME, SO IT IS'"]

"It's more roometiz for me, so it is.--Begorra, but it's piercin' cold in there.--It's you that has the comfortable spot, Misther Rafferty.

It do be that draughty when yer comin' through this way," and thus speaking her mind on a few points, Granny made her way slowly to her chair and seated herself in it.

Meantime Bridget was quietly raising geysers of suds in her endeavors to conceal the luckless cap.

"Bridget M'Carty," demanded Granny, "what on earth do ye be workin' at there that ye be puttin' out me eyes fairly, with splashin' soapsuds in them? Is it my cap yer sousin' up and down, now? Indade, then, and it is, an' me just wantin' it. No wonder I'll be gettin' more pain in my bones, with the wind blowin' like a penethratin' blast through the windy, an' me with no cap, an' ye kapin' yerself warm be exercisin'."

"Och, now, Granny," said Bridget, hoping to pacify her, "sure I thought it would be a grand surprise for you when you woke in the morning, to see them tie-ends hanging before your eyes all starched up, that Miss Barney's mother might just be envying you."

"Envyin' me, would she?" replied Granny. "Like enough 'twill not be dry by mornin' at all, an' whin I do put it on, I'll be gettin' that pain in me head agin."

Grandad's conciliatory remark was never heard, for Granny's mutterings continued while her patient daughter-in-law starched and ironed the cap. When it was finished and hung by the fire to air, Bridget, with a weary smile, turned to her father.

"Come now, Daddy," she said, "you'll not be wanting to get up if you don't be getting to your bed soon."

"Well, thin, if ye're meanin' to put the light out in me face, I'll go back to my bed before ye do," snapped Granny, and so she went.

When Grandad had been snugly tucked into his cot in the kitchen, and the pails and mops put out of sight, Bridget lay down to a well-earned sleep and dreamed that the fairies were pelting her with puddings, every third one of which fell into her mouth and was swallowed whole.