Then a woman’s cloaked figure came slowly back past Sister Johnson’s house in the moonlight, and Sandy saw that it was his mother returning, her head down and her shadow moving blackly on the snow. You could hear the dry grate of her heels on the frozen whiteness as she walked, leaning forward, dragging something heavy behind her. Sandy prepared to lie down quickly in bed again, but he kept his eyes against the windowpane to see what Annjee was pulling, and, as she came closer to the house, he could distinguish quite clearly behind her a solid, homemade sled bumping rudely over the snow.
Before Annjee’s feet touched the porch, he was lying still as though he had been asleep a long time.
The morning sunlight was tumbling brightly into the windows when Sandy opened his eyes and blinked at the white world outside.
“Aren’t you ever going to get up?” asked Annjee, smiling timidly above him. “It’s Christmas morning, honey. Come see what Santa Claus brought you. Get up quick.”
But he didn’t want to get up. He knew what Santa Claus had brought him and he wanted to stay in bed with his face to the wall. It wasn’t a Golden Flyer sled—and now he couldn’t even hope for one any longer. He wanted to pull the covers over his head and cry, but, “Boy! You ain’t up yet?” called Aunt Hager cheerily from the kitchen. “De little Lawd Jesus is in His manger fillin’ all de world with light. An’ old Santa done been here an’ gone! Get out from there, chile, an’ see!”
“I’m coming, grandma,” said Sandy slowly, wiping his tear-filled eyes and rolling out of bed as he forced his mouth to smile wide and steady at the few little presents he saw on the floor—for the child knew he was expected to smile.
“O! A sled!” he cried in a voice of mock surprise that wasn’t his own at all; for there it stood, heavy and awkward, against the wall and beside it on the floor lay two picture-books from the ten-cent store and a pair of white cotton gloves. Above the sled his stocking, tacked to the wall, was partly filled with candy, and the single orange peeped out from the top.
But the sled! Homemade by some rough carpenter, with strips of rusty tin nailed along the wooden runners, and a piece of clothesline to pull it with!
“It’s fine,” Sandy lied, as he tried to lift it and place it on the floor as you would in coasting; but it was very heavy, and too wide for a boy to run with in his hands. You could never get a swift start. And a board was warped in the middle.
“It’s a nice sled, grandma,” he lied. “I like it, mama.”
“Mr. Logan made it for you,” his mother answered proudly, happy that he was pleased. “I knew you wanted a sled all the time.”
“It’s a nice sled,” Sandy repeated, grinning steadily as he held the heavy object in his hands. “It’s an awful nice sled.”
“Well, make haste and look at de gloves, and de candy, and them pretty books, too,” called Hager from the kitchen, where she was frying strips of salt pork. “My, you sho is a slow chile on Christmas mawin’! Come ’ere and lemme kiss you.” She came to the bedroom and picked him up in her arms. “Christmas gift to Hager’s baby chile! Come on, Annjee, bring his clothes out here behind de stove an’ bring his books, too. … This here’s Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, and this here’s Hansee and Gretsle on de cover—but I reckon you can read ’em better’n I can. … Daughter, set de table. Breakfast’s ’bout ready now. Look in de oven an’ see ’bout that cornbread. … Lawd, this here Sandy’s just like a baby lettin’ ole Hager hold him and dress him. … Put yo’ foot in that stocking, boy!” And Sandy began to feel happier, sitting on his grandmother’s lap behind the stove.
Before noon Buster had come and gone, showing off his new shoes and telling his friend about the train he had gotten that ran on a real track when you wound it up. After dinner Willie-Mae appeared bringing a naked rag doll and a set of china dishes in a blue box. And Sister Johnson sent them a mince pie as a Christmas gift.
Almost all Aunt Hager’s callers knocked at the back door, but in the late afternoon the front bell rang and Annjee sent Sandy through the cold parlor to answer it. There on the porch stood his Aunt Tempy, with several gaily wrapped packages in her arms. She was almost a stranger to Sandy, yet she kissed him peremptorily on the forehead as he stood in the doorway. Then she came through the house into the kitchen, with much the air of a mistress of the manor descending to the servants’ quarters.
“Land sakes alive!” said Hager, rising to kiss her.
Tempy hugged Annjee, too, before she sat down, stiffly, as though the house she was in had never been her home. To little Willie-Mae she said nothing.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t invite you for Christmas dinner today, but you know how Mr. Siles is,” Tempy began to explain to her mother and sister. “My husband is home so infrequently, and he doesn’t like a house full of company, but of course Dr. and Mrs. Glenn Mitchell will be in later in the evening. They drop around any time. … But I had to run down and bring you a few presents. … You haven’t seen my new piano yet, have you, mother? I must come and take you home with me some nice afternoon.” She smiled appropriately, but her voice was hard.
“How is you an’ yo’ new church makin’ it?” asked Hager, slightly embarrassed in the presence of her finely dressed society daughter.
“Wonderful!” Tempy replied. “Wonderful! Father Hill is so dignified, and the
