The evening world. Newspaper, December 24, 1921, Page 14

2 VHE ae Bumpiest package with euger hands only to find—a gay, gauzy layer of animal masks nosing interrogatively up at her. No identifying card! Perhaps a donation for the Sunday School Christmas Tree? But there wasn't going to be any tree! “U—m—m—m," mused Flame, “what- ever in the world shall I do with them?" Then quite abruptly she sank, back on her heels and laughed, But even to herself she did not say just what she was laughing at. Taken all in all, it was a Christmas morning of works! Kitchen mnostly! Useful, flavorous adventures with a turkey! A somewhat nervous A few experiments sally with a pie! with fiour paste! A flare or two with brush! An works, a paint attic! errand to the It was 4 o'clock before she was even ready to start for the Mfattle-Pane House with a sledful of miscellaneous She had to three trips. And was big gray cat stealing out to try to follow her. And each arrival complicated by the yelpings and leapings and general cavortings of four dogs who wanted to escape from the shed yard, With the third arrival finally accomplished the erafty cat stood waiting for her on the eteps of the Rattle-Pane House—back arched, fur bristled, spitting at the storm in the shed yard, and had to be thrust into a covered basket and lashed d own with yards and yards of tinsel, The door key was exactly where the old butler had said it would be—under the doormat, and the key itself turned astonishingly cordially in the rusty old lock. -The four dog dishes, heaping to the brim, loomed in prim line upon the kitchen table. \ “Um—m-m,"” sniffed Flame. ‘“Noth- ing but mush! Mush!” She doffed her red tam and sweater, donned a huge white all-anveloping pinafore, and started to work. 3y 6 o'clock the faded yellow kitchen must have looked very strange even to a dog. Christmas goods, tugging deinyed by inert make each start pussy Straight down its dingy, wab- bly floored centre stretched a table spread with the Rev. Mrs. Flamande Nourice’s second best table cloth. Quaint, high-backed chairs dragged in from the shadowy parlor eircled the table, At one end of the table loomed a big, brown turkey; at the other, the appropriate vegetables. cakes, and doughnuts interspersed them- selves Green wreaths streaming with scarlet ribbons hung nenchalantly about, Tinsel garlands shone on the walls. Conspicuously placed above the rusty” stovepipe stretched the Parish's Gift -Motto— duly readjusted: “PEACE on EARTH, Good Will to DOGS.” doorway constructed pasteboard Pies, between, In the hastily mim- fiery of a railroad-crossing sign to the effect: opposite reared a Christmas Crossing Look Out for Surprises aside for a etudy the full effect of her handiwork, the first life smote sharply across her senses; Stepping moment to psychological puzzle of her that the absolutely namely, yourself instant you find with a Teally Good Time you begin to hunt about for some body Very Special! to share it with you! alone “Maybe that’s always the way things happen when you get your own way about something else!” she mused, IKE a blast from the Arctic, the Christmas twilight swept in on Flame as she opened the shed door i “Come, Beautiful-Lovely," she m- a - ~“~ ' a eS # of ib eee Bs we See B23 , . G 4 si : ik z iid & . < i ~n222 7 Bo ce 8 reat Se Be a ae sy +4 eee’ toes Fy a ~ 2 © * ae . “* : . > Vos & % 3 2 P ‘ ¥ ' % m Ras iy maiinl? he Ft pia ‘ , i ‘ KVENING A Complet plored. Miss “Come, Lopsy! Flora! Come, Blunder-Biot!” Leaping, loping, four abreast, came plunging like so many North Winds to their party! Yelping- mouthed, slapping-tailed! Backs bristling! Hurtling, crowding! “Oh, dear me, dgar me,” struggled Flame, “Maybe would calm them." To a extent oa carol surely did. Cocking their ears to the old piano’s quavering treble notes—snort- ing their nosfrils through its gritty, guttural basses—they watched Flame’s they a garol certain facile fingers sweep from sound to sound, “Oh, what a—glorious lark!" quiv- ered Flame, ous lark! Timidly at first, but with increasing abandon the young soprano voice took up its playful paraphrase: “What a—a lonely glori- clear God rest you, merrie—animals! Let nothing you dismay! For -——— At this moment Beautiful-Lovely, muzzle lifted, eyes rolling, jabbed his shrill nose into ‘space and harmony with a carol of his own: “Wow—Wow—Wow! —-w—Ow— W-w—ow—w-w—Oo—W-w-w-w!” As Flame’s hands dropped from ithe piano startled fists beat furiously on the door! BEAUTIFUL-LOVELY JABBED HIS SHRILL ‘NOSE WORLD'S FICTION. SECTION, SA'TURDAY, weakly. ‘It wouldn’t be convenient. T I've got trouble\with my eyes.” “Trouble with your eyes? Please open the door! I've been looking for you everywhere,” urged the Lay Reader. “At the Senior Warden’s! At all the vestrymen’'s houses! I thought surely I'd find you at your own house. But I only found sled tracks.” “That was me—I,"” mumbled Flame. “And then I heard these awful screams,” shuddered the Lay Reader. “That was a carol,” said Flame, “aA carol?” scoffed the Lay Reader. “Open the door!” “Well—just a Flame. It was astonishing how a man as broad-shouldered as the Lay Reader could pass so easily through a crack. Conscience-stricken, Flame fied be- fore him with her elbows crooked across her forehead. “Oh, my eyes! My crack,” conceded eyes!” she cried, “Well, really,” puzzled the Lay Reader, ‘I had never suspected my- self of being actually dazzling.” “Oh,” explained Flame, “It’s just my promise. I promised mother not to see you!” “We might tle my big handkerchief across your eyes,” suggested the Lay Reader, “Just till we get this mys- tery straightened out.” With the big white handkerchief tied INTO SPACE . WITH A CAROL OF HIS OWN. “What is it? a familiar What is it?” shouted “Whatever in the Let me in!” Flame “It's nothing but a voice, world is happening? “Sil-ly!” crack in the door, party! Don't you when you hear it?” “Bertrand, the Lay Reader,” in a gasp of astonishment. “Why! Why, -is that Miss Flame?” he “Why, I thought Why—why, ever ii the world are you doing here?” “I—I’'m Flame through the. keyhole, “A—a Reader, hissed through a know a—a_ party relaxed you, gasped, it was a murder! what- having a party,” hissed party?” stammered the Lay “Open the “No, 1 can’t,” said Flame. door,"* “Why not?” demanded the Lay Reader “T just can't,’ she admitted a bit ; e Story firmly across her Flame’s last scruple vanished. “Well, you see,” she began precipi- tately, “I did think it would be such fun to have a party all my own! No parish in it at all! Or good works! Just fun—And as long as mother and away, anyway—— she confided, ‘Uncle Wally'’s new eyes, father had to go You see, making a will. There’s a corn barn and a private chapel and a collec- tion of Chinese lanterns and a piebald pony Mother, of course principally under dispute. thinks we ought to father Chinese corn barn, [But between the and the have the can't decide lanterns private chapel, Personally,” she sighed, “I'm hoping for the pie- bald pony.” “Yes—but this—party?” prodded the Ley Render, “Why have it in a de ver E DECEMBER 24, y Saturday , Pa pet pe 1921, aa 4 ‘ scrted house?” * “Oh, but, you sec, it isn’t exactly a x H deserted house,” she explained. ¥ “Who lives here?" demanded the q Lay Reader, j “I don't know—ocxactly,” admitted Flame. ‘But the butler is a friend of ae mine, and’— “The—butler is a friend of yours? ¥ There,” gasped the Lay Reader, “I could almost have sworn that I heard a faint scuffle, the horrid sound of a person—strangling.” “Strangling?” giggled Flame, “Oh, that is just the sound of Miss Flora’s ‘girlish glee’! Miss Flora is a—a dog, I neglected to state that this is a dog party that I’m having.” “Dogs?” winced the Lay Reader © “Will they bite?” 4 “Only if you don’t trust the m,”’ con- fided Flame, “But it’s so hard to trust a dog that will bite you if you don’t trust him,” frowned the Lay Reader. } It was Flame’s turn now to wince— back a little, “I—I hate people who hate dogs!’ she cried out abruptly. “Oh, I don't hate them,” lied the Lay Reader like a gentleman. “I tell you I like dogs—good dogs! I assure you I'm very—oh, very much interested in this dog party of yours! If I could be of any possible assistanse?” he im- plored, “May—be you could be. problem,” admitted Flame. problems, to be perfectly Four dogs, and a cat.” “And ai cat?” echoed the Reader quite idiotically, “The table is set,” affirmed Flame. “But I don’t know how to get the dogs into their chairs! They run ardund so! They yelp! They jump! They haven’t had a'mouthful to eat, you see, since last night this time! And when they once see the turkey I'm—I'm afraid they‘! stampede it!” “Turkey?” quizzed the Lay Reader, who had dimed that beef, “Oh, of course, mush was what they were intended to There is a “Five accurate, Lay day on corned have,” admitted Flame, “Piles and piles of mush! Ex- tra piles and piles of mush, because it was Christmas Day! But don't you think mush does seem a bit dull?” she questioned appealingly. ‘For Christ mas Day? Oh, I did think a turkey would taste so good!" “It certainly Lay Reader. “So, if you'd help me, wheedled Flame, “it would be well worth stay- Ing blindfolded for, Otherwise,” mur- would,” conceded the mured Flame with a faint gesture toward the door, “IT will .help you,” said the Lay Reader. “Where is your hand?” fumbled Flame, “Here!’s attested the Lay Reader, “Lead us to the dogs!” commanded Flame, ERTRAND for the served, wouldn’t have hesitated an in- stant probably to ‘be torn by Hindu lions, saw no conceivable rea- son at the moment for being eaten by dogs at a purely social function. LAURELLO, cause he who, “This—this mush that you speak of?” he questioned: ‘With the dogs as—as nervouS as you say— Don't you think that perhaps a little mush served first, a good decal of mush, I would say, served first, might act as a as a sort of anesthesia?” “Lead us to the—mush,” said Flame. The door knob turned in his hand, and -+he cheerful kitchen lamplight, glitter of tinsel, flare of red ribbons, savor of foods, smote sharply on him. “Oh, I say, how jolly!” oried the Lay Reader, “Get the mush,” said Flame, “It's there on the table by the window Please set all four dishes on the floor— each dish in a separate corner, And then open the parlor door, or mayhe I'd better,” conceded lame. . “Lear ” me to it.” “Sniff—sniff—snort!"” the red setter - sucked at the crack in the door, “Woof! Woof! Woof!" roared the hig wolfhound, 5 ‘Ae “Slam! Bang! Slash!" slapped © the ts Dalmatian's crisp ‘vil Yil Vil” sang the bulldog. “Hush! Hush, dogs!” implored Flame. “This Is father’s Lay Reader!” “Your—~Lay Reader!" contradicted the young man gallantly In another instant: four shapes with teeth in them came huriling through! With a single sniff at the Lay Reader's heels, a prod of paws in his stomach, the onslaught swerved--and passed, Guzzingly from four separate corners of the room issded sounds of joy and fulfilment Fiame weight, turned her back to the Lay 1 «