The cornfield was never so beautiful, and not a single grain was
stolen by a crow, and everybody wondered at it, for they could not read
the crow-language in which Santa had written.
"It is a great mystery to me why the crows don't come into our
cornfield, when there is no scarecrow," said Aunt Hannah.
But she had a still greater mystery to solve when Christmas came round
again. Then she and Betsey had each a strange present. They found them
in the sitting-room on Christmas morning. Aunt Hannah's present was her
old crazy quilt, remodelled, with every piece cut square and true, and
matched exactly to its neighbour.
"Why, it's my old crazy quilt, but it isn't crazy now!" cried Aunt
Hannah, and her very spectacles seemed to glisten with amazement.
Betsey's present was her doll-baby of the Christmas before; but the
doll was a year older. She had grown an inch, and could walk and say,
"mamma," and "how do?" She was changed a good deal, but Betsey knew her
at once. "It's my doll-baby!" she cried, and snatched her up and kissed
her.
But neither Aunt Hannah nor Betsey ever knew that the quilt and the
doll were Jimmy Scarecrow's Christmas presents to them.
XII. WHY THE CHIMES RANG*
* Copyright, 1906. Used by special permission of the publishers, the
Bobbs-Merrill Company.
RAYMOND MC ALDEN
There was once in a faraway country where few people have ever
travelled, a wonderful church.
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