XIV. THE LITTLE SISTER'S VACATION*
* This story was first published in the Youth's Companion, vol. 77.
WINIFRED M. KIRKLAND
It was to be a glorious Christmas at Doctor Brower's. All "the
children"--little Peggy and her mother always spoke of the grown-up
ones as "the children"--were coming home. Mabel was coming from Ohio
with her big husband and her two babies, Minna and little Robin, the
year-old grandson whom the home family had never seen; Hazen was coming
all the way from the Johns Hopkins Medical School, and Arna was coming
home from her teaching in New York. It was a trial to Peggy that
vacation did not begin until the very day before Christmas, and then
continued only one niggardly week. After school hours she had helped
her mother in the Christmas preparations every day until she crept into
bed at night with aching arms and tired feet, to lie there tossing
about, whether from weariness or glad excitement she did not know.
"Not so hard, daughter," the doctor said to her once.
"Oh, papa," protested her mother, "when we're so busy, and Peggy is so
handy!"
"Not so hard," he repeated, with his eyes on fifteen-year-old Peggy's
delicate face, as, wearing her braids pinned up on her head and a
pinafore down to her toes, she stoned raisins and blanched almonds,
rolled bread crumbs and beat eggs, dusted and polished and made ready
for the children.
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