"See
what Santa Claus has brought you!"
Before they had time to remember what a sorry Christmas it was to be,
they received their presents, a live bird, for each, a bird that was
never to be kept in a cage, but fly about the house till summer came,
and then to go away if it wished.
Pets were scarce on the prairie, and the girls were delighted. Nothing
papa could have brought them would have given them so much happiness.
They thought no more of the dinner, but hurried to dress themselves and
feed the birds, which were quite tame from hunger and weariness. But
after a while they saw preparations for dinner, too. Mamma made a crust
and lined a deep dish--the chicken pie dish--and then she brought a
mysterious something out of the cupboard, all cut up so that it looked
as if it might be chicken, and put it in the dish with other things,
and then she tucked them all under a thick crust, and set it down in a
tin oven before the fire to bake. And that was not all. She got out
some more cornmeal, and made a batter, and put in some sugar and
something else which she slipped in from a bowl, and which looked in
the batter something like raisins; and at the last moment Willie
brought her a cup of snow and she hastily beat it into the cake, or
pudding, whichever you might call it, while the children laughed at the
idea of making a cake out of snow.
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