Read Online Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink - Free Book Online

still recovering. She had intended to spend some of her silver dollar for presents, but it still lay snug and safe in the wooden trinket box, because she was not able to take it to the store. They hung their stockings by the fireplace on Christmas Eve and Santa Claus came down the chimney here in Wisconsin just as he did in Boston and St. Louis. But the apples and nuts which he packed around their toys were strangely like those which they themselves had picked.
    â€œMother,” said Warren, “what are we going to have to eat for Christmas dinner?”
    â€œMince pie, Warren,” said Mrs. Woodlawn brightly.
    â€œThat’s good! But, I mean, what else?”
    â€œWhy, turkey and cranberries, of course! Folks alwayshave that for Christmas dinner.”
    Warren sighed. “I know—but I thought, maybe—we’d have salt pork or something—just for a change.”
    â€œNow, Warren, you run along and play. There are plenty of folks who’d be glad of a good turkey dinner on Christmas! You should count your blessings!”
    After Christmas Tom and Warren and Hetty went back to school, and the house seemed very empty. Caddie was not allowed to play with Minnie and baby Joe because of her cold, and when other household tasks were done, Mother and Clara were busy sewing carpet rags. Father was at the mill and Mrs. Conroy did not want to be bothered in her kitchen. Caddie looked at the family Bible and read Tom’s dog-eared book of Andersen’s Fairy Tales. She went into the parlor and looked at the Caroline table which really belonged to her, although Mother would scarcely let her touch it, for fear she might mar it. It had been made by one of Mother’s ancestors for his wife, Caroline, and ever since that time it had come down to the Carolines of the family. Over it hung the silhouette of Great Aunt Kittie who had been the last Caroline before Caddie. But even a nice little mahogany table which really belongs to you isn’t much company, and grows tiresome after you have looked at it for a while.
    Caddie’s wandering feet took her upstairs to theattic. Here were old boxes from Boston, and a beautiful round-topped trunk, lined with colored paper, with pictures of smiling children decorating the various compartments. And on a low shelf was a row of clocks, waiting for Father’s expert hand to mend them. The attic was drafty, but, near the head of the stairs, a big brick chimney came up from the kitchen, and there it was warm. Caddie drew some of the boxes over to the chimney and sat with her back against it, while she looked through them. Most of the things she had seen often enough. There were too many people in the family to allow old things to accumulate, unused. Only two things which she found puzzled and surprised Caddie. She found them in the bottom of one of the boxes, and she knew that she had never seen them before. They were a pair of little red breeches and a pair of small, wooden-soled clogs. Surely they had never belonged either to Warren or to Tom. For some time they puzzled and excited her. Then she put them neatly away in the box, resolved to ask Mother about them as soon as she went downstairs.
    Now she turned her attention to the clocks. They had been at the back of her mind all the time. She had been reserving them as a sort of final treat, as she often did with the things she liked best. She picked them up, one by one, and shook them to see if theywould start ticking. Among the others stood the circuit rider’s clock. Caddie remembered what he had said—it was the “face of a dead friend.” Surely it would soon be time for the circuit rider to return, and Father had not yet started work upon the clock. How dreadful it would be, if the circuit rider should return and find his clock unmended! Caddie turned the clock thoughtfully in her hands. She had seen Father mend so many of them! Of course, they were not all alike inside, but she knew