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Daylight struggled still with a heavy snow-squall when the signal was given for the carol “Christmas time has come again,” and the march down to breakfast. That march! On the third step the carol was forgotten and the band broke into one long cheer that was kept up till the door of the dining-room was reached. At the first glimpse within, baby George’s wail rose loud and grievous: “My chair! my chair!” But it died in a shriek of joy as he saw what it was that had taken its place. There stood the Christmas-tree, one mass of shining candles, and silver and gold, and angels with wings, and wondrous things of colored paper all over it from top to bottom. Gimpy’s eyes sparkled at the sight, skeptic though he was at nine; and in the depths of his soul he came over, then and there, to Santa Claus, to abide forever–only he did not know it yet.

To make the children eat any breakfast, with three gay sleds waiting to take the girls out in the snow, was no easy matter; but it was done at last, and they swarmed forth for a holiday in the open. All days are spent in the open at Sea Breeze,–even the school is a tent,–and very cold weather only shortens the brief school hour; but this day was to be given over to play altogether. Winter it was “for fair,” but never was coasting enjoyed on New England hills as these sledding journeys on the sands where the surf beat in with crash of thunder. The sea itself had joined in making Christmas for its little friends. The day before, a regiment of crabs had come ashore and surrendered to the cook at Sea Breeze. Christmas morn found the children’s “floor”–they called the stretch of clean, hard sand between high-water mark and the surf-line by that name–filled with gorgeous shells and pebbles, and strange fishes left there by the tide overnight. The fair-weather friends who turn their backs upon old ocean with the first rude blasts of autumn little know what wonderful surprises it keeps for those who stand by it in good and in evil report.

When the very biggest turkey that ever strutted in barnyard was discovered steaming in the middle of the dinner-table and the report went round in whispers that ice-cream had been seen carried in in pails, and when, in response to a pull at the bell, Matron Thomsen ushered in a squad of smiling mamas and papas to help eat the dinner, even Gimpy gave in to the general joy, and avowed that Christmas was “bully.” Perhaps his acceptance of the fact was made easier by a hasty survey of the group of papas and mamas, which assured him that his own were not among them. A fleeting glimpse of the baby, deserted and disconsolate, brought the old pucker to his brow for a passing moment; but just then big Fred set off a snapper at his very ear, and thrusting a pea-green fool’s-cap upon his head, pushed him into the roistering procession that hobbled round and round the table, cheering fit to burst. And the babies that had been brought down from their cribs, strapped, because their backs were crooked, in the frames that look so cruel and are so kind, lifted up their feeble voices as they watched the show with shining eyes. Little baby Helen, who could only smile and wave “by-by” with one fat hand, piped in with her tiny voice, “Here I is!” It was all she knew, and she gave that with a right good will, which is as much as one can ask of anybody, even of a snow baby.

If there were still lacking a last link to rivet Gimpy’s loyalty to his new home for good and all, he himself supplied it when the band gathered under the leafless trees–for Sea Breeze has a grove in summer, the only one on the island–and whiled away the afternoon making a “park” in the snow, with sea-shells for curbing and boundary stones. When it was all but completed, Gimpy, with an inspiration that then and there installed him leader, gave it the finishing touch by drawing a policeman on the corner with a club, and a sign, “Keep off the grass.” Together they gave it the air of reality and the true local color that made them feel, one and all, that now indeed they were at home.