and got hold of Joe's foot and tried to pull him out, and Joe hollored
like a painter, and Santa Claus dropped his pipe and sat down on the
floor and began laughing. I saw it was Bim Kelso. Abe left with her, and
I suppose they went back to the village and around in a regular Santa
Claus spree.

"Mrs. Kelso said that she had been making a beard of pieces of buffalo
skin and fitting up an old suit of her father's clothes that afternoon.
I wonder what she'll do next. It's terrible to be so much in love and not
quite seventeen. Harry is as bad as she is. I wish they had been a little
older before they met.

"Joe said yesterday that he was going back to Vergennes.

"'How are you going to get there?' I asked.

"'Abe's going to make me a pair o' wings, and I'm going to smash right up
through the sky and go awa-a-y off to Vergennes and play with Ben and
Lizzie Tyler. Abe says there ain't no bad roads up there.'

"I asked him what I should do if he went away and left me like that.

"'Oh, I'll come right back,' he said, 'and maybe I'll see Heaven way up
in the clouds. If I do I'll stop there in a tavern over night and buy
something for you.'

"In a minute a new idea came to him and he said:

"'I guess Abe would make a pair of wings for you if you'd ask him.'