is the room of the farm where people cook and eat and live. It is
the living-room. The only other room beside the bedroom is the small
room in front, chill-cold in winter, with an organ in it for playing
"Rock of Ages" on, when company came. But this room is only used for
music and funerals. The real room of the old farm is the kitchen.
Does it not rise up before you, reader? It doesn't? Well, you darn
fool!

At any rate there sat old John Enderby beside the plain deal table,
his head bowed upon his hands, his grizzled face with its unshorn
stubble stricken down with the lines of devastating trouble. From
time to time he rose and cast a fresh stick of tamarack into the fire
with a savage thud that sent a shower of sparks up the chimney.
Across the fireplace sat his wife Anna on a straight-backed chair,
looking into the fire with the mute resignation of her sex.

What was wrong with them anyway? Ah, reader, can you ask? Do you
know or remember so little of the life of the old homestead? When
I have said that it is the Old Homestead and Xmas Eve, and that the
farmer is in great trouble and throwing tamarack at the fire, surely
you ought to guess!

The Old Homestead was mortgaged! Ten years ago, reckless with debt,
crazed with remorse, mad with despair and persecuted with rheumatism,
John Enderby had mortgaged his farmstead for twenty-four dollars and
thirty cents.

To-night the mortgage fell due, to-night at midnight, Xmas night.
Such is the way in which mortgages of this kind are always drawn.
Yes, sir, it was drawn with such diabolical skill that on this night