see, there was a good reason for that one being red, oh, a very good
reason!

Jehosophat took out a pencil and climbed on a chair, while Marmaduke
and Hepzebiah looked on in wonder. The pencil made a mark at
23.

"Only two more days," said the older boy.

"Hooray!" exclaimed his brother.

"Hooway!" echoed their little sister.

Then they all sighed--three long-drawn out sighs--it was so hard to
wait. And when they were through sighing, they all stood and stared at
all those numbers, and particularly that bright 25, their eyes
growing rounder each minute.

There was something in the air, most decidedly, something that the
children couldn't exactly feel or touch or handle. It was as though
the sky, and air, and the trees, and the house itself, were carrying a
secret, a happy secret, and one almost too big to be kept.

They could get hints of that secret everywhere. Sometimes they caught
Mother and Father whispering about things--very mysterious things.
Mother, too, was working late these nights. What she was making they
could never find out, though they looked and guessed and wondered.

The Toyman wouldn't let them in his shop. And Father, when he went to
town, for once refused to let the children go with him and old