Belles on their Toes

shortened.
    Almost every argument between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas ended with the announcement that the two participants were irrevocably severing Yule-tide relations, and cutting each other off without so much as a blotter.
    "Just for that," one participant would shout, "you're off my Christmas list forever. I'm taking the present I had for you right back to the store."
    "I wasn't going to give you anything, anyway," the other participant would bellow. "Besides, that's the fourth time this week you've taken me off your list."
    Of course all was forgotten and forgiven by Christmas. But if one had kept tabs, it would have appeared that only Mother was certain of getting presents from any of us.
    In a good many families, the parents trim the tree on Christmas Eve, and surprise the children the next morning. Mother and Dad thought this was doing things in reverse—that the parents had both the fun of trimming and of watching the looks of pleased surprise. In our house, the children trimmed the tree, and the parents were surprised.
    Mother was banned from the parlor on the day before Christmas. She wasn't even allowed to witness the arrival of the tree, which was brought home on Fred's express wagon and smuggled in through the kitchen door.
    We trimmed the tree that night, while Mother worked alone in her office. We sang carols as we weaved on the tinsel and spread paper chains from the mantel to the chandelier.
    Mother's office was separated from the parlor by a large sliding door, and sometimes we'd hear her soprano joining in. We seldom thought of Mother as being lonesome any more. But perhaps she was lonesome that Christmas Eve.
    In a big family, the Santa Claus secret often leaks pretty far down the line. Not that anybody deliberately gives it away, but because too many lay it on too heavily for it to remain plausible. In our family, only Bob and Jane were believers, and even they were confused by the conflicting information heaped J upon them.
    Nevertheless, all of us hung up our stockings. After Bob and Jane went to bed, Mother filled our stockings and we filled hers. We carried our stockings to her, and then brought them back again when they were filled, since she wasn't allowed in the parlor.
    With the bulging stockings hanging by the fireplace, we surveyed our night's work and found it good,
    "The whole room," Jack sighed happily, "looks just like Woolworth's, only even better."
    We usually had trouble going to sleep Christmas Eve. But once we dropped off we customarily slept soundly until about six o'clock, when Mother and the young children would rout the rest of us out of bed.
    That Christmas Eve, Martha was restless and couldn't go to sleep at all. About two o'clock, she heard some tiptoeing on the stairs and a light click on. Martha waited a few minutes, and then put on a bathrobe and some slippers, and suspiciously tiptoed down, too.
    The parlor door was open and the light was on. Sitting on the floor by the tree, with her back to the door, was Mother.
    Martha saw her reach through the presents we had piled under the tree, select one, and then feel it, pinch it, rattle it, and smell it. Something must have told Mother she was being watched, because she finally looked stealthily over her shoulder and saw Martha.
    Martha stood disapprovingly with hands on hips, and tapped her right foot on the floor. She didn't say anything.
    "What are you doing up at this time of night?" Mother asked sternly, apparently deciding that a good offense was the best defense.
    Martha shook her head and clicked her tongue.
    "You should have been asleep hours ago," said Mother. "You'll be exhausted by dinner time.”
    "I'm going to tell on you," Martha informed her. "You're worse than Bob and Jane, aren't you?"
    "I'd like to know what you mean by that," Mother protested. "Do you think that's any way to talk to your mother?"
    "You can't be trusted a minute, can you? Just as soon as you think everyone's asleep, what do you do?"
    "I investigate," said Mother, "to make sure everything is shipshape."
    "What you mean is that you peek."
    "A person with a naturally suspicious nature might put it that way," Mother admitted.
    "You know you're not allowed in the parlor until we let you in. That's tradition."
    "I know it," Mother giggled. "But your father and I always came down for a preview."
    "You mean all those 'ohs' and 'ahs' and the time Dad fell down in a dead faint, dazzled by all the brilliance, were just an act?"
    "If you tell