The Perfect Gift by Al Lacy

Author:Al Lacy [Lacy, Al]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-78042-3
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

That evening, after Jack and Jacob had eaten supper at the Cooper apartment and returned to their quarters, Chris said, “Mama, I need to meet in private with Mary Beth, B.J., and Patty Ruth.”

“Oh?” Hannah teased. “You have some kind of secret you can’t share with your mother?”

“Yes, Mama, I do.” He grinned mischievously. “And if you’ll think what big day is coming up later this month, you’ll know what it’s about.”

“Oh! You mean Patty Ruth’s birthday!”

The children laughed, then Chris said, “This is a different big day, Mama.”

“Could it be Christmas?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“All right. I need to write to Grandma and Grandpa Singleton, so while you have your secret meeting, I’ll do that.”

Huddled together in the girls’ room with his younger siblings, Chris kept his voice low and said, “When we lived in Missouri and Papa was alive, he always got us to working early on what each of us would give Mama for Christmas. Well, since Papa has gone to heaven, and I’m the man of the house, I’ll spearhead the project.”

B.J. stiffened. “What makes you the man of the house, Chris? I’m here, too.”

“I know,” said big brother, “but since I’ll be fifteen next February, and you won’t even be nine till March, I figure that qualifies me as man of the house. Any questions?”

B.J. stuck out his lower lip but remained silent.

“How about you girls?”

“Who can argue with seniority?” said Mary Beth.

Chris’s eyebrows arched. “Wow! Where’d you learn that word?”

“I pay attention in school,” she said dryly.

“So what’s seen your ority?” Patty Ruth asked.

“No, honey,” said Mary Beth. “It’s one word. Seniority. It means that Chris is the oldest of us four.”

“Oh, well, I’ll be six five days after Christmas!”

“But you’re still the youngest,” said Chris. “Now, let me explain about Christmas for Mama. I’ve made arrangements with Mr. and Mrs. Bledsoe to let each of us buy a Christmas present at their store, to be paid after Christmas when I tell Mama how much we need to pay the bill.”

“That’s nice of them,” put in Mary Beth.

Chris nodded. “So, here’s what we’ll do. On Monday after school we’ll go next door and each of us pick out what we want to buy Mama for Christmas …”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.