" I f we’d known,” said Ann softly, tugging at his trouser leg.
cheeks and then dashed through the back gate to the back alley and ran to the end of the block. “ Yoo-hoo, anybody home?” she called. “ It’s me, Mollie Mitchell.” A young woman opened the door and clung to it. Her chin quivered. “ I knew you’d come,” she whis pered. “ Somebody had to come and I knew Tommy’s mother would “ Bless your heart,” said Mollie. “Come now, lie down a bit, won’t you? Why didn’t you tell Joe and Tommy to get me?” “ I don’t know,” said Ann Parker. “ I just knew you’d come.” She bit her lip. “The doctor is due any horn-. He is bringing a nurse along. My . . . my mother was to come but she’s snowbound in the coun try. And Ernie, he had to swing up through Minnesota and upper Wis consin before coming home. The snow is heaviest there.” Her voice quivered. “Well, I’m here — for what that’s worth,” said Mollie briskly. “Now, let me help you freshen up. Do you know it’s almost three o’clock in the afternoon of Christ mas eve? Let me make you a cup of tea to help you relax.” While Ann Parker rested on the sofa Mollie called the doctor to confirm his appointment. Then she washed dishes, straightened the kitchen and put together a meat loaf. “Now we’d better get the baby things out,” said Mollie as she closed the oven door. “ They aren’t here yet,” Ann said huskily. “My mother was to bring them. But I have a few of Joe’s things. They’re in the bottom drawer of the dresser in my bed room.” “ That’s fine, Ann,” said Mollie cheerfully. “ It is Ann, isn’t it?” she asked. “ You know, I sometimes think an only child is a terrible extravagance. There isn’t anyone to wear out the leftovers.” When the doctor and his nurse arrived at 4:30 Mollie patted her neighbor’s shoulder. “ I must run home now but I’ll be back in about
an hour. Ann, you’re going to have a merry, merry Christmas indeed!” Stepping inside her own kitchen, Mollie dabbed her eyes with tissue. “You sentimental sissy,” she mur mured. “But why shouldn’t I be moved? Didn’t Ann Parker say ‘I knew you’d come’ ?” Mollie shiv ered. “ That girl—alone and fright ened, and with n e i gh b o r s al l around.” She flew to her cedar chest and opened the lid. “ The old timers aren’t going to like this,” she thought. “ But since when did a Maher-Mitchell let that stop her?” She selected an armful of baby clothes that had been Tommy’s, gathered them up in her arms and went across the street. “ I’m c o l l e c t i n g baby items,” called Mollie to Connie Turner who was fastening a wreath to her front door. “ Ann Parker needs everything a baby needs. Her moth er got snowed in with the equip ment out in the country.” “ That’s too bad, I’m sure,” Con nie said, shaking her head. “ I mean, people oughtn’t to let them selves get into such predicaments, ought they? I wouldn’t have the least idea where to find equipment for a baby in my house ■—■and I don’t know that I ought to.” The door of the adjoining house opened. Mollie turned, “Oh, Mrs. Becker! I’m collecting for a big event at the Parker house,” she said. “Will you. . . .” “Dear me!” said Elizabeth Cran ston Becker. “Distressing, of course. But Mollie, my dear, I thought that, well, that there wasn’t going to be any neighboring. I’m sur prised that you forgot. How does it happen?” Anger flushed Mollie’s cheeks. “ It happens,” she said, “ because they’re people just like the rest of us and it’s Christmas Eve and I think that we ought to, well, make room at the inn.” “Make room at the inn?” Mrs. Becker repeated quizzically. “Make room . . . .” The Christmas story began changing her. “Mollie, my dear,” she said. “ Practically every
“ At our next meeting,” Stew promised. “ And may it be soon. Night.” For a month the block had been uncomfortable and stubbornly in tent upon ignoring the source of the discomfort. No one had called on the Parker family. No one had spoken to Ann Parker over the back fence or passed the time with Ernie, her husband. The big semi trailer truck that he drove couldn’t possibly be overlooked, but the other residents of the block acted as though it were a mirage that might vanish at any moment. It snowed on the morning of the day before Christmas. Shortly after lunch Mollie fastened the last dish towel to the clothesline and stood staring across the back yards to the one at the end of the block. Scuff ing aimlessly in the soft snow she watched that empty yard with a growing uneasiness. “What’s the matter with me?” she asked herself. “ In the month that they’ve lived there I haven’t seen Mrs. Parker out in that yard three times. I’ve never met her. I don’t know where she’s from or anything about her.” She was suddenly conscious that her fingers were cold. Mollie thrust them into her coat pockets without taking her gaze off that back yard at the end of the block. “ Of course I couldn’t go down there during lunch time,” she rea soned. “ There’s Tommy’s sandwich to make plus the sandwich he’s al ways taking to Joe. But that’s like kids — they’ll embarrass you to death sometimes, acting as though they never had enough to eat. And Tommy is aways down there with Joe. You’d think it would drive Mrs. Parker crazy.” The word “ drive” reminded her that she hadn’t seen the big truck in front of the Parker house for several days. This snow, she con cluded, was probably falling heavily in the Mid-west wh e r e Parker drove his truck. “ It’s tough,” she thought, “with the baby due and all. . . . Oh my goodness, the baby!” Mollie clapped her hands to her
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