in the country would be lost ten times over.
Anyway, he would never allow one of his
horses to be put to such a strain.

We decided to have a country Christmas,
without any help from town. I had wanted
to get some picture-books for Yulka and An-
tonia; even Yulka was able to read a little
now. Grandmother took me into the ice-cold
storeroom, where she had some bolts of ging-
ham and sheeting. She cut squares of cotton
cloth and we sewed them together into a book.
We bound it between pasteboards, which I
covered with brilliant calico, representing
scenes from a circus. For two days I sat at
the dining-room table, pasting this book full
of pictures for Yulka. We had files of those
good old family magazines which used to pub-
lish colored lithographs of popular paintings,
and I was allowed to use some of these. I took
"Napoleon Announcing the Divorce to Jo-
sephine" for my frontispiece. On the white
pages I grouped Sunday-School cards and
advertising cards which I had brought from
my "old country." Fuchs got out the old
candle-moulds and made tallow candles.
Grandmother hunted up her fancy cake-cut-
ters and baked gingerbread men and roosters,

[[92]]

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