day and go to theaters when they were in big
cities. Behind the hotel there was an old store
building, where the salesmen opened their big
trunks and spread out their samples on the
counters. The Black Hawk merchants went
to look at these things and order goods, and
Mrs. Thomas, though she was "retail trade,"
was permitted to see them and to "get ideas."
They were all generous, these traveling men;
they gave Tiny Soderball handkerchiefs and
gloves and ribbons and striped stockings, and
so many bottles of perfume and cakes of
scented soap that she bestowed some of them
on Lena.

One afternoon in the week before Christ-
mas I came upon Lena and her funny, square-
headed little brother Chris, standing before
the drug-store, gazing in at the wax dolls and
blocks and Noah's arks arranged in the frosty
show window. The boy had come to town
with a neighbor to do his Christmas shop-
ping, for he had money of his own this year.
He was only twelve, but that winter he had
got the job of sweeping out the Norwegian
church and making the fire in it every Sun-
day morning. A cold job it must have been,
too!

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