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Updated: June 1, 2025
Budlong's back parlor, and when I laid eyes on it in all that clutter why, if it didn't look like something the cat brought in, I'll eat it!" Mr. Detwiller had only one consolation and he grinned over it: "Well, there's no use cryin' over spilt gifts. But did you see how she stuck old Widower Clute for that Japanese porcelain vace I notice she called it vahs?" "Porcelain?" sniffed Mrs. Detwiller.
Budlong were so elated with the same idea that they forgot to console their heart-broken offspring with more than Mr. Budlong's curt, "First teeth anyway; saves you a trip to the dentist." He nodded to his wife. "Just the excuse we were looking for." "Sent direct from heaven," nodded Mrs. Budlong.
She threw herself on Mrs. Budlong's mercy, and if Mrs. Budlong boasted of anything more than another it was her mercy. "I have just been at the church," said Johnetta, "helping to decorate it for Christmas week, and I was hanging up a big motto 'Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men' and I think it ought to apply to women, too. I grovel in apology and I pray you to forgive me.
And now she had no need to invite people to return their calls. They came spontaneously. Sometimes there were a dozen calling at once. It was a reception every day. There were overflow meetings in the room which Mrs. Budlong called Mr. Budlong's "den." This was the place where she kept the furniture that she didn't dare keep in the parlor.
November ninth and not a Christmas thing begun. Yet a few days and the news-stands would have apprised her that Christmas was coming, for by the middle of November all the magazines put on their holly and their chromos of the three Magi and their Santa Clauses, as women put on summer straw hats at Easter. Mrs. Budlong's hands sought and wrung each other as if in mutual reproach.
Budlong counted them her clients the moment they arrived. Of course, the merely commercial visitors she left to the hackmen at the station, but friends or relatives of prominent people could not escape Mrs. Budlong's well-meant attentions. It was sometimes embarrassing when relatives appeared for everybody has Concealed Relatives that he is perfectly willing to leave in concealment. Mrs. Alex.
The richest woman in town heretofore was Mrs. Foster Herpers, wife of the pole and shaft manufacturer. He owned about half of the real estate in town, but his wife had to distill expenses out of him in pennies. With a profound sigh of relief she resigned all her honors in Mrs. Budlong's favor.
Clute was amazed to receive a card offering him Mrs. Budlong's "loving and affectionate greetings." He was more amazed when he opened the bundle. It had ribbons in it. There were other amazements in town the next morning. In fact, it was the amazingest Christmas Carthage had ever had. As fast as Mr.
All over Carthage on Christmas afternoons couples were similarly at loggerheads over Mrs. Budlong's annual triumph. Now of course Mrs. Budlong did not get all those presents without giving presents. Not in Carthage! It might have been possible to bamboozle these people one Christmas, but never another. Mrs. Budlong gave heaps of presents.
But she sat erect and unyielding at the far end of the veranda while he was in the midst of a sympathetic leave-taking from the guests of The Colonial. There were tears in Mrs. Budlong's eyes when she warned him not to fall into bad habits, and Wallie's were close to the surface when he promised her he would not. "Aw you'll be back when it gets cold weather," said Mr. Appel.
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