I do not know
what gave me my confidence, but I firmly expected to find
snow on the ground by that time. I am rather a student
of the weather. I worked till late at night getting my
cutter ready. I had to adjust my buggy pole and to stow
away a great number of parcels. The latter contained the
first real doll for my little girl, two or three picture
books, a hand sleigh, Pip--a little stuffed dog of the
silkiest fluffiness--and as many more trifles for wife
and child as my Christmas allowance permitted me to buy.
It was the first time in the five years of my married
life that, thanks to my wife's co-operation in earning
money, there was any Christmas allowance to spend; and
since I am writing this chiefly for her and the little
girl's future reading, I want to set it down here, too,
that it was thanks to this very same co-operation that
I had been able to buy the horses and the driving outfit
which I needed badly, for the poor state of my health
forbade more rigorous exercise. I have already said, I
think, that I am essentially an outdoor creature; and
for several years the fact that I had been forced to look
at the out-of-doors from the window of a town house only,
had been eating away at my vitality.
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