were allowed to post one—offering their services. They could see the Hatford boys watching them from a distance, hiding an amused grin behind their hands or disguising a chuckle with a cough. Even Josh seemed to think it was funny.
Eddie got a number of calls about housecleaning and was encouraged. With company coming, people told her, and all there was to do at Christmas, they were glad to pay to have their houses cleaned.
Beth also got a few orders for Christmas cookies, so she worked every afternoon when she got home, making chocolate Rice Krispies creations, fudge bars, almond rounds, and lemon squares. There was hardly time to do her own Christmas shopping and wrapping, and the lavender scarf she'd been knitting for Mother still sat in her yarn basket.
Caroline was the most disappointed.
“Doesn't anyone want to hire a budding youngactress to perform at birthday parties?” she asked her family in desperation. “Isn't anyone even having birthdays around Christmas?”
She got only one request to entertain three small children one afternoon while the mother did her Christmas wrapping, but the oldest had a cold and needed Caroline to blow his nose every five minutes, the second child cried the whole time, and the youngest fell into the toilet. Nobody wanted her to sing or recite a scene from The Wind in the Willows, and Caroline was even more glad than they were when their mother had finished her chore.
If Beth had any bad feelings left toward the Hatford boys, she didn't talk about them.
If Eddie wished she were back in Ohio, she never said.
Perhaps because Caroline had the least to do, it was she who resented the fact that she and her sisters had to work so hard to pay for Dad's jacket. She knew they were responsible, of course, but if the boys had stayed across the river where they belonged, nothing would have happened.
Never mind that she was the one who had seemed to like Buckman the most. Never mind that she loved thinking up new ways to annoy Jake and Josh and Wally, and sometimes even Peter. The fact was that everybody else was busy, and she was not.
And so, with the angel wrapping paper and the blue crinkle ribbon that Mother had bought at the hardware store, Caroline wrapped, in a small flat box, the grossest thing she could find to give to Wally Hatford, and set it by the pile of presents waiting tobe delivered there by the door. Inside was a little puddle of cat vomit that Patches, the stray cat, had deposited on the Malloys' back steps. There was a big fat hairball in the middle of the vomit and, if you looked closely, you could even find a piece or two of undigested mouse feet.
Eighteen
Mistake #1
T he week before Christmas was always the busiest time in the Hatford household.
Mr. Hatford was late getting home every night. Each year, it seemed, people mailed their Christmas cards and packages later and later, and the boys' father might be out till six or seven o'clock trying to get everything delivered by Christmas Eve.
“Just don't do it, Tom!” Wally's mother would say. “If people don't think enough of their aunt Emma to buy her a present in time, then I don't see why you need to knock yourself out trying to deliver it by Christmas Eve.”
But then she would remember a present she had forgotten to buy for somebody, and so—each year was the same, with Mrs. Hatford and the boys doing the wrapping and decorating by themselves.
The boys didn't talk about the Malloys much. For one thing, they hardly even saw Eddie, Beth, and Caroline,the girls were so busy trying to earn money to pay for the jacket. In the days that followed, however, with the girls' signs on trees and light poles all over Buckman, advertising their jobs, Josh said he was feeling a little bit sorry for them. And with Christmas only a few days off, Wally, perhaps, should have been thinking about forgiveness too. But he couldn't quite forgive them yet, because there was one little joke he had up his sleeve that was too
Eddie got a number of calls about housecleaning and was encouraged. With company coming, people told her, and all there was to do at Christmas, they were glad to pay to have their houses cleaned.
Beth also got a few orders for Christmas cookies, so she worked every afternoon when she got home, making chocolate Rice Krispies creations, fudge bars, almond rounds, and lemon squares. There was hardly time to do her own Christmas shopping and wrapping, and the lavender scarf she'd been knitting for Mother still sat in her yarn basket.
Caroline was the most disappointed.
“Doesn't anyone want to hire a budding youngactress to perform at birthday parties?” she asked her family in desperation. “Isn't anyone even having birthdays around Christmas?”
She got only one request to entertain three small children one afternoon while the mother did her Christmas wrapping, but the oldest had a cold and needed Caroline to blow his nose every five minutes, the second child cried the whole time, and the youngest fell into the toilet. Nobody wanted her to sing or recite a scene from The Wind in the Willows, and Caroline was even more glad than they were when their mother had finished her chore.
If Beth had any bad feelings left toward the Hatford boys, she didn't talk about them.
If Eddie wished she were back in Ohio, she never said.
Perhaps because Caroline had the least to do, it was she who resented the fact that she and her sisters had to work so hard to pay for Dad's jacket. She knew they were responsible, of course, but if the boys had stayed across the river where they belonged, nothing would have happened.
Never mind that she was the one who had seemed to like Buckman the most. Never mind that she loved thinking up new ways to annoy Jake and Josh and Wally, and sometimes even Peter. The fact was that everybody else was busy, and she was not.
And so, with the angel wrapping paper and the blue crinkle ribbon that Mother had bought at the hardware store, Caroline wrapped, in a small flat box, the grossest thing she could find to give to Wally Hatford, and set it by the pile of presents waiting tobe delivered there by the door. Inside was a little puddle of cat vomit that Patches, the stray cat, had deposited on the Malloys' back steps. There was a big fat hairball in the middle of the vomit and, if you looked closely, you could even find a piece or two of undigested mouse feet.
Eighteen
Mistake #1
T he week before Christmas was always the busiest time in the Hatford household.
Mr. Hatford was late getting home every night. Each year, it seemed, people mailed their Christmas cards and packages later and later, and the boys' father might be out till six or seven o'clock trying to get everything delivered by Christmas Eve.
“Just don't do it, Tom!” Wally's mother would say. “If people don't think enough of their aunt Emma to buy her a present in time, then I don't see why you need to knock yourself out trying to deliver it by Christmas Eve.”
But then she would remember a present she had forgotten to buy for somebody, and so—each year was the same, with Mrs. Hatford and the boys doing the wrapping and decorating by themselves.
The boys didn't talk about the Malloys much. For one thing, they hardly even saw Eddie, Beth, and Caroline,the girls were so busy trying to earn money to pay for the jacket. In the days that followed, however, with the girls' signs on trees and light poles all over Buckman, advertising their jobs, Josh said he was feeling a little bit sorry for them. And with Christmas only a few days off, Wally, perhaps, should have been thinking about forgiveness too. But he couldn't quite forgive them yet, because there was one little joke he had up his sleeve that was too
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