Nancy and Plum Read Free Page B

They’d like to have something special for Christmas, too.”

    So they added more things to their already bulging aprons. Apples for the horses, carrots for the cows and rutabagas for the pigs.
    When they got back to the harness room the stove was blazing merrily and giving off so much heat that the cat and her kittens were stretched out on the floor in great comfort. Nancy and Plum washed the potatoes in the snow and put them in to roast, fed the animals their Christmas dinner, got butter and milk from the milk room, then settled down to enjoy themselves. First they took off their shoes and stockings and put them to dry, then sat down in front of the stove to thaw out their icy toes and fingers. Outside a wind had come up. It blew snow against the window and moaned and sighed in the eaves but the children played with the kittens and thought how cozy the wind sounded.
    After the potatoes had been in about ten minutes, Plum began poking them with a sharp stick to test them and the minute she could pierce the skin she took the coal shovel and the poker and got out the first ones. They were really quite raw but they were hot and when covered with fresh butter and washed down with gulps of cold sweet milk they were simply delicious. The second potatoes were only raw in the middle and tasted even better than the first ones. For dessert the girls opened the jar of peaches with an old jackknife of Plum’s and ate the peaches in their fingers in big bites.
    “No wonder Mrs. Monday and Marybelle have peaches so often,” Nancy said as she reached down inside the jar for the last one. “They are the best things I’ve ever tasted.”
    Plum said, in an imitation of Mrs. Monday, “My deah child, surely you don’t prefer peaches to my delicious soggy bread pudding with glue sauce or my special kind of stewed prunes with sticks in them?”
    Nancy said, “It isn’t that I prefer the peaches, dear Mrs. Monday, it is just that after I have eaten your soggy, tasteless, lumpy, doughy lead, oh, I’m sorry, I mean bread pudding, I have to walk bent over for the rest of the day.”
    Plum said, “Would you like the recipe for my special prunes?”
    Nancy said, “Oh, please.”
    Plum said, “Well, first you buy the tiniest, most dried up, most solid pit and skin prunes you can find, then you dump them into a huge kettle of water, about two prunes to a gallon of water, you never wash them first, of course, because the sticks and sand give them such a good flavor. Then you boil and boil and boil and boil them, add one teaspoon of sugar to each enormous kettle of juice and there you are. Stewed prunes à la Marybelle.”
    Nancy said, “Oh, look at the kittens. I think they are hungry.”
    Plum said, “Their saucer is in the barn. Hand me my shoes and I’ll go get it.”
    After they had fed the kittens and picked up their own mess, Nancy and Plum made themselves a nice bed of strawspread over with empty feed sacks, stoked the fire, turned the lantern down and lay down side by side in front of the stove. The only sounds were the clunks and hisses made by coals breaking open and bursting into flame, the moaning of the wind and the rustling of the straw when they moved.
    Nancy was watching the round glow of the lantern on the ceiling and thinking about the school entertainment when she heard a little sniff and a hot tear fell on her arm. She said, “Why, Plum, you’re crying. That’s not like you.”
    Plum said, “It’s Christmas Eve and I hate Uncle John. He’s supposed to take care of us and he never writes to us and he never comes to see us and he never even sends us Christmas presents. I wonder how he’d like to spend Christmas Eve eating raw potatoes and sleeping in a barn?”
    Nancy said, “Never mind, Plum, dear. At least we’re warm and we’ve had something to eat and I’ll pretend for us.”
    Plum said, “Oh, Nancy, I’m sick of pretending. I don’t think I can pretend any more.”
    Nancy said, “Well, I’m ten and