Dismally creaked the door on its rusted hinges.
Into the chink shot the particles of snow, and formed again that icy
mark across the floor of the shop. One by one the candles burned away
on the tree, gave a gasp, a flare, and expired.
Silently, loyally the group of big, rough miners and toilers sat in the
cheerless gloom, hearing that music, in its soullessness, come on the
gusts of the storm--waiting, waiting for their tiny guest.
At length a single candle alone illumined their pitiful tree, standing
with its meagre branches of greenery stiffly upheld on its scrawny
frame, while the darkness closed sombrely in upon the glint of the toys
they had labored to make.
Then finally Keno came, downcast, pale, and worried.
"The little feller's awful sick," he said. "I guess he can't come to
the tree."
His statement was greeted in silence.
"Then, maybe he'll see it to-morrow," said the blacksmith, after a
moment. "It wouldn't make so very much odds to us old cusses.
Christmas is for kids, of course. So we'll leave her standing jest as
she is."
Slowly they gave up their final hopes. Slowly they all went out in the
storm and night, shutting the door on the Christmas celebration now
abandoned to darkness, the creak of the hinges, the long line of snow
inside that pointed to the tree.
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