“Now,” said Gray Lady, “you boys will be independent of your fathers’ tools when you take a bird-house home to finish, or wish to do a little bit of work for yourselves, as the girls will also be independent of their mothers’ work-boxes and thimbles; because, if the grown-up people are always having their tools borrowed or mislaid, they are apt to have a sort of grudge against both the work and the workers.”
Some of the boys looked at each other rather sheepishly, and wondered how Gray Lady knew that their fathers had said that “since the boys took to carpentering there hadn’t been a hammer or nail to be found nor a saw with the sign of an edge left on it.”
“By and by,” continued Gray Lady, “if you have the desire, you will all have a chance to earn other tools, and also make boxes in which to keep them.
“You may wonder why the Christmas tree bore no candy by way of fruit; that was because part of the fun for this afternoon will be making candy,—caramels, chocolate creams, nut taffy, and old-fashioned pulled molasses rope-candy,—so that, besides the making and tasting, you will all have something that you have made yourselves to give the people at home to-morrow, or put in their stockings if they are hung up. See! here are the boxes that Goldilocks has made to hold the candy!” There upon a tray were two dozen square boxes covered with green-and-white paper, and a row of red-paper hearts pasted across the top of each, with the words, “The Kind Hearts wish you a Merry Christmas,” printed in red.
“Did you make all those boxes yourself, Goldilocks?” asked Sarah Barnes, in amazement; “I don’t see how you could turn the corners so nice.”
“Not the boxes; you can buy them for very little at the factory. I covered them and put the hearts on, but Mother did the printing. It is easy enough if you take time. You see the two years that my feet wouldn’t go, I learned to make my fingers work for both.”
“The fire and pans, sugar, molasses, and nuts are all ready, but, before we become Miss Wilde’s guests and begin, for the candy-making and supper belong to her party, we must hold a short business meeting of the Kind Hearts’ Club, that we may decide how the Christmas money is to be spent.”