Tabitha at Ivy Hall, page 138 by Ruth Alberta Brown
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first peep of dawn Tabitha was out of bed, shaking Chrystobel vigorously and calling, "Merry Christmas, lazybones! Wake up; it's day! The rising bell has rung. Didn't you hear it?"
"Oh, you are dreaming," drowsily murmured the weary girl in the other bed. "This is vacation time."
"But we have to get up just the same," laughed Tabitha. "I am going to wake Carrie and the others."
She bounced across the room, flung open the door and stopped abruptly, for suspended to the transom above her head hung two immense tarlatan stockings, stuffed to the very brim with bundles of all sorts and sizes. Across the hall from Carrie's transom swung two more similar socks, and dangling against Bertha's door was a third set.
Tabitha's wild shriek of surprise and delight brought the other five girls standing in their beds, and Carrie chattered anxiously, "Oh, what is the matter? Is the building on fire?"
"No, indeed. Merry Christmas!" shouted the black-eyed girl, tugging at the stocking marked with her name. "Open the door and see what you find. Santa Claus surely has been here while we slept."
There was the sound of pattering feet in the three rooms, and Chrystobel, now thoroughly awake, reached Tabitha's side just as the door across the hall and the one next to theirs burst open and four excited girls tumbled out. "Oh-h-h!" came a chorus of long-drawn-out, rapturous sighs, as five pair of eager arms clasped the bulky socks and jerked them loose.
"Ow!" shrieked Grace. "There is something awfully hard in mine. It nearly knocked a hole in my head. It's a handkerchief box, as sure as I am alive! Isn't it a dear? That is from Esther. Well, Kitty, what are you doing down there?"
Tabitha, in nightgown and slippers, sat in the middle of the floor, her huge stocking up-side down in her lap, and gifts scattered all about her, as with shining eyes and trembling hands she unwrapped each package in turn and gloated over its contents.
"A bunch of violets from Miss Pomeroy--she never