CHAPTER XI.
Keeping Christmas Our Way "I remember, I remember How my childhood fleeted by,-- The mirth of its December, And the warmth of its July." When dusk closed in it would be Christmas eve.

All day I had three points--a chair beside the kitchen table, a lookout melted through the frost on the front window, and the big sitting-room fireplace.
All the perfumes of Araby floated from our kitchen that day.

There was that delicious smell of baking flour from big snowy loaves of bread, light biscuit, golden coffee cake, and cinnamon rolls dripping a waxy mixture of sugar, butter, and spice, much better than the finest butterscotch ever brought from the city.

There was the tempting odour of boiling ham and baking pies.

The air was filled with the smell of more herbs and spices than I knew the names of, that went into mincemeat, fruit cake, plum pudding, and pies.