THE BLOSSOMING ROD

Mr. Langshaw had vaguely felt unusual preparations for a Christmas gift
to him this year; he was always being asked for "change" to pay the
children for services rendered.

It might have seemed a pity that calculation as to dollars and cents
entered so much into the Christmas festivities of the family, if it were
not that it entered so largely into the scheme of living that it was
naturally interwoven with every dearest hope and fancy; the overcoming
of its limitations gave a zest to life. Langshaw himself, stopping now,
as was his daily habit, to look at the display made by the
sporting-goods shop on his way home the Friday afternoon before
Christmas Monday, wondered, as his hand touched the ten-dollar bill in
his pocket--a debt unexpectedly paid him that day--if the time had
actually arrived at last when he might become the possessor of the
trout-rod that stood in the corner of the window; reduced, as the ticket
proclaimed, from fifteen dollars to ten.