The Budlong parlor was soon a hideous scene.  The husband would open a bundle and sing out, “Who’s this big immense pink and purple cuspidor for?”

“That’s a jardineer,” Mrs. Budlong would gasp.  “It’s a return for that horrible cat those hateful Disneys are going to inflict on me.  Here’s the card.”

She handed him a holly-wreathed pasteboard on which she had written, “For Mr. and Mrs. Disney with most affectionate Yuletide greetings.”

She indited cards as fast as she could think up phrases.  She sought for variety, but the effort was maddening.  She wrote, “Very merry Christmas,” “The merriest of Xmases,” “A merry merry Yuletide,” “A Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year,” “Christmas Greetings,” “Xmas Greetings,” “Yuletide Greetings,” “Wishing you a—­” “With loving wishes for—­” “Affectionate,” and so on and so on and on and on.  She scribbled and scrawled till slumber drugged her and her pen went crazy.  When she fell asleep she was writing “A Yuly Newmas and a Happy X-Year to Swally Sezey.”

The delivery man pounded on the door and wild-eyed Budlong let him in from the night.  The man whispered that he’d have to start at once if he was to make the rounds before his horses laid down on him.

Mr. Budlong called his wife, but she did not answer.  He shook her and she threatened to roll off the chair on to a divan.  Mr. Budlong straightened her out and gazed at her in hopeless pity.  He stared at the chaos of bundles.

He seized the pack of cards from his wife’s chubby fingers and ran here and there jabbing pasteboards into bundles, regardless.

That is how Myra Eppley acquired an ash tray lined with cigar bands, and why old Mr. Clute was amazed to receive a card offering him Mrs. Budlong’s “loving and affectionate greetings.”  He was more amazed when he opened the bundle.  It had ribbons in it.

There were other amazements in town the next morning.  In fact, it was the amazingest Christmas Carthage had ever had.

As fast as Mr. Budlong stuffed cards into bundles, he loaded bundles into the driver’s arms as if they were sticks of wood.  The driver stacked them up in his wagon.  He made seven trips in all and some of the cards fell out and were stuck in still wronger bundles than before.  But both the driver and Mr. Budlong were too sleepy to care.  The driver finally mounted his seat and called out from the dark: 

“Say, Mr. Budlong, where do I leave these packages—­on the porch, or do I ring the bell?”

“Chuck ’em through the windows!  The more glass you break the better I’ll like it.”

“All right, sir.  Get ap!  Good night, sir, and wishing you a Merry Christmas!”

“Merry ------” said Mr. Budlong, reaching for a rock.   But even the
stones were frozen to the ground and the driver escaped.   As Mr.
Budlong closed his front door, a thread of crimson spun out along the
East as if somebody were going to wrap the whole world up in a red
string.   He did not want it.   He yawned at it.

An hour or so later, Ulie awoke and sat up with a start.  To his intense confusion, he bumped the top of his little skull on the bottom of his little bed.