It was the day before Thanksgiving that Alice Anderson decided on the perfect Christmas gift for her mother-a silver-backed dresser set.

The 8-year-old stopped on the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Ave. near Columbiana Park to admire the display in the windows at Brown’s Grocery, tantalizing objects glittering and glistening in the white glow of the gas lights. There were rare delicacies shipped in especially for the holiday table oranges and bananas and even some red Emperor grapes.

And in the middle of the display, deliberately positioned to catch the eye of a prosperous passerby, was the most beautiful dresser set Alice ever had seen. The hand mirror was made in a beautiful oval shape. It was held in a frame of what appeared to be glistening antique silver. A floral design was impressed in the metal on either side of the handle and around the glass.

And the matching hairbrushes, with pristine white bristles, also were mounted in the same heavy, gleaming silver.

Alice stood with her nose close to the glass for many minutes, trying to decide how much such beautiful objects would cost. She could picture them on the dresser of her mother, who made do with a cracked hand mirror and a comb that had lost many of its teeth.

How her beautiful auburn-shoulder length and gleaming hair would take on new luster if she had a new dresser set, the child thought.

Inside, Alice could see the proprietor, Alec Brown, bustling about behind the counter as he filled last-minute orders that must be delivered in time for supper for the families in the neighborhood. His stockboy and general helper was 12-year-old Andy Elliott, a sixth grader at Neville School, where Alice was in the second grade. Alice knew that Andy soon would start the rounds of the neighborhood with a pushcart, making the final deliveries of the day to Mr. Brown’s customers.

No matter how she twisted or turned her head, no matter how desperately she stood on tip-toe, she could not read the price tag on the The Christmas Coin beautiful dresser set. Both the grocer and the stockboy noticed the strange antics of the small girl whose blonde hair was covered with a blue tam-o-shanter, with her chin hidden beneath the folds of a long scarf.

“She’s studying the oranges,” Brown thought. “We don’t see many of them except at Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

In a few moments, Alice straightened with obvious determination and struggled with the latch to open the door. She walked primly to the counter and waited for the grocer to notice her. Brown turned with an inquiring look on his face.

“Please, sir,” Alice asked. “How much is that beautiful silver dresser set in the window? I want to give it to my mother for Christmas.”

Alec Brown studied her clean but well-worn clothing and the pinched look in the child’s face. It is out of your reach, he thought.

“Little girl, that set costs $5.98,” Alex said kindly. “I think you should pick out something that doesn’t cost as much.”

Alice studied him with a level gaze in her hazel eyes. He could tell she had made up her mind, right or wrong, and was not to be deterred.

“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” she said. “I will be in to see you tomorrow about it.” Brown and Andy Elliott smiled at each other as the small girl, back and shoulders straight, arms swinging with determination, walked to the front door and then out to the sidewalk again. Then they went back to the work of filling orders.

Alice knew she could not let the man and the older boy know how discouraged she was at the high price of the beautiful gift she wanted for her mother. But $5.98! It was unthinkable! But at Christmas time, even the impossible becomes possible, she thought.

Continuing in the purposeful stride, Alice hurried east along Pennsylvania Ave., then looked both ways before crossing Pennsylvania Ave. A streetcar lurched by, bell jangling as it passed the intersection with Oakland Ave. The sidewalk was empty. Most East End residents were at their suppers. The sharp nip of the November wind had driven everyone indoors.

Alice walked to the one-story cottage her mother rented on Oakland Ave., just a short distance off Pennsylvania Ave. It was convenient to the streetcar stop at Oakland Ave. Her mother, Mary, rose each day at 4:30 and boarded the 5:30 streetcar to take her to her job as a decal girl at the Thompson Pottery Co. downtown.

Alice could hear her mother clattering dishes and pans in the kitchen as she closed the door.

“Hurry, dear,” Mary Anderson called from the kitchen. “We will have supper in a few minutes.”

Alice hurried to the bedroom she shared with her mother, hanging up her coat and scarf and tam-o-shanter before she reached for the cracked teapot in the back of the clothes closet where she kept her money.

She upended the contents of the teapot onto the bed. It was a discouragingly small pile, mostly in pennies. It was obvious it would not total anywhere near the fantastic $5.98 that Mr. Brown wanted for the beautiful dresser set.

Alice counted the money slowly, stacking the pennies in piles of five. It made just $1.02 then the picked up a few dimes and nickels that she had saved for last because they would make the total mount so quickly. And even when they were all counted, she found she had only $1.52.

She returned the coins hurriedly to the teapot when her mother called her to the table. As she returned the hoard to the darkest corner of the closet she wondered how she ever would raise the balance to pay Mr. Brown for her mother’s gift.

Alice and Mary Anderson ate their supper in near silence. Mary told her daughter about the funny man she had seen that morning on the streetcar, carrying a canary in a cage and talking to it like a person.

Alice told her mother about the perfect grade in the spelling test and the kind of words said to her by Miss Black, the teacher. Then Mary turned to darning her lisle stockings and Alice settled down at the kitchen table, underneath the gaslight to do her school homework.

Alice went to bed that night with her brain still spinning over the problem of how to raise the money to buy the gift for her mother.

Dim sunlight filtering through the curtains awakened her at 6 the following morning. Her mother already was at work at the pottery, Alice knew. Dressing hurriedly, she rushed to the

kitchen to warm herself before the dying fire in the coal range. Then she sat down to the breakfast of milk and doughnuts her mother had left on the table for her.

Alice gathered up her schoolbooks, arranged her coat and hat and scarf on a chair and then sat down again to wait for time to start the short walk to Neville School.

If only she could think of a way for a girl to earn some money! Boys could work in grocery stores, like that big Andy Elliott, or sell magazines door-to-door. They could make money running errands or shoveling snow-even splitting wood or hauling in coal. But what could a girl do?

When school dismissed that afternoon, Alice hurried home, took the cracked teapot from the closet and emptied the money onto the bed. She counted the money once again, hoping she had made a mistake. But it was the same-only $1.52. She wrapped it in one of her mother’s handkerchiefs, knotted it carefully and put it in the pocket of her coat while she walked to Brown’s Grocery.

The beautiful dresser set was still in the window, gleaming under the lights. Alice didn’t hesitate this time-she had business to transact with Mr. Brown.

As she approached the counter, she placed the bulky bundle of coins on the counter with a soft “thunk.” The proprietor, surprised at the return of the child, asked her what she wanted to buy.

“I have come to give you this,” Alice said, gesturing toward the wrapped money. “I only have $1.52 now, Mr. Brown, but if you will hold the dresser set for me I will pay the balance on it before Christmas.”

The grocer studied her with sympathetic eyes.

“Well, little girl, we’ll hold it for you for a time and see how you do with raising the balance,” he said. “Maybe your daddy or your uncle will help you with the money.”

“I don’t have a daddy or an uncle,” Alice replied primly. “There’s nobody but me and my mother. But I will manage. You will see. Thank you, Mr. Brown.”

And she strode briskly from the store, closing the door carefully. She paused a moment on the sidewalk to study the treasured dresser set. Then she disappeared, walking eastward.

“Now I know who she is,” Alec Brown told the stockboy. “That’s Mary Anderson’s girl. Her dad didn’t come home from the war. No, he didn’t get killed he just didn’t come home. When he got out of the Army, he disappeared. I suppose he’s in California or Texas or some such outlandish place.”

Alice was opening the door to her home when the inspiration struck her. She could make potholders and sell them. Everybody needs potholders, she knew. And they could be made from scraps of cloth that cost nothing-scraps out of her mother’s ragbag. The big problem was to make them and sell them in time to buy the dresser set.

A glance at the kitchen clock showed her that her mother would be home in a half an hour. Alice hurried to the ragbag in the pantry and extracted all the colorful pieces of cloth she could find.

Working swiftly, she tore them into narrow strips. Then she began to weave the first potholder by hand.

The next morning she was out of bed a few minutes after she heard her mother close the front door, headed for work. Alice worked determinedly until time for school, her fingers flying as she fashioned potholders.

When school dismissed, she did not linger to chat with her friends. She ran ahead of them,eager to get home and continue work on her project. She worked steadily until a few minutes before her mother’s streetcar was due. Then she hid the potholders and the scraps of cloth in the dark corner of the closet. She was studying a schoolbook earnestly when Alice Anderson let herself in at the front door.

As the days flew by, Alice’s hoard of potholders grew until it totaled two dozen. She knew it was time to sell the first. If she paid Mr. Brown some more money, he would hold the dresser set for her while she raised the balance, she thought.

As she knocked on the first door, carrying a dozen potholders in a paper bag, her heart fluttered and her tongue nearly stuck to the roof of her mouth. But she held her ground until a woman answered the door.

“I’m selling potholders,” she said. “Would you like to buy some.?? She extended a pair in her mittened right had, a large blue and white one and a smaller blue and yellow one.

“The small ones are five cents,” Alice said. “The big ones are seven cents.”

A look of sympathetic understanding came over the woman’s face, replacing the initial stare of annoyance. She left the door for a moment, returned with her purse and rummaged until she had found a nickel and two pennies, which she dropped into the child’s hand.

Alice thanked her and turned to leave. The first sale! It had been easy! But when she thought of how many more nickels and pennies she must collect, her heart sank.

Alice’s daily routine continued unchanged. Each morning when her mother left for work, she sprang from bed, dressed hurriedly and worked doggedly on making potholders. Her work grew swift as she gained experience. And the potholders lost the ragged look of the originals.

Each afternoon after school, she put potholders into her paper sack and canvassed the streets nearby, knocking on doors and selling potholders. She found some people kind and understanding, but refusing to buy. She found others gruff at first and then melting, handing over coins and taking the potholders. A few offered her money but said they did not want her potholders, so Alice refused to take the money.

“I’m working for a Christmas gift for my mother,” she said.

“I’m working for a Christmas gift for my mother,” she said. “I’m not allowed to take money if I have not worked for it.”

As her accumulation of coins grew, Alice decided it was time to make another payment to Mr. Brown to make sure he would hold the dresser set for her.

She spread the pennies and nickels onto the bed to count them. She had 49 cents. Alice wet the tip of her pencil with her tongue and entered the figures on a piece of tablet paper. There was the $1.52 she had given Mr. Brown. And now 49 cents more made $2.01. It was still a long way from $5.98, she thought with a shudder. And Christmas was approaching fast.

Mr. Brown was staring out the window of his store as Alice approached. His hands were clasped behind his back. The spotless white apron hung below his knees. A thick yellow pencil was stuck behind his ear. He was staring fixedly into the middle distance and did not notice the little girl who paused to examine once more the treasure in the window.

But his attention returned to the store when the youngster pushed open the door.

“I have come to pay you some more on the dresser set,” Alice told Mr. Brown.

Startled, the grocer stared at the child whose arm was extended, offering him a misshapen package in brown wrapping paper.

“Oh, yes,” the grocer replied, remembering. “How much does that make now?”

“Exactly $2.01, counting the $1.52 I gave you before,” Alice replied. “Do I get a receipt, Mr. Brown? And will you hold the dresser set for me?”

“I can hold it awhile longer, to see if you get the rest of the money,” Mr. Brown said. “And here’s your receipt.”

He handed the child a lavishly detailed receipt for $2.01, made out to “Miss Alice Anderson.” She studied it thoroughly and then placed it in the pocket of her coat.

“I will be back with more money soon, Mr. Brown,” Alice said. And businesslike, she nodded and smiled a tiny smile before leaving the store.

“Beats all!” Alec Brown said. “That sure is a determined young lady!”

The days were flying by. Alice tried to work faster. But her little hoard of money was growing at a discouraging rate.

She marked off each day on the December calendar. She ranged in wider and wider circles through the Oakland neighborhood each afternoon tryingto sell her potholders. But her success seemed to diminish as Christmas drew closer.

Anxious to be sure Mr. Brown remembered their arrangement; she made another trip to the grocery to pay him, although she had accumulated only 32 cents. She made another note in her table. She had paid Mr. Brown $2.33. But Christmas was only a few days away!

One afternoon, discouraged because she had not sold a single potholder anywhere on Globe St., she walked past Brown’s Grocery to look again at the dresser set. It still was there, all right.

He smiled in recognition this time as Alice entered the store.”So soon again?” he asked.

“Mr. Brown, I don’t have any more money today,” Alice said.

“But I am working hard. I will get it all. I want you to promise that you will hold the dresser set for me.”

“I will hold it until Christmas Eve for such a determined little girl,” the grocer replied.

“You have worked very, very hard. You must love your mother very much.”

“We love each other,” Alice said. “I am all she has and she is all I have. So we love each other.”

“Don’t sell the dresser set to anyone else, please, Mr. Brown.” And then she was gone.

The wind was whistling through the bare tree limbs and dark clouds were scudding by as Alice walked to her home. She felt bad weather coming. She was crossing off “Dec. 23” on the calendar when her mother came home from work.

“I am marking off the days till Christmas,” Alice said. Mary Anderson smiled brightly at her daughter.

“Yes,” she said. “Just one more day and then it is Christmas Eve and old Santa Claus will come.”

Alice’s heart sunk as she thought: I have just one more day to get all the money I need for the dresser set and pay it to Mr. Brown. Or I won’t have any gift at all for my mother.

Alice hurried out of the house that afternoon after school with nearly two dozen potholders in her paper sack. She began knocking on doors onWalters St., working her way slowly toward the railroad tracks. Most of the potholders still were unsold when she came to the steep embankment overlooking Little England.

She looked through the gloom of the afternoon at the dark green, cold waters of the Ohio River which seemed nearly on a level with the basement walls of the modest houses scattered haphazardly across the little patch of river bottom. Smoke curled from every chimney. Lamplight glowed from many of the windows. Christmas trees were leaning on porches, waiting to be erected in the living rooms.

Alice clutched at the few coins in her coat pocket and wondered how she would raise the rest of that impossible sum she needed within a few hours to buy the dresser set for her mother. She counted the pennies and nickels and a lone dime. Then she wrapped the money in her handkerchief and placed it in her pocket, shoving it snugly against the bottom so it would not be lost.

Off to her right, halfway down the embankment between the railroad tracks and the foot of the slope, she saw the roof of a boxcar with a stovepipe protruding from it.

She recognized it from the stories of her schoolmates. A cranky old fellow lived there. He did not like children. He shouted and yelled and waved his arms when they played on the slope above his boxcar home. He thought they would dislodge rocks that would rattle on his roof.

Alice made the rounds of Little England, selling two more of her potholders. She added a nickel and seven pennies to the hoard wrapped in her handkerchief. Discouraged, with early winter darkness falling, she knew she had fallen far short of the amount she needed to buy the dresser set. And tonight was Christmas Eve! For the first time in all the weeks she had worked, she felt discouraged.

As she trudged up the unpaved, narrow road leading from Little England, she saw a tiny footpath leading off to her right. Curious, she turned to follow it. It twisted and turned through alders and brambles.

And then suddenly she was in front of the boxcar home of Mr. Adams, the bitter old man!

As Alice contemplated the drab rectangle, she saw a heavy door was set in one end. It had three tiny panes of glass, which showed a dim yellow light. Smoke was curling from the stovepipe that emerged at a crazy angle from the roof.

Alongside the doorway, she saw a peculiar sign, carved from light-colored wood. “Jonah Adams,” it read. Crossed sabers had been carved beneath the name. On either side of the name she saw strange words: “Siboney,” “Daiquiri,” “El Caney,” “San Juan Hill” and-in the biggest letters of all-“First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry-T.R. Forever.”

And while Alice stared, the door flew open with a crash and a man with a grizzled, red face and a wild shock of white hair shouted at her: “Get out of there, kid, before I turn the dog on you!”

Alice trembled, but she held her ground.

“Don’t you want to buy one of my potholders?” she asked. “I’m trying to buy a Christmas present for my mother.”

“Get away,” Jonah Adams ordered. “I don’t have any money. I’ll never have any money. Get out!”

A tear ran down Alice’s cheek. Her shoulders sagged. She wiped her eyes with the end of her scarf. She shivered in the bitter wind off the river.

The tone of Jonah Adams’ voice mellowed a trifle.

“If you’re cold, kid, come in for a minute and get warm,” he invited. “But don’t try to sell me anything,” he added, much more brusquely.

Alice, clutching her paper bag full of potholders, sidled through the door as Adams held it open for her.

“Where’s the dog?” she said with fear in her voice.

“Oh, that’s just imagination,” Adams replied. “I haven’t had a dog for 10 years. But it scares people. All I have is a cat and he doesn’t frighten anyone.”

He pointed to a huge yellow tomcat stretched out fast asleep on a rag rug in front of the potbellied stove.

Alice moved close to the stove to warm her hands. Adams regarded her more closely, taking in the threadbare stockings and the thin shoes. He thought her coat looked too small and too short in the sleeves.

“Kid, you should be home with your family,” Jonah Adams said gruffly. “In a couple of hours it will be Christmas Eve, for sure. Your parents must be worried about you.”

And then he smiled, a weak, wan smile, but still a smile. It warmed Alice’s heart after the bleak reception.

So she poured out the story about the dresser set and the potholders and the nickels and dimes she had accumulated and the need to raise a staggering amount of money to pay off the balance due on the gift.

Jonah Adams listened without interrupting. He nodded to encourage her to pour forth the tale. And after she had finished, he stared at the flickering light seen through the door of the potbellied stove.

“I’ve had it pretty tough, too, little girl,” he said. “I fought in Cuba a long time ago, what folks call the Spanish-American War. I haven’t been able to hold much of a job since. I get a few dollars every month from the government. That pays for the beans and the bread and the kerosene.

If this old D. L. &W. boxcar hadn’t derailed 20 years ago, I don’t know what I would do for a home. It rolled over the hill and it just happened to stop right on this patch of hillside I owned. So I bought it off the railroad for salvage value and I have been living in it ever since.

“I don’t bother folks and they don’t bother me. I go over to the store every few weeks and buy some salt and flour and stogies. The rest of the time I just sorta sit here on the hillside in my boxcar and watch the world go by. Do you know I sometimes count 20 towboats up and down that river in one day?”

Alice listened with fascination. Mr. Adams did not sound like a mean man, after all. Maybe he was lonely. Certainly he was poor. But he did not seem mean.

He padded over to thestove and added a lump of coal carefully, not disturbing the sleeping cat. He turned to look at the youngster, still standing clutching the paper bag full of potholders.

“You know, little girl, I just might need a potholder or two,” Jonah Adams confided. “Only a week or so ago I burned my thumb when I tried to take the coffee pot off the stove. Yes, I think a pair of potholders would come in very handy.”

Alice opened the bag and spread her stock on the floor in front of the stove. Jonah Adams looked at the childish workmanship. No wonder she has trouble raising the money, he thought.

Those are all so pretty I don’t know which two to pick,” Jonah Adams said. “But I think I will take one of the blue ones and one of the yellow ones.”

He picked up the pair of potholders and placed them on the table.

“And now, little girl, how much will all that cost me?” he asked Alice.

“You took two of the large ones and they’re seven cents each, so that will be 14 cents,” she replied.

“I’ll have to find the money,” Jonah Adams said. “I will have it for you in a jiffy.”

He reached onto a shelf high above the stove and brought down an old red tobacco can. It jingled slightly as he twisted off the lid.

He hunted carefully through the accumulation of coins on the bottom of the can, selecting several, which he held in his hand.

“Where do you keep your money?” he asked.

Solemnly, Alice extracted the knotted handkerchief from deep in her coat pocket. She untied the knots. Then she held out the handkerchief in her palm, showing a pitifully small hoard of coins.

Jonah Adams dropped his coins into the outstretched handkerchief. “Now, tie it up quickly and safely so that you don’t lose the money,” he said. “You have to hurry over to the store and complete your deal with Alec Brown.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have enough money yet, but I will go and talk to him,” Alice replied. She tied the handkerchief and thrust it deep into the pocket.

“Well, hurry then,” Jonah Adams, said. “You surely don’t want your mother to be disappointed.”

He helped her wrap the scarf more tightly around her throat and patted the tam-o-shanter into place as he held open the door for her.

In the thickening gloom of late afternoon, Alice turned to wave at Jonah Adams just before she disappeared from sight on the narrow twisting path.

A few minutes later, she was in front of Alec Brown’s Grocery. The sparkling gaslight seemed brighter than ever. The sidewalk was crowded with belated shoppers.

But the spot in the center of the display window was vacant. The dresser set was gone!

Alice fought back tears as she hurried into the store and interrupted Alec Brown as he measured a large scoop full of sugar into a brown paper bag on scales.

“The dresser set is gone, Mr. Brown,” she cried. “You promised to keep it for me!”

“It’s safe and sound in the back room,” Alec Brown replied. “I’m still saving it for you.”

With a sigh of relief, Alice removed the handkerchief from her pocket, untied the knots and spread a small pile of coins on the counter. Alec Brown began to count the coins quickly and expertly, fishing them off the counter with the side of one hand and catching them in the palm of the other while he called out the ascending total. But with the 35 cents she had when the day started and the money from her two sales in Little England, the total came only to $3.05.

Alice was crushed; Alec Brown felt a twinge of pity in his heart. He placed the coins on the counter, watching two tiny tears course down Alice’s cheeks.

And then a strange gleam in one of the coins caught his eye. He rubbed it with a dust cloth and a bit of powdery cleanser. And then he whistled.

“You have far more than enough money,” he told Alice. “This one little coin that looked like a penny is an old $5 gold piece! Where in the world did you get that?”

Alice was astounded and mystified by the miracle. Alec Brown left the counter and went through a canvas curtain into the back room of the store. In a few seconds he emerged with a large package, wrapped in beautiful red and green and silver holiday paper and tied with a huge red bow.

“My wife wrapped your dresser set this afternoon. She said she just knew you would be back for it before Christmas Eve,” Alec Brown said.

Solemnly, he counted out $2.07 in change to Alice. The astonished child placed the money in her coat pocket. Then she picked up the package from the counter, struggling because of its size. Alec Brown held open the door for her. Alice thanked the grocer. He thanked her.

And she was skipping asshe disappeared from sight on Pennsylvania Ave.

He called to Andy Elliott, the stockboy. And, then holding the gold coin to the light, he pointed to a V-shaped mark on the rim.

“That’s old Jonah Adams’ lucky $5 gold piece,” he said with awe in his voice. “He brought it back from the Spanish- American War and he has kept it ever since. He would not spend it for the world.”

“I have had that coin dozens of times, but he never spends it,” Alec Brown said. When he runs out of stogies a few days before his check comes, he walks over to the store and buys a handful. And he leaves the gold piece for security.

“He tells me to hold onto the coin and he will be in and redeem it when his check comes. And he always does. Now what ever possessed him to give it to that little girl?” he said, shaking his head in wonder.

“Get a box of stogies off the shelf,” Alec Brown told the stockboy. “We have one more errand tonight, after all.” He scribbled a note, stuck the coin inside an envelope and placed it inside the lid of the cigar box.

“You’re done for today, Andy, all except for one thing,” the grocer said. “Stop at old Jonah Adams’ place on your way home and knock on the door and hand him this box of stogies.”

Alec Brown began turning out the gaslights, all except the one that illuminated the rear corner. Andy put on his coat and cap, took the box of stogies and hurried out the door, waving at his employer.

In a few minutes his fist was thumping loudly on the door of the boxcar home. Jonah Adams jerked open the door with a scowl, but it faded quickly, for he recognized the boy. Andy handed over the box of stogies.

“It’s a gift from Mr. Brown,” he said. “There’s a note inside.”

Jonah Adams pried open the lid with a heavy thumb nail and extracted the envelope with the note.

“You faker,” he read. “You’re not Scrooge after all. And here is your $5 gold piece back to prove it.” The note was signed “Alec Brown.”

Jonah Adams, nodding and smiling his thanks, closed the door.

Alec Brown hurried up the steep grade of Walters St. He paused a moment at the railroad crossing to listen for trains.

As he turned toward Little England, he saw the gleaming light of the brightest Christmas Eve star in the sky glistening with silver radiance on the roof of Jonah Adams’ home. And as he turned to cross the tracks, he saw the same light glistening off the eaves of Alec Brown’s grocery store.

Andy nearly stumbled into a shadowy pedestrian hurrying along the sidewalk, arms piled high with packages. Stepping aside at the last moment, he saw the man smile at him. Andy tipped his cap. He felt some of the glow from that silvery Christmas Eve star. He called out:

“Merry Christmas!”