Explore "Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman" by Annie Fellows Johnston on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
AFTER spending several days wondering how she could best break the news / to the children that their father was going to take them away, Mrs. Neal / decided that she would wait until the last possible moment. Then she / would tell them that their father had a Christmas present for them, / nicer than anything he had ever given them before. It was something that / couldn't be sent to them, so he wanted them to go all the way on the / cars to his new home, to see it. Then after they had guessed everything / they could think of, and were fairly hopping up and down with impatient / curiosity, she'd tell them what it was: _a new mother_!
She decided not to tell them that they were never coming back to the / Junction to live. It would be better for them to think of this return / to their father as just a visit until they were used to their new / surroundings. It would make it easier for all concerned if they could be / started off happy and pleasantly expectant. Then if Molly had grown up / to be as nice a woman as she had been a young girl, she could safely / trust the rest to her. The children would soon be loving her so much / that they wouldn't want to come back.