RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
every two weeks in those days and we were not at all disappointed not to receive our box on the early December ship. There would be another one in on Christmas day and it would be much nicer, we thought, to get it then, and never a doubt did we have that it would come. Mr. Taft had a messenger ready to get it and bring it to the house as soon as it could be landed.
From our balcony we watched the transport steam up the bay; we felt the interest that only a Christmas box from home, ten thousand miles away, could excite; we forgot it was eighty in the shade; it was really Christmas. We waited as patiently as we could for our messenger, but when he arrived he had only sympathy to offer us. The box had not come. It was a most depressing disappointment, and the children were inconsolable. However, everybody cheered up about dinner time. I had done what I could with red ribbons and greenery, with cotton wool and diamond dust to create the proper atmosphere; then we had invited a number of homeless young secretaries and others to take Christmas cheer with us, and though the cold storage turkey was tough and the cranberry sauce and plum-pudding were from Commissary cans, we managed a near approach to a Yuletide air, and little Charlie went to bed with his Escolta toys quite as happy as he would have been had he been at home in his own country. I assured the three children that the box from home would come in on the next transport and promised that we would then have Christmas all over again. But I reckoned without knowledge of the shipping methods of the transport service. Transports came and transports went; our hopes were dashed to earth any number of times and it was endless weeks before our carefully prepared and holly-decked presents finally arrived.
On New Year's morning General MacArthur gave a reception at Malacañan Palace. It was such an affair as is spoken of in social circles everywhere as "the event of the
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