"It's time to come inside, children," called Elizabeth. "It's almost dark, and dinner's ready. Your father should be home soon. I don't know what's keeping him."

"Look at our snowman, Mama!" cried five-year-old Max.

"I helped!" added Laura, who was several months away from being three.

"It's a very nice snowman," Elizabeth replied, her eyes surveying the two lopsided mounds of snow, the slightly smaller one haphazardly perched atop the larger one, twigs and rocks placed at random intervals to represent facial features.

"I'm a big girl, ain't I, Mama?" Flecks of snow coated the tips of Laura's eyelashes, and strands of ash blonde hair peaked out of her cotton-lined hood.

"You sure are, sweetie," Elizabeth assured her.

"But not as big as me!" declared Max, who received a glare from his sister in return.

"Both of you are growin' like weeds," said Elizabeth. "But you need to come in now. It's getting colder - windier, too."

She put her hand on Laura's shoulder and led her inside, where she helped the little girl out of her coat.

"I can do it myself!" bragged Max.

"You were that little once, too," Elizabeth reminded him. "Come eat your dinner, now."

Both children climbed up into chairs and had just started eating their stew when footsteps were heard outside the door, and then the lock began to turn.

"Daddy!" Forgetting their dinner, Max and Laura left the table and scrambled to the door. It swung open, revealing a heavily bundled Paul.

"Just a minute! Let me get my coat off first," he chuckled. Seconds later the coat fell to the floor, and he scooped both children up into his arms for a hug and kiss. "I have to put you down now," he told them. "I have a surprise for you, and I need both arms to bring it in."

The children looked at one another. "A surprise for us?" asked Max.

"That's right!" Paul stepped outside and immediately came back in, carrying a large box. Elizabeth and the children watched in silence as he sat it on the floor and cut it open, revealing a large square object with a screen on one side.

"A television?"

Paul heard the amazement in his wife's voice and chuckled. "Sure! Isn't it about time we had one?"

He found a small bookcase to set the television on, then plugged it in and switched it on. Within seconds the picture appeared - a newscaster giving the day's news.

"Wow!" breathed Max, his eyes glued to the screen.

"It's just like having a movie theater in our living room!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

The newscast went off, and the image on the screen was replaced by that of a large square featuring a heart with words reading 'I Love Lucy' on the front. Two stick figures, one of a man and one of a woman, stood at the sides of the square.

"I've heard of this show!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

"Sh!" whispered Paul.

Within moments, all four members of the family were laughing at the antics of the Ricardo and Mertz families, and at the end of the program, when Ricky and Lucy's son, Little Ricky, was born, they all cheered.

"That was amazing, wasn't it?" asked Paul.

"Was it like that when I was born?" asked Max.

"No, you were born here at home," his mother told him.

"Me too?" asked Laura.

"No, you were born in a hospital, just like Little Ricky," Elizabeth replied.

"Why, Mama?"

"You had a little trouble coming, and the doctors had to help."

"That was the scariest day of my life!" Paul chuckled.

"Why, Daddy?"

"It's a little bit scary when a baby has a hard time coming, but it all turned out fine in the end," said Elizabeth.

Both children were fascinated by the television and protested heartily when their father turned the set off and told them it was bedtime.

"You can watch it all you want tomorrow," he said.

Elizabeth gave them their baths, read their bedtime stories to them, and tucked them in, then re-joined her husband in the living room.

"Tomorrow is Eisenhower's inauguration day, you know," Paul remarked as she sat beside him on the sofa. "I'll have to work, but you can watch it here."

"That's right!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "We can watch all the important things that happen from now on! Thank you for our television, Paul."

"You're welcome. I wanted it just as much as you did." He laughed at her enthusiasm.

The following day, she watched the inauguration while Max and Laura, having quickly grown bored with the program, played. When Paul came home from work, she gave him a very detailed account of the ceremony.

"I wish you could have watched it with me!" she told him.

"They'll show the most important parts on the news tonight," he replied.

"But that won't be quite the same!"

The television immediately became an integral part of the Brimmer household, and Elizabeth spent many happy mornings watching soap operas while she folded laundry, and in the evenings, the whole family watched 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,' 'My Little Margie', and 'Our Miss Brooks' together. However, 'I Love Lucy' remained their favorite show.