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Its vocal efforts in the direction of carol singing were now supplemented by instrumental music; a Christmas-tree that had been prepared for the children of the gardener and other household retainers had yielded a rich spoil of tin trumpets, rattles, and drums.
At seven o'clock a bell was rung, and then the folding doors of the room where the Christmas-tree stood were thrown open, and a crowd of children came trooping in. They laughed and shouted and pointed, and all talked together, and after a while there was music, and presents were taken from the tree and given to the children. How different it all was from the great wide, still sky house!
But it was a great secret, and the children were very mysterious about it. "No, no, you mustn't go in," they said to little Asta, who went whimpering for her mother to the door. And later in the evening, when the Christmas-tree was lit up, and the windows shone white with frost, there were great doings all about the sitting room floor.
What every one admired was a little, little Christmas-tree, very green, and standing in a very red little flower-pot, and hung round with very bright little things made of tinsel and coloured paper. There were tiny candles on the tree, but they were not lighted yet. 'But yes is it not that it is genteel? said the lady. 'Sit down you then, and let us see.
She was glad to see so many turkeys on their way to garnish hospitable tables, and hoped that all the dear home circles might be found unbroken, though she had place in none. No Christmas-tree went by leaving a whiff of piny sweetness behind, that she did not wish it all success, and picture to herself the merry little people dancing in its light.
I will go to Boston in June and I will buy father gloves, and James nice collar, and Simpson cuffs. I saw Miss Betty and her scholars. They had a pretty Christmas-tree, and there were many pretty presents on it for little children. I had a mug, and little bird and candy. I had many lovely things for Christmas. Aunt gave me a trunk for Nancy and clothes. I went to party with teacher and mother.
They were not, it is true, the regulation Christmas-tree. That is they were not loaded with different and suitable gifts for every one in a family, as they stood there in Dame Louisa's yard. People always tied on those, after they had bought them, and had set them up in their own parlors.
A long, straight pencil of snow was flung through a chink, across the earthen floor and against the swaying Christmas-tree, on which the, presents, hanging in readiness for little Skeezucks, beat out a dull, monotonous clatter of tin and wood as they collided in the draught.
Strangest of all, he found himself often in the old nursery at the top of the house. Very seldom did any one come there now, and it had the pathos of a room grown cold and comfortless. Most of the toys were put away or given to hospitals, but the rocking-horse with his Christmas-tree tail was there, and the doll's-house, and a railway with trains and stations. He was here.
'I'm so glad! cried Mysie. 'The dear old tree is best of all. I could never get tired of it if I lived to be a hundred years old. 'Such are institutions, said their mother. 'I never heard of a Christmas-tree till I was twice your age. 'Oh, mamma! How dreadful! What did you do? 'I suppose it is all very well for you kids, said Jasper, loftily, putting his hands in his pockets.
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