They all went up to the Sunday school room in the evening, to make the Christmas decorations for the church by the light of the dim oil lamps in their brackets. Lily and Victor made little bunches of cedar and laurel—two sprays of laurel and one of cedar, and then two sprays of cedar and one of laurel—and handed them up to the others, who bound them with string on long ropes. Lily had tried to make the ropes, but her sprays always came tumbling out, just as poor Aunt Priscilla’s did. How fragrant the evergreens were, and how black they made everyone’s hands! Even Mr. Lacey’s hands were black. He was bunching for Mamma, making her laugh with the ridiculous things he kept saying, and laughing himself, rich peals of tenor laughter. She could always understand his jokes—so many good puns! Since he and she had become such friends, she had begun to make little jokes herself, and grow girlish and arch and saucy. The girls never laughed when she mispronounced humorously, or when she talked funny French and said “Silver plate” and “Fox pass,” but Mr. Lacey did, and it made her feel so young again.
When the decorations were finished, the ropes and the wreaths and the big star of box and holly to hang over the chancel, and when Mr. Almond’s knife was found, the scraps of pine and cedar were burnt in the stove, roaring up sudden and white, and then popping like little pistol shots. How fragrant! They all gathered around the stove to warm themselves before going out into the winter night, while Uncle Willie stood on a chair and blew out the lamps.
“Goodnight! Goodnight!” The light from the bobbing lanterns falls in circles on the snow, climbs up the tree-trunks and over the dark hedges. The stars are shining, the sleigh-bells are chiming. Wait! This is the perfect moment! Stay with us for a little while! But the moment is over. The bells are no longer loud and merry—they are sad and faint—they have passed—they are still.
That moment before the parlor door was opened, Victor felt as if he would burst. And when he saw the Christmas tree he was struck dumb for a moment. Then he began to jump up and down, screaming with joy.
The tree was too tall even for the high parlor ceiling. Its head was bent over, and it looked as if it were bowing to them, holding out its dark green silver woven skirts, and bending its head, crowned with a silver star.
There were glass baskets and bells, and wax birds in their gilt wire cages. There were nets cut out of colored paper, holding candy, and more candy in small lace bags. There were gold and silver stars, and gilded walnuts, and strings of cranberries and popcorn. The stout shrimp-pink wax angel was there, swimming away, with a green twig under her for a life preserver. She was always there, every Christmas, and so was the cardboard folding church, with windows made of paper like colored glass, and sparkles all over the snow on the roof. By the church door stood a cardboard Santa Claus in a white fur coat, giving a basket of toys and pink and yellow apples to a little cardboard boy and girl. In front of the church on the snowy ground was printed a poem in German, and the Campion children felt as if it held such a secret, such an answer, if they could only read it! But none of them could, and Mamma couldn’t either.
On the end of a branch hung a little silver glass bell, and when Victor set it ringing gently with the tip of his finger it seemed to set another little bell ringing in his own heart.
They had their presents; they went to church, each wearing a sprig of holly, like so many plum puddings, and screamed:
“ ‘Shout the glad tidings, exultingly si-hi-hi-hi-hing!’ ”
They came home and had an enormous dinner; and now they were in the parlor, stuffed and sleepy. Mamma, in one of the fashionable new low chairs in which people lay stretched out with their chins propped on their chests, was half asleep in front of the fire, with “Poppies in the Corn” fallen to the floor beside her, only rousing now and then to ask one of the girls to stamp out sparks on the carpet that always proved to be bits of tinsel from the tree. May had fallen asleep on the sofa, and Lily was comfortably weeping over her new book and automatically eating the raisins she had found in her stocking that morning, while Maggie, in spite of her years, lay full length on the floor with Victor, languidly setting up and knocking over his Christmas tin soldiers.
And then there was a pealing of sleigh-bells at the door, and Martha scuffling through the hall, grumbling and tying on her apron as she went, to let in a whirl of snowy air and bells and laughing Mr. Lacey, buttoned warmly down to his ankles in a tight fawn-colored coat with a little fur collar, and wearing a low crowned brown derby hat like a mould of chocolate blancmange in a curly rimmed saucer.
“Oh, my gracious me!” cried Mamma, scrambling up in a panic, and settling her braids in what she could see of the overmantel mirror that gleamed in little chinks through Japanese fans as a pond gleams through an overgrowth of spatterdock pads. Mr. Lacey came bounding in, all chill and pink and fresh. He had brought Mamma a Christmas present—a pug dog! Café au lait color, with a tight screw of tail and a squashed-up
