Part 2

"He seemed to have teeth," said my mother. "He ate two helpings of turkey!"

"He had a gold cigaret-case!" said my father. "_Gold!_"

My mother began to laugh all over again.

"Maybe his Sunday-school class gave it to him," she said. It seemed to be a joke. Once father's Sunday-school class gave him a high silk hat. Father laughed a little.

Mother looked very beautiful. She ruffled her hair a little on father's shoulder. She pinked her cheeks from the inside some way. She glanced up at the topmost branch of the Christmas tree. The gold bud showed quite plainly.

"I--I _wonder_--what he wished," she said. "We'll have to look--some time."

I made a little creak in my bones. I didn't mean to. My father and mother both turned round. They started to explore!

I ran like everything!

I think it was very kind of God to make December have the very shortest days in the year!

Summer, of course, is nice! The long, sunny light! Lying awake till 'most nine o'clock every night to hear the blackness come rustling! Such a lot of early mornings everywhere and birds singing! Sizzling-hot noons with cool milk to drink! The pleasant nap before it's time to play again!

But if _December_ should feel long, what would children do? About Christmas, I mean! Even the best way you look at it, Christmas is always the furthest-off day that I ever heard about!

My mother was always very kind about making Christmas come just as soon as it could. There wasn't much daylight. Not in December. Not in the North. Not where we lived. Except for the snow, each day was like a little jet-black jewel-box with a single gold coin in the center. The gold coin in the center was _noon_. It was very bright. It was really the only bright light in the day. We spent it for Christmas. Every minute of it. We popped corn and strung it into lovely loops. We threaded cranberries. We stuffed three Yule logs with crackly cones and colored fires. We made little candies. All round the edges of the bright noon-time, of course, there was morning and night. And lamplight. It wasn't convenient to burn a great many lamps. At night father and mother sat in the lamplight and taught us our lessons. Or read stories to us. We children sat in the shadows and stared into the light. The light made us blink. The tame crow and the tame coon sat in the shadows with us. We played we were all jungle-animals together waiting outside a man's camp to be Christianized. It was pleasant. Mother read to us about a woman who didn't like Christmas specially. She was going to petition Congress to have the Christ Child born in leap-year so that Christmas couldn't come oftener than once in four years. It worried us a little. Father laughed. Mother had only one worry in the world. She had it every year.

"Oh, my darling, darling Winter garden!" worried my mother. "Wouldn't it be _awful_ if I ever had to die just as my best Christmas tree was coming into bloom?"

It frightened us a little. But not too much. Father had the same worry every Spring about his Spring garden. Every Maytime when the tulip-buds were so fat and tight you could fairly hear them splitting, father worried.

"Oh, wouldn't it be perfectly _terrible_ if I should die before I find out whether those new 'Rembrandts' are everything that the catalogue promised? Or whether the 'Bizards' are really finer than the 'Byblooms'? Now, if it was in phlox-time," worried my father. "Especially if the phlox turned out magenta, one could slip away with scarcely a pang. But in _tulip-time_----?"

We promised our mother she should never die at Christmas-time. We promised our father he should never die at tulip-time. We brought them rubbers. And kneeling-cushions. We carried their coats. We found their trowels. We kept them just as well as we could.

But, most of all, of course, we were busy wondering about our presents.

It hurries Christmas a lot to have a Christmas tree growing in your parlor for a whole month. Even if the parlor door is locked.

Lots of children have a Christmas tree for a whole month. But it's a _going_ tree. Its going is very sad. Just one little wee day of perfect splendor it has. And then it begins to die. Every day it dies more. It tarnishes. Its presents are all gathered. Its pop-corn gets stale. The cranberries smell. It looks scragglier and scragglier. It gets brittle. Its needles begin to fall. Pretty soon it's nothing but a _clutter_. It must be dreadful to start as a Christmas tree and end by being nothing but a clutter.

But mother's Christmas tree is a _coming_ tree. Every day for a month it's growing beautifuler and beautifuler! The parlor is cool. It lives in a nice box of earth. It has water every day like a dog. It never dies. It just disappears. When we come down to breakfast the day after Christmas it simply _isn't there_. That's all. It's immortal. Always when you remember it, it's absolutely perfect.

We liked very much to see the Christmas tree _come_. Every Sunday afternoon my mother unlocked the parlor door. We were not allowed to go in. But we could peep all we wanted to. It made your heart crinkle up like a handful of tinsel to watch the tin-foil buds change into presents.

Two of Carol's silver buds had bloomed. One of them had bloomed into a white-paper package that looked like a book. The other one had strange humps. Only one of Rosalee's violet buds had bloomed. But it was a very large box tied with red ribbon. It looked like a best hat. One of father's blue buds had bloomed. One of mother's red buds. They bloomed very small. Small enough to be diamonds. Or collar-buttons. 'Way back on the further side of the tree I could see that one of my green buds had bloomed. It was a long little box. It was a narrow little box. I can most always tell when there's a doll in a box. Young Derry Willard's golden bud hadn't bloomed at all. Maybe it was a late bloomer. Some things are. The tame coon's salt fish, I've noticed, never blooms at all until just the very last moment before we go into the parlor Christmas morning. Mother says there's a reason. We didn't bother much about reasons. The parlor was very cold. It smelt very cold and mysterious. We didn't see how we could wait!

Carol helped us to wait. Not being able to talk, Carol has plenty of time to think. He can write, of course. But spelling is very hard. So he doesn't often waste his spelling on just facts. He waits till he gets enough facts to make a philosophy before he tries to spell it: He made a philosophy about Christmas coming so slow. He made it on the blackboard in the kitchen. He wrote it very tall.

"Christmas has _got_ to come," he wrote. "It's part of _time_. Everything that's part of _time_ has _got_ to come. Nothing can stop it. It runs like a river. It runs down-hill. It can't help itself. I should worry."

Young Derry Willard never wrote at all. He telegraphed his "manners" instead. "Thank you for Thanksgiving Day," he telegraphed. "It was very wonderful." He didn't say anything else. He never even mentioned his address.

"U--m--m," said my father.

"It's because of the hundred-dollar bill," said my mother. "He doesn't want to give us any chance to return it."

"Humph!" said my father. "Do we _look_ poor?"

My mother glanced at the worn spot in the dining-room rug. She glanced at my father's coat.

"We certainly do!" she laughed. "But young Derry Willard didn't leave us a hundred-dollar bill to try and make us look any richer. All young Derry Willard was trying to do was to make us look more Christmassy!"

"Well, we can't accept it!" said my father.

"Of course we can't accept it!" said my mother. "It was a mistake. But at least it was a very kind mistake."

"_Kind?_" said my father.

"_Very_ kind," said my mother. "No matter how dark a young man may be or how much cane-sirup and bananas he has consumed, he can't be absolutely depraved as long as he goes about the world trying to make things look more Christmassy!"

My father looked up rather sharply.

My mother gave a funny little gasp.

"Oh, it's all right," she said. "We'll manage some way! But who ever heard of a chicken-bone hung on a Christmas tree? Or a slice of roast beef?"

"Some children don't get--anything," said my father. He looked solemn. "Money is very scarce," he said.

"It always is," said my mother. "But that's no reason why presents ought to be scarce."

My father jumped up.

My father laughed.

"Great Heavens, woman!" he said. "Can't anything dull your courage?"

"Not my--Christmas courage!" said my mother.

My father reached out suddenly and patted her hand.

"Oh, all right," he said. "I suppose we'll manage somehow."

"Of course we'll manage somehow," said my mother.

I ran back as fast as I could to Carol and Rosalee.

We thought a good deal about young Derry Willard coming. We talked about it among ourselves. We never talked about it to my father or my mother. I don't know why. I went and got my best story-book and showed the Fairy Prince to Carol. Carol stared and stared. There were palms and bananas in the picture. There was a lace-paper castle. There was a moat. There was a fiery charger. There were dragons. The Fairy Prince was all in white armor, with a white plume in his hat. It grasped your heart, it was so beautiful. I showed the picture to Rosalee. She was surprised. She turned as white as the plume in the Fairy Prince's hat. She put the book in her top bureau-drawer with her ribbons. We wondered and wondered whether young Derry Willard would come. Carol thought he wouldn't. I thought he would. Rosalee wouldn't say. Carol thought it would be too cold. Carol insisted that he was a tropic. And that tropics couldn't stand the cold. That if a single breath of cold air struck a tropic he blew up and froze. Rosalee didn't want young Derry Willard to blow up and freeze. Anybody could see that she didn't. I comforted her. I said he would come in a huge fur coat. Carol insisted that tropics didn't have huge fur coats. "All right, then," I said. "He will come in a huge _feather_ coat! Blue-bird feathers it will be made of! With a soft brown breast! When he fluffs himself he will look like the god of all the birds and of next Spring! Hawks and all evil things will scuttle away!"

There certainly _was_ something the matter with the Christmas tree that year.

It grew. But it didn't grow very fast.

My father said that perhaps the fertilizer hadn't been rich enough.

My mother said that maybe all Christmas trees were blooming rather late this year. Seasons changed so.

My father and mother didn't go away to town at all. Not for a single day.

Late at night after we'd gone to bed we heard them hammering things and running the sewing-machine.

Carol thought it smelt like kites.

Rosalee said it sounded to her like a blue silk waist.

It looked like a worry to me.

It got colder and colder. It snowed and snowed.

Christmas eve it snowed some more. It was beautiful. We were very much excited. We clapped our hands. We stood at the window to see how white the world was. I thought about the wise men's camels. I wondered if they could carry snow in their stomachs as well as rain. Mother said camels were tropics and didn't know anything about snow. It seemed queer.

A sleigh drove up to the door. There were three men in it. Two of them got out. The first one was young Derry Willard. It was a fur coat that he had on. He was full of bundles. My father gave one gasp.

"The--the impudent young--" gasped my father.

We ran to the door. The second man looked just exactly like young Derry Willard except that he had on a gray beard and a gray slouch hat. He looked like the picture of "a planter" in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." My father and he took just one look at each other. And then suddenly they began to pound each other on the back and to hug each other. "Hello, old top!" they shouted. "Hello--hello--_hello_!" Derry Willard's father cried a little. Everybody cried a little or shouted or pounded somebody on the back except young Derry Willard and Rosalee. Young Derry Willard and Rosalee just stood and looked at each other.

"Well--well--well!" said Derry Willard's father over and over and over. "Twenty years! _Twenty_ years!" The front hall was full of bundles! We fell on them when we stepped. And we fell on new ones when we tried to get up. Whenever Derry Willard's father wasn't crying he was laughing! "So this is the wife?" he said. "And these are the children? Which is Rosalee? Ah! A very pretty girl! But not as pretty as your wife!" he laughed. "Twenty years! _Twenty_ years!" he began all over again. "A bit informal, eh? Descending on you like this? But I couldn't resist the temptation after I'd seen Derry. We Southerners, you know! Our impulses are romantic! Tuck us away anywhere! Or turn us out--if you must!"

My father was like a wild man for joy! He forgot all about everything except "twenty years ago."

We had to put the two Mr. Derry Willards to bed in the parlor. There was no other room. They insisted on sleeping with the Christmas tree. They had camped under every kind of branch and twig in the world, they said. But _never_ had they camped under a Christmas tree.

Father talked and talked and talked! Derry Willard's father talked and talked and talked! It was about college! It was about girls! It was about boys! It was about all sorts of pranks! Not any of it was about studies! Mother sat and laughed at them!

Rosalee and young Derry Willard sat and looked at each other. Carol and I played checkers. Everybody forgot us. I don't know who put me to bed.

When we came down-stairs the next morning and went into the parlor to see the Christmas tree we _screamed_!

Every single weeney-teeny branch of it had sprouted tinsel tassels! There were tinsel stars all over it! Red candles were blazing! Glass icicles glistened! There were candy canes! There were tin trumpets! Little white-paper presents stuck out everywhere through the branches! Big white presents piled like a snowdrift all around the base of the tree!

Young Derry Willard's father seemed to be still laughing. He rubbed his hands together.

"Excuse me, good people," he laughed, "for taking such liberties with your tree! But it's twenty years since I've had a chance to take a real whack at a Christmas tree! Palms, of course, are all right, and banana groves aren't half bad! But when it comes to real landscape effect--give me a Christmas tree in a New England parlor!"

"Palms?" we gasped. "Banana-trees?"

Young Derry Willard distributed the presents.

For my father there were boxes and boxes of cigars! And an order on some Dutch importing house for five hundred _green_ tulips! Father almost sw--ooned.

For mother there was a little gold chain with a single pearl in it! And a box of oranges as big as a chicken-coop!

I got four dolls! And a paint-box! One of the dolls was jet-black. She was funny. When you squeaked her stomach she grinned her mouth and said, "Oh, lor', child!"

Rosalee had a white crepe shawl all fringes and gay-colored birds of paradise! Rosalee had a fan made out of ivory and gold. Rosalee had a gold basket full of candied violets. Rosalee had a silver hand-mirror carved all round the edge with grasses and lilies like the edges of a little pool.

Carol had a big, big box that looked like a magic lantern. And on every branch where he had hung his seven wishes for a camel there was a white card instead with the one word "Palestine" written on it.

Everybody looked very much perplexed.

Young Derry Willard's father laughed.

"If the youngster wants camels," he said, "he must have camels! I'm going to Palestine one of these days before so very long. I'll take him with me. There must be heaps of camels still in Palestine."

"Going to Palestine before--long," gasped my mother. "How wonderful!"

Everybody turned and looked at Carol.

"Want to go, son, eh?" laughed Derry Willard's father.

Carol's mouth quivered. He looked at my mother.

My mother's mouth quivered. A little red came into her checks.

"He wants me to thank you very much, Mr. Willard," she said. "But he thinks perhaps you wouldn't want to take him to Palestine--if you knew that he can't--talk."

"Can't talk?" cried Mr. Derry Willard. "_Can't talk?_" He looked at mother! He looked at Carol! He swallowed very hard! Then suddenly he began to laugh again!

"Good enough!" he cried. "He's the very boy I'm looking for! We'll rear him for a diplomat!"

Carol got a hammer and opened his big box. It _was_ a magic lantern! He was wild with joy! He beat his fists on the top of the box! He stamped his feet! He came and burrowed his head in mother's shoulder. When Carol burrows his head in my mother's shoulder it means, "Call me anything you want to!"

Mother called him anything she wanted to. Right out loud before everybody. "Shining Face!" said my mother.

There were lots of other presents besides.

My father had made a giant kite for Carol. It looked nine feet tall. My father had made the dearest little wooden work-box for my mother. There _was_ a blue silk waist for Rosalee. My mother had knitted me a doll! Its body was knitted! Its cheeks were knitted! Its nose was knitted! It was wonderful!

We ate the peppermint-candy canes. All the pink stripes. All the white stripes. We sang carols. We sang,

O, the foxes have holes! And the birds build their nests In the crotch of the sycamore-tree! But the Little Son of God had no place for His head When He cameth to earth for me!

Rosalee's voice was like a lark in the sky. Carol's face looked like two larks in the sky.

The tame crow stayed in the kitchen. He was afraid of so many strangers. The tame coon wasn't afraid of anything. He crawled in and out of all the wrapping-papers, sniffing and sniffing. It made a lovely crackling sound.

Everything smelt like fir balsam. It was more beautiful every minute. Even after every last present was picked from the tree, the tree was still so fat and fluffy with tinsel and glass balls that it didn't look robbed at all.

We just sat back and stared at it.

Young Derry Willard stared only at the topmost branch.

Father looked suddenly at mother. Mother looked suddenly at Rosalee. Rosalee looked suddenly at Carol. Carol looked suddenly at me. I looked suddenly at the tame coon. The tame coon kept right on crackling through the wrapping-papers.

Young Derry Willard made a funny little face. There seemed to be dust in his throat. His voice was very dry. He laughed.

"My wish," said young Derry Willard, "seems to have been the only one that--didn't bloom."

I almost died with shame. Carol almost died with shame. In all that splendiferousness, in all that generosity, poor Derry Willard's gold-budded wish was the only one that hadn't at least bloomed into _something_!

Rosalee jumped up very suddenly and ran into the dining-room. She looked as tho she was going to cry.

Young Derry Willard followed her. He didn't run. He walked very slowly. He looked a little troubled.

Carol and I began at once to fold the wrapping-papers very usefully.

Young Derry Willard's father looked at my father. All of a sudden he wasn't laughing at all. Or rubbing his hands.

"I'm sorry, Dick," he said. "I've always rather calculated somehow on having my boy's wishes come true."

My father spoke a little sharply.

"You must have a lot of confidence," he said, "in your boy's wishes!"

"I have!" said young Derry Willard's father, quite simply. "He's a good boy! Not only clever, I mean, but good! Never yet have I known him to wish for anything that wasn't the _best_!"

"They're too young," said my father.

"Youth," said Derry Willard's father, "is the one defect I know of that is incontestably remedial."

"How can they possibly know their own minds?" demanded my father.

"No person," said Derry Willard's father, "knows his own mind until he's ready to die. But the sooner he knows his own heart the sooner he's ready to begin to live."

My father stirred in his chair. He lit a cigar. It went out. He lit it again. It went out again. He jerked his shoulders. He looked nervous. He talked about things that nobody was talking about at all.

"The young rascal dropped a hundred-dollar bill--when he was here before!" he said. He said it as tho it was something very wicked.

Young Derry Willard's father seemed perfectly cheerful.

"Did he really?" he said.

"It's a wonder the crow didn't eat it!" snapped my father.

"But even the crow wouldn't eat it, eh?" said Derry Willard's father. Quite suddenly he began to laugh again. He looked at my mother. He stopped laughing. His voice was very gentle. "Don't be--proud," he said. "Don't ever be proud." He threw out his hand as tho he was asking something. "What difference does anything make--in the whole world," he said, "except just young love--and old friendship?"

"Oh, pshaw," said father. "Oh, pshaw!"

Rosalee came and stood in the door. She looked only at mother. She had on a red coat. And a red hat. And red mittens.

"Derry Willard wants to see the Christmas-tree garden," she said. "May I go?"

Derry Willard stood just behind her. He had on his fur coat. He looked very hard at father. When he spoke he spoke only to father.

"Is it all right?" he said. "May _I_ go?"

My father looked up. And then he looked down. He looked at Derry Willard's father. He threw out his hands as tho there was no place left to look. A little smile crept into one corner of his mouth. He tried to bite it. He couldn't.

"Oh--_pshaw_!" he said.

Carol and I went out to play. We thought we'd like to see the Christmas-tree garden too. The snow was almost as deep as our heads. All the evergreen trees were weighed down with snow. Their branches dragged on the ground. It was like walking through white plumes.

We found mother's Christmas-tree garden. We found Rosalee and young Derry Willard standing right in the middle of it. It was all caves and castles! It was like a whole magic little city all made out of white plumes! The sun came out and shone on it! Blue sky opened overhead! Everything crackled! It was more beautiful even than the Christmas tree in the parlor.

They didn't hear us.

Rosalee gave a funny little cry. It was like a sob. Only happy.

"I love _Christmas_!" she said.

"I love _you_!" said Derry Willard.

He snatched her in his arms and kissed her.