(ANONYMOUS.)
Mrs. Olcott called her boys, and bade them go to the pine woods and get
the finest, handsomest young hemlock tree that they could find.
"Get one that is straight and tall, with well-boughed branches on it,
and put it where you can draw it under the wood-shed after dark," she
added.
The boys went to Pine Hill, and there they picked out the finest young
tree on all the hill, and said, "We will take this one." So, with their
hatchets they hewed it down and brought it safely home the next night
when all was dark. And when Roger was quietly sleeping in the adjoining
room, they dragged the tree into the kitchen. It was too tall, so they
took it out again and cut it off two or three feet at the base. Then
they propped it up, and the curtains being down over the windows, and
blankets being fastened over the curtains to prevent any one looking in,
and the door being doubly barred to prevent any one coming in, they all
went to bed.
Very early the next morning, while the stars shone on the snow-covered
hills--the same stars that shone sixteen hundred years before on the
hills when Christ was born in Bethlehem--the little Puritan mother in
New England arose very softly. She went out and lit the kitchen fire
anew from the ash-covered embers. She fastened upon the twigs of the
tree the gifts she had bought in Boston for her boys and girl. Then she
took as many as twenty pieces of candle and fixed them upon the
branches. After that she softly called Rupert, Robert and Lucy, and told
them to get up and come into the kitchen.
Hurrying back, she began, with a bit of a burning stick, to light the
candles. Just as the last one was set aflame, in trooped the three
children.
Before they had time to say a word, they were silenced by their mother's
warning.
"I wish to fetch Roger in and wake him up before it," she said. "Keep
still until I come back!"
The little lad, fast asleep, was lifted in a blanket and gently carried
by his mother into the beautiful presence.
"See! Roger, my boy, see!" she said, arousing him. "It is Christmas
morning now! In England they only have Christmas-boughs, but here in New
England we have a whole Christmas-tree."
"O mother!" he cried. "O Lucy! Is it really, really true, and no dream
at all? Yes, I see! I see! O mother, it is so beautiful! Were all the
trees on all the hills lighted up that way when Christ was born? And,
mother," he added, clapping his little hands with joy at the thought,
"why, yes, the stars did sing when Christ was born! They must be glad,
then, and keep Christmas, too, in heaven. I know they must, and there
will be good times there."
"Yes," said his mother; "there will be good times there, Roger."
"Then," said the boy, "I sha'n't mind going, now that I've seen the
Christmas-bough. I--What is that, mother?"
What was it that they heard? The little Olcott home had never before
seemed to tremble so. There were taps at the window, there were knocks
at the door--and it was as yet scarcely the break of day! There were
voices also, shouting something to somebody.
"Shall I put out the candles, mother?" whispered Robert.
"What will they do to us for having the tree? I wish we hadn't it,"
regretted Rupert; while Lucy clung to her mother's gown and shrieked
with all her strength, "It's Indians!"
Pale and white and still, ready to meet her fate, stood Mrs. Olcott,
until, out of the knocking and the tapping at her door, her heart caught
a sound. It was a voice calling, "Rachel! Rachel! Rachel!"
"Unbar the door!" she cried back to her boys; "it's your father
calling!" Down came the blankets; up went the curtain; open flew the
door, and in walked Captain Olcott, followed by every man and woman in
Plymouth who had heard at break of day the glorious news that the
expected ship had arrived at Boston, and with it the long lost Captain
Olcott. For an instant nothing was thought of except the joyous
welcoming of the Captain in his new home.
"What's this? What is it? What does this mean?" was asked again and
again, when the first excitement was passed, as the tall young pine
stood aloft, its candles ablaze, its gifts still hanging.
"It's welcome home to father!" said Lucy, her only thought to screen her
mother.
"No, child, no!" sternly spoke Mrs. Olcott. "Tell the truth!"
"It's--a--Christmas-tree!" faltered poor Lucy.
One and another and another, Pilgrims and Puritans all, drew near with
faces stern and forbidding, and gazed and gazed, until one and another
and yet another softened slowly into a smile as little Roger's piping
voice sung out:
"She made it for me, mother did. But you may have it now, and all the
pretty things that are on it, too, because you've brought my father back
again; if mother will let you," he added.
Neither Pilgrim nor Puritan frowned at the gift. One man, the sternest
there, broke off a little twig and said:
"I'll take it for the sake of the good old times at home."