One of the pleasantest pastimes of the whole year for country children
is gathering Christmas green. This is done before the very cold weather
begins, otherwise the beautiful club-mosses and ground-pines would be
frozen solid in the damp soil of the swamps and woods, or the whole
would be covered with a snow carpet, broken only by rabbit and squirrel
tracks. The freshest green for Christmas trimming is found in damp
meadows or on springy hillsides, where it nestles in the moist earth,
overshadowed by thickets of alders and birches. It grows in the forests
too; not so much among pine-trees, as the dry carpet of fallen needles
is less nutritious than the loam produced by the accumulations of dead
leaves of oak, maple, and beech trees.
There are many kinds of ground evergreens, most of them members of the
_Lycopodiaceæ_, or club-moss family. There is the creeping club-moss,
the cord-like stem of which, sometimes yards long, hides among the dead
leaves, and sends up at intervals graceful whorls of bright green. Tiny
bunches of short white roots run down in the damp mould, where they find
nutriment for the plant. If you work your finger under the stem, and
pull gently, it is wonderful to see the long and beautiful wreath slowly
disentangle itself from the forest floor, disturbing hundreds of little
wood-beetles, which scurry away to hide again among the woodland
rubbish. There are two kinds of creeping green very common in all moist
wooded lands at the North--the kind with leaves rising in whorls, and
that with a stem covered with bristle-like spikes. This last variety has
leaves, not very abundant,--which resemble a sprig of young fir, and is
sometimes called "ground-fir." It is of a deep rich green color, but not
so graceful for trimming as the other kind. Besides the creeping green,
there are many varieties of what children call "tree-green," independent
little plants rooted deep in the mould, which send up a single stalk
about eight inches high. Some of these are such perfect little trees as
to appear diminutive copies of the firs and pines towering far above
them, and are called "fir club-moss." A pretty evergreen to mix with the
more feathery varieties is the _Chimaphila umbellata_, or prince's-pine.
It has bright shining dark green leaves, which have a very bitter taste,
and is sometimes called bitter wintergreen.
[Illustration: BRINGING HOME CHRISTMAS GREEN.--DRAWN BY J. O. DAVIDSON.]
As all these ground varieties need to be gathered before ice and snow
begin, often weeks before Christmas, care must be taken to keep them
from drying. They should be heaped up in some cool, damp place, where
they will not freeze, and should be sprinkled plenteously every day. The
boys make frames in the form of crosses, stars, wreaths, or letters, and
the girls find a pretty pastime in tying on the greens. As fast as the
designs are finished they must also be laid away and kept damp until
Christmas. Woodland mosses, holly leaves and scarlet berries, and dried
everlasting flowers are pretty to mix with the green. Branches of
hemlock and young firs for Christmas trees are cut as near
Christmas-time as possible. If a room is to be made into a bower of
hemlock boughs, they should not be fastened up until the morning of
Christmas-eve, as the heated air of the house loosens the flat,
tooth-shaped leaves from the branch, and the least movement sends them
in clouds to the floor. Any one who has tried to sweep them from the
carpet after Christmas, will prefer some other variety of green for
trimming another year.
The immense amount of green brought into New York city the week
preceding Christmas can scarcely be estimated. Viewing the hundreds of
young firs in the markets, and the enormous numbers of wreaths and other
designs, it would seem as if the forests and swamps had been stripped to
such an extent that nothing would be left for another year; but so
prodigal is Nature of her beautiful club-mosses and her aromatic pines,
that what is gathered for holiday trimming amounts to little more than a
weeding out of superfluous growth. Many of the greens sold in the New
York market come from New Jersey. Schooners bring them from all along
the coast, freight-cars come loaded with the beauty of the inland hills,
and huge market carts trundle their precious burden from the near-lying
forests and damp meadows. Although it is prohibited by law to cut young
trees from the barrens along the coast, as the growth of pines keeps the
sand from drifting, many small coasting vessels drop into the bays and
inlets around Sandy Hook and other parts of the Jersey shore a little
before Christmas-time, and send their crews ashore by night to secure a
cargo to bring to New York.
It would be interesting to follow this woodland treasure after its
arrival in the great city; but one thing is certain--wherever it is,
even if it be only a sprig in the hand of a sick child, faces are
brighter, hearts are happier, and the sweet words, "Merry Christmas,"
have a deeper significance.