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.