III
IN THE GARDENS OF CHRISTMAS
I cannot tell you all the wonders of that Christmas. I can only tell you that the presents which the little family had bought for one another were all in their proper places next morning, and that there were ever so many things that nobody but Santa Claus could possibly have brought. There was a Christmas tree, for one thing, the kind of a tree that nobody but Santa Claus ever raises, or brings, and there was everything upon it and about it that a little boy and girl could want, unless they wanted a great deal more than a little boy and girl ought to have, at one time.
But the very finest Christmas gift of all was a splendid great big snow-storm, which had begun in the night and was still going on, as fast and as thick as the big, soft, fleecy flakes could fall. Every few minutes the children left the beautiful tree to look at the beautiful snow. They could hardly wait until breakfast was over, and the Chief Gardener had made a photograph of the tree with them in it, before they wanted to rush out with their sleds.
All at once Davy called Prue to the window.
"Look," he said, "some of these flakes on the window-sash are like little white flowers!"
Then every one came to see, and, sure enough, some of the snowflakes that had fallen next to the glass were wonderfully shaped, and did look like tiny blossoms. The Chief Gardener got a magnifying-glass and they looked at them through it, when they saw how really beautiful they were.
"I have heard them called 'the flowers of winter,'" said big Prue. "There is a little story about how the flowers complained that they must all die when cold weather came, and never see the winter. So then their spirits were allowed to come back as snowflakes."
