"Yes," said Horatio, "a really truly peppermint tree with really truly peppermints on it, and I'm going to shake the tree and you shall catch the peppermints as they come down."
"Are we going to see it now?" asked An Petronia.
"Where is it?" eagerly chorused the others.
"It is only a little way from here," said the curate, as the plan formed itself in his mind, "but before we start I must go into the shop and see Mrs. Beadle. I am not quite sure just which tree is the peppermint tree, and, as Mrs. Beadle is so fond of peppermints, she will be able to tell me exactly how to find it. You had better wait for me at the corner," he added, "I shall only be a moment or two."
As the children trooped across the street, chirping and chattering, the curate, full of his happy little scheme and all oblivious of the flight of time, stepped into the shop. A few moments later he reappeared and, if in the interim Mrs. Beadle's stock of peppermints had appreciably diminished, no corresponding increase of bulk was apparent in the region of Horatio Merle's pockets, so artfully had the sweets been bestowed about his clerical person.
At the corner of the lane the children awaited him in expectant silence. Without a word An Petronia slipped her little hand in his and down the lane they went, this strange hushed processional led by the gray-haired curate hand in hand with little An Petronia.
"Here it is!" cried Merle at last, pointing to a small acacia, a toy-like tree with slender trunk and bushy top that stood on the very edge of the wood. An unmistakable peppermint tree, thought An Petronia.
Following the clergyman's directions, the children formed a ring around the tree, while he stood in the middle clasping the thin trunk in both his hands.
"Now," said Merle, "I'm going to sing something and you must listen and sing it after me." He thought a moment and then sang:
"Tree, tree, Peppermint Tree!
Let some peppermints fall on me!"