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?"