"Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas bells,
Oh! sweetly, sweetly, chime;
Let your happy voices on the breezes swell,
This merry, merry Christmas time."
The Sunday-school pupils answered with another carol, and the superintendent made a little speech of welcome. Then, when the children were all on tiptoe with excitement, there was a loud jangling of bells in the street, a stamping of feet at the door, and in came Santa Claus himself, with his great fur coat, his long white beard, and a heavy pack on his back.
Behind him came six pages, dressed in red and white, with little packs on their backs. They ran up and down the aisles, giving bags of candy to the children, and all the while the Christmas candles burned lower and lower, the tiny flames danced and flickered, the hat wax melted and dripped from bough to bough.
At last the superintendent of the Sunday-school began giving out the presents, and some of the teachers went to help him. Santa Claus himself called out the names, and the children ran up to receive their gifts from his hands.
In the midst of all this joy and happiness everyone forgot the lighted candles, until suddenly some one screamed, "Fire, fire! The tree is on fire!"
Then what a commotion there was! Men ran forward to put out the blaze, but it was so high up that no one could reach it. Two or three boys hurried down to the cellar for the step-ladder, several men ran to get pails of water, women snatched up their little children and took them into the street, hatless and coatless, while the teachers gathered up the few remaining gifts and tried to calm their frightened pupils.
In less time than it takes to tell it, the boys came rushing upstairs with a step-ladder, men came back with buckets of water, and Santa Claus climbed up to put out the fire which was running swiftly from one branch to another. In his hurry he knocked off another candle, it dropped into the white cotton and set the snowbanks blazing; but there were plenty of men to put out the flames before they could do any damage.
When the fire was all out, and the children had gone home, and were tucked safely in their little beds, the tree was left standing alone in the dark church. But it no longer looked as if it had come from fairyland. All the upper branches were burned off, wet strings of tinsel and popcorn drooped from the ends of the boughs, the gold star was black with smoke, and the snowbanks seemed to have suffered from a January thaw.
The next morning some of the fathers and mothers came to clear away the remains of the festivity and its disaster, and the children came to help them. "We'll never have another Christmas-tree as long as we live," declared one of the older girls. "Oh, yes, we will," her brother told her. "We'll have one next year for the Mission children; but we shall know better than to have it lighted with candles."
"Or, if we do use candles," added one of the teachers, "we'll have six boys to watch them every minute, and we will put out every one before we distribute a single gift."