"There are oceans, then! You knew what I meant. It's just like a carpet; and you can pull up great, long pieces of it: it comes up just as easy as any thing."
Mrs. March turned the vine over and over in her hands. It had a small glossy leaf, like the leaf of the box. Some of the long, slender tendrils of it were bright red.
"The leaf is so thick I think it would keep a long time," said Mrs. March. "I wish you and Nelly would bring me several armfuls of it. I'll tack it up all round the room: the walls won't look so bare, then."
"Oh, goody!" said the children; "that's just like Christmas." And they ran off as fast as they could go. In an hour they had heaped the whole floor with piles of the vine. The more they brought, the more beautiful it looked: the leaves shone like satin, and there were great mats of it nearly two yards long. Mrs. March had never seen it before, and did not know its name. Afterward she found out that it was the kinnikinnick vine, and that the Indians used it to smoke in their pipes. Some of the branches had beautiful little red berries like wintergreen berries on them. Nelly sorted these all out by themselves; then Mrs. March stood up on a chair, and some of the time on a table, and nailed a thick border of these vines all round the top of the room; then she took the branches which had red berries on them; and, wherever there was an upright beam in the wall, she nailed on one of these boughs with the red berries and let it hang down just as it would. Then she trimmed the fireplace and the door and the windows. It took her about two hours to do it. When it was all done, you would hardly have known the room. It looked lovely: the yellow pine boards looked much prettier with the green of the vines than any paper in the world could have looked. Rob and Nelly fairly danced with delight.
"Oh, mamma! mamma! it's prettier than any Christmas we ever had: isn't it?"
"Yes," said Mrs. March; "if the vines will only last, it is all we need to keep our walls pretty till summer time."
"Well, I never!" said Zeb, who came in at that moment. "If wimmen folks don't beat all! Why, mum, ye look's if you was goin' to have an ice-cream festival."
Zeb's only experience of rooms decorated with green vines had been when he had attended ice-cream festivals, given by churches to raise money.
"Well, we'll have one some day, Zeb," said Mrs. March, laughing; "and we won't charge you any thing. I can make very good ice-cream."
"Oh, to-night! to-night! mamma," exclaimed the children.