The principal conversation during this festival time consisted of phrases like: ‘I know what you’re goin’ to have, Miss Edith, but I won’t tell!’ ‘Miss Mary, Sally ’most told Miss Rhoda what she was makin’ for her.’ ‘Miss Helen, Pat Higgins went right up to Miss Edith and asked her to help him mend the leg of his clay frog, and it’s his own Christmas present to her!’
The children could not for the life of them play birds, or butterflies, or carpenter, or scissors-grinder, for they wanted to shout the live-long day—
‘Christmas bells are ringing sweet,
We too the happy day must greet’;
or—
‘Under the holly, now,
Sing and be jolly, now,
Christmas has come and the children are glad’;
or—
‘Hurrah for Santa Claus!
Long may he live at his castle in Somewhere-land!’
There was much whispering and discussion about evergreens and garlands and wreaths that were soon to come, and much serious planning with regard to something to be made for mother, father, sister, brother, and the baby; something, too, now and then, for a grandpapa in Sweden, a grandmamma in Scotland, a Norwegian uncle, an Irish aunt, and an Italian cousin; but there was never by chance any cogitation as to what the little workers themselves might get. In the happier homes among them, there was doubtless the usual legitimate speculation as to doll or drum, but here in this enchanted spot, this materialised Altruria, the talk was all of giving, when the Wonderful Tree bloomed in their midst—the Wonderful Tree they sang about every morning, with the sweet voice
‘telling its branches among
Of shepherd’s watch and of angel’s song,
Of lovely Babe in manger low,—
The beautiful story of long ago,
When a radiant star threw its beams so wide
To herald the earliest Christmastide.’
The Tree was coming—Mistress Mary said so; and bless my heart, you might possibly meddle with the revolution of the earth around the sun, or induce some weak-minded planet to go the wrong way, but you would be helpless to reverse one of Mistress Mary’s promises! They were as fixed and as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and there was a record of their fulfilment indelibly written in the memories of two hundred small personages—personages in whom adult caprice and flexibility of conduct had bred a tendency to suspicion.