[Grandpapa had taken out all the papers.]
“‘Children,’ he said, as at last, after what seemed to them a perfect age, he opened his door and came out, ‘we will have a tree this Christmas’; then he laughed, and held up seven papers—for you must know that besides the five children who always and every day lived at the Big House, there were two cousins, a girl and a boy, who were visiting there. ‘Every single paper,’ declared Grandpapa, as soon as he could speak, ‘had “Tree” written across it.’
“Well, you see by that, the children were not tired of Christmas trees, and as soon as Grandpapa told them that they were to have one, they were quite satisfied; although Jenny did say that if she had known every one else had chosen it, she would have written some other thing on her paper. But that didn’t make any difference now, and what they all had to do was to get ready; and the next day found the whole Big House in—oh, such a bustle! You would think they never had gotten a tree ready for Christmas in all their lives, there was such a fuss made. In the first place, Grandpapa had to go out and speak to a man to send up into the country and get him a big spruce-tree of good shape, not long and spindling, but stout and with a pointed tip; for the Big House was in the city, and of course no city trees could be cut down without folks being put into jail for it. And then everybody had to sit down and count up the money they had to spend; and if that wasn’t enough, they had to go to the bank and draw out some more; that is, the big folks did. And as the children were emptying their banks to see how much they had, Grandpapa came up behind them, and dropped a gold dollar into each one’s pile.”
It was impossible for the Five Little Peppers to keep still at that; but after they were quiet once more, Polly occasioned a fresh outburst by saying, “And then Grandmamma came up behind them, and she dropped a gold dollar on each pile too.”
“Polly,” cried little Davie, quite overcome, “did they have the tree too?”
“Yes, child,” said Polly; “and dear me, lots of other things too—a big Christmas dinner for one thing.”
“O Polly!” cried Joel, “turkey and pudding?”
“O my, yes—and candy, and raisins, and everything,” declared Polly; “with flowers in the middle of the table.”
“And roast beef and fixings?” Ben for the life of him could not help asking this.
“Yes—yes,” answered Polly. “You can’t think of anything that those children didn’t have at that Christmas dinner. But I must tell you about the tree. Well, you must see it took a great while to get everything ready; besides the things that Jenny and her cousin Mary, and Jenny’s brother Tom, and his cousin Edward were making, there were ever so many presents to buy; and to get these, all the children had to go to the shops with Grandmamma and Grandpapa and with each other, and then they had to hide them in all the out-of-the-way places they could, so that no one would find them until they were hanging on the Christmas tree. Oh, there was just everything to do; and the day before Christmas they all went to the shops for the last things that had been forgotten till then. It had snowed the night before; but it was sunny and cheery on this afternoon, and the walks had a little bit of snow, too hard to clear off nicely, and just enough to slide on, when the procession came out of the Big House, and turned down the street where the shops were. Everybody was out buying things. They had little bags of money dangling by their sides, only some held their purses in their hands, and kept looking at them to be sure they were there—but oh, the shops!”