“’Deed ’n I should think you’d surprise her, could she see you dragging that big log into the house!”
“Well, you help me in with it, for I don’t want to break its branches.”
“All on my clean floor!” cried Nancy, in dismay.
“Yes, quick!” said Lottie; “it won’t muss, you’ll see.”
Nancy helped her, and the tree yielded to fate and four strong arms, and went in.
It did look big, and when Lottie stood it up in a tub, it nearly touched the wall. Around the trunk of the tree, to steady it, she packed sticks of wood till it stood firm. Then she covered the whole, tub, wood, and floor around, with great sheets of green moss, which she had pulled out from under the snow the day before.
She got the tree in early in the morning, and every moment she could steal from May through the day she spent in filling it, hanging on her treasures, fastening her candles by sticking large pins up through the small branches, and standing the candles on them.
The chessboard stood prominently on the moss at the foot of the tree, and the frame, with its picture, hung from one branch.
When her father came home, he found supper served, as a Christmas eve treat, Lottie said, in May’s room, and adroitly he was kept out of the mysterious room.
When he was finishing his last cup of tea, and was talking with May, Lottie slipped out, lighted a long taper, and in five minutes had the tree all ablaze with light.