Half-Past Bedtime

by Sir H. H. Bashford

So Mummy and Mummy's nurney and the cook spent hours and hours making cakes and pastries; and just as it seemed as if they would never be ready, they suddenly found that there was nothing to do except to keep a lookout for old Jacob Parsley, who came every year selling Christmas trees.

That was on the morning of the 23rd of December, with a fine rain falling outside; and as they sat at the window both Cuthbert and Marian felt a little stale and out of temper. In spite of all the excitements of the term and the preparations for the party, it suddenly seemed to them a very long time since they had had a real proper adventure.

"I shouldn't be surprised," said Marian, "if we never have another."

"Perhaps we shan't," said Cuthbert, "but it'll be an awful bore," and then, at that very moment, they heard a familiar voice; and there was Jacob Parsley in the street below.

Where he came from nobody knew; but every year on the 23rd of December he limped into the town with his old white horse and a ramshackle cart full of Christmas trees. There they were, year after year, shining and crisp and neatly potted; and people used to say that he had dug them up at night from rich men's plantations in other parts of the country. As for himself, he was a red-faced old man, with a stubbly grey beard and a scar on his chin, and a pair of bright eyes that used to work separately, so that nobody could tell which he was looking with.

"Ker-rismus trees," he would shout, "all in per-hots. All in per-hots, Ker-rismus-trees," and whenever he sold one he would spit in the road, and wish the buyer the compliments of the season. Also, if there were any change he would generally try to keep it, to buy some cough mixture, he would explain, for his bronchial tubes; and most people let him, because they were afraid that he would slue one of his eyes round and pierce their hearts with a reproachful glance.

But to-day for the first time his cart seemed empty, though he was still shouting; and when they ran downstairs and opened the front door they saw that he had only one tree left. It was a queer little tree with silvery-grey leaves; and that was the reason, he said, why nobody had bought it. All the others he had sold at once—almost as soon as he had entered the town.

"Wish I'd 'ad more," he said, "but this here tree, it ain't folk's notion of a Ker-rismus tree. Not but what it ain't a good tree, though it's a little 'un, and the feller I bought it off a queer sort of feller."

He stood looking at it, or as nearly looking at it as he ever seemed to look at anything; and then he coughed for rather a long time and hit himself on the chest and wished them a happy Christmas.

"It's this here rain," he said. "It gets into the bronchial tubes. Five shillings—that's all I'll ask you for it. And it's a good tree. You can take my word for it. And them as buys it won't regret it."