After the Christmas songs, Dr. Gray and General Townsend took off the presents.
There was a joyous scream from Pecy Pancake when she received her new cloak of gray beaver cloth, with buttons to match, and a collar that would turn down or up. The name of the giver was not mentioned, and the studied look of innocence on Mary’s face was edifying to behold.
Preston’s expression was equally innocent when Charlie Peck bounded forward and seized his brave sled, “Clipper,” and when little Bobby Brown shouted over his first pair of skates.
And every time a present was taken off the Tree, the little candles on the branches seemed to twinkle more gayly, and the Christ-child to smile more benevolently than ever.
“Susy Peck,” called Dr. Gray from the right, and a wee girl stepped forward with fingers in her mouth, and snatched—snatched is the word—the pretty doll which Julia Gray had dressed in a scarlet frock, with fashionable hood, fur tippet, and muff. Like most of the others, Susy forgot to say “Thank you;” but I suppose it was the proudest moment of her life.
“Baby Peck,” called out General Townsend from the left; and another wee girl toddled up, holding on by her mother’s finger, and got a handsome box so full of sugarplums that the cover would hardly stay on. And then the overjoyed baby had to be taken in her mother’s arm, lest, in running about to show the box, she should get under everybody’s feet.
“Johnny Brown,” called Dr. Gray. And Johnny’s chin dropped on his little ragged necktie with delight at receiving a pretty jacket with linen collar and cuffs, while the “Electric Light” was suddenly extinguished behind the parlor door.
But why enumerate the presents which fell like ripe fruit from that bountiful Tree? The pretty dresses, the modest needle-books, the painted drums, beautiful books and pictures, and all manner of gay toys?
And why describe the long table which the ladies had spread with every dainty that these children had ever sighed for; real turkey with genuine “stuffing;” cakes of all sorts and sizes, with fruit and without; some as yellow as gold, and some buried under snow-drifts of frosting; and best of all, perhaps, to them, large mounds of candy, oranges, nuts, and raisins!