Making his way toward the bed and its promise of comfort, he was stopped on the second stairway by a voice which came out of the dark.
"Mr. Tony, you didn't see our tree."
Peering down, he answered the voice: "I was going up to get warm."
"Milly said to tell you that we had a fire."
"A real fire, Pussy? I didn't know that there was one in the world."
He came down again to the first floor. Pussy was waiting—a freckled dot of a child tied up in a man's coat.
The fire was in a small round stove. On top of the stove something was boiling. The room was neat but bare, the stove, a table, and three chairs its only furnishing. In a room beyond were two beds covered with patchwork quilts.
On the table was a tree. It was a Christmas tree—just a branch of pine and some cheap spangly things. The mother of the children sewed all day and late into the night. She had worked a little longer each night for a month that the children might have the tree.
There was no light in the room but that of a small and smoky lamp.
Milly spoke of it. "We ought to have candles."