Mother Margaret looked at him.
“They cannot tell surely, which day, you know, son,” she said uncertainly.
“Oh, it was to-day!” Tony told her positively. “I know it was to-day.”
Then, when he took in his hands the library picture book, there was the story of Bethlehem of Judea, and she must read it to him, and he listened as if he were hearing it for the first time.
“It was this morning!” he said over dreamily. “The Star in the East was this morning, Mother Margaret. It seems true, now I’ve seen my tree,” he added quaintly.
He seemed possessed with the idea of “to-dayness.”
“Think,” he said again, “all little boys is got a tree now. Right now. And me, too!”
It was a long, enchanted day; and she waited until the final possible moment to close it.
“Tonykins,” she said at last, “now the roses have to come down while Mama puts them into a box and takes them to their own family. And while she’s gone, you can lie here and look at the tree, can’t you?”
“Yes,” said Anthony, “an’—an’ it’ll talk to me!”