way in the long shed.

The tree was ablaze from its top to the rim of the cloth-wound churn,
and was hung with tinsel trimmings from the farm-house,--the selfsame
trimmings that for years had twinkled and winked at the little girl each
Christmas eve. Among the tinsel was festooned the pop-corn, while from
every bending branch and stem hung apples and oranges supplied by the
teacher, colored bags of candy and bright cornucopias given by the
cattleman, sorghum taffies-on-a-stick made by the neighbor woman, while
eggs, colored in gaudy and grotesque patterns by boiling them in pieces
of calico, were suspended in tiny cunning willow baskets that testified
to the nimble fingers of the Dutchman's wife. Around the base of the
churn and heaped high against it was the pile of gifts.

The program opened immediately after the arrival of the family. The
teacher, keeping one eye upon the fast burning and unstable candles
above her, came forward to the edge of the platform to say a few words
of greeting. The children then gave a rousing Yule chorus, the laden
boughs over them waving gently in time with their voices. The little
girl and her violin followed, and the tree was as still as those who sat
before it while the strains of "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls"
floated tremblingly out from under her uncertain bow. A new settler's
four-year-old lisped "Six Little Rabbits," with many promptings and
encouraging nods from the teacher. The Dutchman's youngest got up to
recite "The Burial of Sir John Moore," and, though shaking from head to
foot, attacked the doleful stanzas in a high key and with sprightly
gesticulations. "Frenchy's" brother spoke in his own tongue a piece that
was suitable to the occasion; much to his amazement, it elicited peals
of laughter. When he sat down, the program wound on its tedious,
recitative way until the tree was again supplied with candles by the
neighbor woman's son, and the little girl arose to deliver a welcome to
that same Santa Claus from whom she expected nothing.

If her mother, the big brothers, and the doting Swede boy hoped to see
her final effort a triumphant one, they were disappointed, for she spoke
falteringly and, at one juncture, forgot her lines. Her eyes wavered
from her mother to the tree, from the tree to the teacher, and her
closing words were inarticulate.

In the excitement of the moment, however, only the fond few noticed her
confusion. The faint tinkle of bells and the swellin