trudge one morning after lessons,
he found bright and gay with the holiday spirit. Every shop window had
its holly and red ribbon; and most proper glittering window displays
appropriate to the season. In front of the grocery stores, stacked up
against the edges of the sidewalks, were rows and rows of Christmas
trees, their branches tied up primly, awaiting purchasers. The sidewalks
were crowded with people, hurrying in and out of the shops, their lips
smiling but their eyes preoccupied. Cutters, sleighs, delivery wagons on
runners, dashed up and down the street to a continued merry jingling of
bells. Slower farmers on sturdy sled runners crept back and forth. A
jolly sun peeked down between the tall buildings. The air was crisp as
frost-ice.

Bobby wandered down one side the street and back the other, enjoying
hugely the varied scene, stopping to look with a child's sense of
fascination into even the hat-store windows. He made his purchases
circumspectly, and not all on the same day. Only after much hunting of
five- and ten-cent departments, much investigation of relative merits,
did he come to his decision. Then, his mind at rest, he retired to his
own room where he did up extraordinarily clumsy packages with white
string, and laid them away in the bottom of his bureau drawer.

Three days before Christmas the tree was delivered. Martin and Mr. Orde
installed it in the parlour. First they brought in a wash-tub, then from
its resting place since last year, they hunted out its wooden cover with
the hole in the top. Through the hole the butt of the tree was thrust;
and there it was solid as a church! It was a very nice tree, and its
topmost finger just brushed the ceiling.

Now Bobby had new occupation which kept him so busy that he had no more
time for coasting. Grandma Orde gave him a spool of stout linen thread,
a thimble, and a long needle with a big eye. Bobby, a pan of cranberries
between his knees, threaded the pretty red spheres in long strings. He
liked to pierce their flesh with the needle, and then to draw them down
the long thread, like beads. The juice of them dyed the thread crimson,
as indeed it also stained Bobby's finger and anything they happened
subsequently to touch. As each long string was completed, Bobby went
into the chilly parlour and reverently festooned it from branch to
branch of the tree. It was astonishing what a festive air the red
imparted to the sombre green. When finally the pan was empt