tree. The gold bud showed quite
plainly.

"I--I _wonder_--what he wished," she said. "We'll have to look--some
time."

I made a little creak in my bones. I didn't mean to. My father and
mother both turned round. They started to explore!

I ran like everything!

I think it was very kind of God to make December have the very shortest
days in the year!

Summer, of course, is nice! The long, sunny light! Lying awake till
'most nine o'clock every night to hear the blackness come rustling! Such
a lot of early mornings everywhere and birds singing! Sizzling-hot noons
with cool milk to drink! The pleasant nap before it's time to play
again!

But if _December_ should feel long, what would children do? About
Christmas, I mean! Even the best way you look at it, Christmas is always
the furthest-off day that I ever heard about!

My mother was always very kind about making Christmas come just as soon
as it could. There wasn't much daylight. Not in December. Not in the
North. Not where we lived. Except for the snow, each day was like a
little jet-black jewel-box with a single gold coin in the center. The
gold coin in the center was _noon_. It was very bright. It was really
the only bright light in the day. We spent it for Christmas. Every
minute of it. We popped corn and strung it into lovely loops. We
threaded cranberries. We stuffed three Yule logs with crackly cones and
colored fires. We made little candies. All round the edges of the bright
noon-time, of course, there was morning and night. And lamplight. It
wasn't convenient to burn a great many lamps. At night father and mother
sat in the lamplight and taught us our lessons. Or read stories to us.
We children sat in the shadows and stared into the light. The light made
us blink. The tame crow and the tame coon sat in the shadows with us. We
played we were all jungle-animals together waiting outside a man's camp
to be Christianized. It was pleasant. Mother read to us about a woman
who didn't like Christmas specially. She was going to petition Congress
to have the Christ Child born in leap-year so that Christmas couldn't
come oftener than once in four years. It worried us a little. Father
laughed. Mother had only one worry in the world. She had it every year.

"Oh, my darling, darling Winter garden!" worried my mother. "Wouldn't it
be _awful_ if I ever had to die just as my best Christmas tree was
coming into bloom?"

It frightened us a little. But not too much. Fathe