r had the same worry
every Spring about his Spring garden. Every Maytime when the tulip-buds
were so fat and tight you could fairly hear them splitting, father
worried.

"Oh, wouldn't it be perfectly _terrible_ if I should die before I find
out whether those new 'Rembrandts' are everything that the catalogue
promised? Or whether the 'Bizards' are really finer than the 'Byblooms'?
Now, if it was in phlox-time," worried my father. "Especially if the
phlox turned out magenta, one could slip away with scarcely a pang. But
in _tulip-time_----?"

We promised our mother she should never die at Christmas-time. We
promised our father he should never die at tulip-time. We brought them
rubbers. And kneeling-cushions. We carried their coats. We found their
trowels. We kept them just as well as we could.

But, most of all, of course, we were busy wondering about our presents.

It hurries Christmas a lot to have a Christmas tree growing in your
parlor for a whole month. Even if the parlor door is locked.

Lots of children have a Christmas tree for a whole month. But it's a
_going_ tree. Its going is very sad. Just one little wee day of perfect
splendor it has. And then it begins to die. Every day it dies more. It
tarnishes. Its presents are all gathered. Its pop-corn gets stale. The
cranberries smell. It looks scragglier and scragglier. It gets brittle.
Its needles begin to fall. Pretty soon it's nothing but a _clutter_. It
must be dreadful to start as a Christmas tree and end by being nothing
but a clutter.

But mother's Christmas tree is a _coming_ tree. Every day for a month
it's growing beautifuler and beautifuler! The parlor is cool. It lives
in a nice box of earth. It has water every day like a dog. It never
dies. It just disappears. When we come down to breakfast the day after
Christmas it simply _isn't there_. That's all. It's immortal. Always
when you remember it, it's absolutely perfect.

We liked very much to see the Christmas tree _come_. Every Sunday
afternoon my mother unlocked the parlor door. We were not allowed to go
in. But we could peep all we wanted to. It made your heart crinkle up
like a handful of tinsel to watch the tin-foil buds change into
presents.

Two of Carol's silver buds had bloomed. One of them had bloomed into a
white-paper package that looked like a book. The other one had strange
humps. Only one of Rosalee's violet buds had bloomed. But it was a very
large box tied with red ribbon. It loo