about the world trying to make things look
more Christmassy!"

My father looked up rather sharply.

My mother gave a funny little gasp.

"Oh, it's all right," she said. "We'll manage some way! But who ever
heard of a chicken-bone hung on a Christmas tree? Or a slice of roast
beef?"

"Some children don't get--anything," said my father. He looked solemn.
"Money is very scarce," he said.

"It always is," said my mother. "But that's no reason why presents ought
to be scarce."

My father jumped up.

My father laughed.

"Great Heavens, woman!" he said. "Can't anything dull your courage?"

"Not my--Christmas courage!" said my mother.

My father reached out suddenly and patted her hand.

"Oh, all right," he said. "I suppose we'll manage somehow."

"Of course we'll manage somehow," said my mother.

I ran back as fast as I could to Carol and Rosalee.

We thought a good deal about young Derry Willard coming. We talked about
it among ourselves. We never talked about it to my father or my mother.
I don't know why. I went and got my best story-book and showed the Fairy
Prince to Carol. Carol stared and stared. There were palms and bananas
in the picture. There was a lace-paper castle. There was a moat. There
was a fiery charger. There were dragons. The Fairy Prince was all in
white armor, with a white plume in his hat. It grasped your heart, it
was so beautiful. I showed the picture to Rosalee. She was surprised.
She turned as white as the plume in the Fairy Prince's hat. She put the
book in her top bureau-drawer with her ribbons. We wondered and
wondered whether young Derry Willard would come. Carol thought he
wouldn't. I thought he would. Rosalee wouldn't say. Carol thought it
would be too cold. Carol insisted that he was a tropic. And that tropics
couldn't stand the cold. That if a single breath of cold air struck a
tropic he blew up and froze. Rosalee didn't want young Derry Willard to
blow up and freeze. Anybody could see that she didn't. I comforted her.
I said he would come in a huge fur coat. Carol insisted that tropics
didn't have huge fur coats. "All right, then," I said. "He will come in
a huge _feather_ coat! Blue-bird feathers it will be made of! With a
soft brown breast! When he fluffs himself he will look like the god of
all the birds and of next Spring! Hawks and all evil things will scuttle
away!"

There certainly _was_ something the matter with the Christmas tree that
year.

It grew. But it did