e bit slow.

"Why, of course, it's got to be _budded_!" I cried. "That's what it's
for! That's----"

Instead of just being pink patient my sister Rosalee started in suddenly
to be dimply patient too.

"It's from mother's Christmas-tree garden, you know," she went right on
explaining. "Mother's got a Winter garden--a Christmas-tree garden!"

"Father's got a garden, too!" I maintained stoutly. "Father's is a
Spring garden! Reds, blues, yellows, greens, whites! From France! And
Holland! And California! And Asia Minor! Tulips, you know. _Buster's!_
Oh, father's garden is a _glory_!" I boasted.

"And mother's garden," said my mother very softly, "is only a story."

"It's an awfully nice story," said Rosalee.

Young Derry Willard seemed to like stories.

"Tell it!" he begged.

It was Rosalee who told it. "Why, it was when Carol was born," she said.
"It was on a Christmas eve, you know. That's why mother named him
Carol!"

"We didn't know then, you see"--interrupted my mother very softly--"that
Carol had been given the gift of silence rather than the gift of
speech."

"And father was so happy to have a boy," dimpled Rosalee, "that he said
to mother, 'Well, now, I guess you've got everything in the world that
you want!' And mother said, 'Everything--except a spruce forest!' So
father bought her a spruce forest," said Rosalee. "That's the story!"

"Oh, my dear!" laughed my mother. "That isn't a 'story' at all! All
you've told is the facts! It's the _feeling_ of the facts that makes a
story, you know! It was on my birthday," glowed mother, "that the
presentation was to be made! My birthday was in March! I was very much
excited and came down to breakfast with my hat and coat on! 'Where are
you going?' said my husband."

"Oh--Mother!" protested Rosalee. "'Whither away?' was what you've always
told us he said!"

"'Whither away?' of course _was_ what he said!" laughed my mother.
"'Why, I'm going to find my spruce forest!' I told him. 'And I can't
wait a moment longer! Is it the big one over beyond the mountain?' I
implored him. 'Or the little grove that the deacon tried to sell you
last year?'"

"And they never budged an inch from the house!" interrupted Rosalee. "It
was the funniest----"

Over in the corner of the room my father laughed out suddenly. My father
had left the table. He and Carol were trying very hard to make the
spruce-tree stand upright in a huge pot of wet earth. The spruce-tree
didn't want to s