Читать книгу Phemie Frost's Experiences - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 24

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OH, sisters! there is something touching and splendid in a Christmas tree. Just fancy one of our mountain spruces, towering almost to the ceiling of a room, green as when it was cut from the woods. Think of this tree, hung all over with little wax candles, bunches of pale-green and purple grapes, teinty red apples, golden horns and baskets chuck full of sugar things. Stuffed humming-birds, looking chipper as life. Butterflies, that seem to be flying through the green of the trees, and a whole camp-meeting of dolls sitting around the roots, and then tell me if the Christmas time of a New York child isn't like living among the people of a fairy book.

This was the sort of tree set up at Cousin Dempster's, Sunday night before this last Christmas day. Of course, we couldn't think of breaking the Sabbath, but the minute it was sundown, at it we went. Of course, we didn't want the little girl to know what we were a-doing; but the first we knew, in she hopped, as chipper as a humming-bird, and would keep interfering and changing things, in spite of all we could do.

At last, her mother got her dander up and told her to march right off to bed, just as a woman born in Vermont ought to order her own child; but the tantalizing thing just hitched up her shoulder, and said, "She wouldn't go, nor touch to the tree was for her own self. The house was her par's, and she'd do just as she'd a mind to in it."

With that, Cousin E. E. blazed into a passion, and took her child by the arm, with a jerk that sent her flying into the hall. Then I heard a screeching and a scrambling up the stairs, and it seemed to me a slap or two—I hope I wasn't mistaken about that—then a door slammed, and Cousin E. E. came downstairs like a house o' fire, with both eyes blazing, and one cheek red as flame. Could it be that the slap I heard was from the other side, or had it been a free fight?

"That girl will be the death of me," says she, walking about like a lion in its cage. "I never knew a worse child."

"I'm sure I never did," says I, with more than my usual spontaneity, for I felt it.

"You never made a greater mistake," says E. E., fierce as a hen hawk. "It is because she has so much more brains—spirit—genius than any other children. A more splendid character never lived than my daughter Cecilia."

I said nothing; maybe it would have been just as well if I had held my tongue before.

"She is a favorite everywhere," E. E. went on, cooling down like a brick oven after the coals are hauled out.

I said nothing.

"Ahead of girls twice her age," E. E. went on. "She speaks French like a native."

"Is there anything more to put on?" says I.

"Yes," says she, "we will have the presents ready for the morning. I meant to have some of Cecelia's friends here to-morrow night, but she wanted the tree to herself."

With this, E. E. brought an armful of boxes and things from the next room. The first thing she set up against the stem of the tree was a doll, dressed in a splendid silk ball-dress, with a long, sweeping train, and teinty rose-buds in her yellow curls. The blue eyes were natural as life, and her face was just lovely. Then she brought out a Saratoga trunk about as big as a foot-stool, which was crowded full of dolls' dresses, just such as a live young lady would be proud to wear.

"Isn't it beautiful?" says E. E.

"I should think so," says I; "how much did it cost?"

"A hundred and twenty-five dollars," says she. "I sent to Paris for it."

"A hundred and twenty-five dollars?" says I, lifting up both hands; "that would keep a poor family how long?"

"I don't know," says she, short as pie-crust, "but a poor family wouldn't amuse my Cecilia, and these will."

"Just so," says I; "what is this for?"

"Oh, that is her father's present—pink coral—hang it across one of the limbs," says she.

I hung the beads among the spruce leaves, and enjoyed the sight; they seemed like a string of rose-buds twisted in with the green.

"There now, we will finish in the morning," says E. E. "I wish Cecilia had invited her little friends; it will seem rather lonesome."

With this, Cousin E. E. gave a little sigh, and we went off to bed, telling me that I must be sure to get up in time for early service, which she wouldn't miss for anything.