FullReads

“Tomorrow!” he said in a solemn whisper. And the whispers of the other two children, echoing him, were quite as full of wonder and awe.

Then they went to the window. Snow was on the ground.

“It’s as white as the feathers of the Foolish White Geese,” Jehosophat happened to remark.

“No, it’s prettier than that,” Marmaduke corrected him. “It’s like the coats of the Hippity-Hop Bunnies. And the sky is just as gray as the Quaker ladies over in the meeting-house on Wally’s creek,” he added.

That afternoon they heard sleigh-bells, clear, tinkling, but never jangling, on the still air.

“Whoa!” yelled the Toyman.

The big sleigh stopped by the side porch. Hal the Red Roan and Teddy the Buckskin Horse tossed their heads merrily, and the sleigh-bells jingled even after the team had come to a halt.

“All aboard!” shouted the Toyman, as he stamped the snow from his boots and entered the kitchen. “We’re going to find the biggest, finest tree in the whole woods! Who wants to go?”

Who wouldn’t want to go! There was a scurrying for boots and coats, mufflers and mittens. Then they tumbled in, the sleighbells jingled, and off they flew through the deep, powdery, sparkling snow.

The river was not in motion; it was not flowing at all this day, but lay like a long lead pipe, twisting between the white snow banks. Sometimes, when the sun came out and shone upon it, the lead was changed to pearl.

They drove away from it now, up by Jake Miller’s place, and past the Fizzletrees’ and the Van Nostrands’, then up the hill to the woods.

The trees stood still like a great congregation, Marmaduke thought. There were giant oaks, their heavy branches all gnarled and twisted; tall chestnuts with rough gray trunks; shaggy hickories with bark always ready to peel off like “proud flesh”; little ironwood trees whose wood was so tough that the axe must be sharp to cut them at all; and silver birches, gracefully swaying in the wind, and white against the snow. Most of them were naked and bare, but on the oaks and birches rustled a few little left-over leaves, brown and dried-up, and crackling and cackling like little old people. Ah! but everywhere, in, and around, and between, the naked trees, and on higher up the hill, were others still clothed in green,–trees that never cast off their cloaks, even when winter came,–spruces, cedars, firs, and hemlocks and pines. They were decorated, too, for on their green branches hung tufts of snow like the pieces of fur on the carriage robe of the neighbor’s baby.

The Toyman tied the horses to the fence-rail and they all jumped out of the sleigh. He lifted little Hepzebiah, then started to help Marmaduke.

“No, thank you,” said that little boy, “I don’t need any help,” and, all alone, he climbed over the fence after his big brother.

Then on they tramped, through the snow, and under the branches and around the bushes, looking for that great tree which soon was to have the place of honor in their house.

“There’s one,” said Marmaduke.

“No,” replied the Toyman, “that won’t do. See-it has clumps of needles like a porcupine’s quills. It looks beautiful in the woods, but it wouldn’t look so pretty in the parlor. And that cedar yonder is too thick to hang the presents and the ornaments on.–Yes, that hemlock is pretty, and that fir–but I guess we’ll stick to the spruce. Let’s find one that’s shapely and just the right height.”

So they hunted around until he said:

“Now there’s a likely young spruce.”

It was covered with little needles that ran evenly all along the twigs, leaving plenty of room on the branches for all they were going to put on them. And it looked very soft and feathery and green against the snow.

The Toyman looked up at the topmost twig, carefully measuring it with his eye.

“It will just about reach the parlor ceiling,” he declared, and the boys guessed so, too.