[Illustration: TWO BY TWO.]
"I don't know where you'll find the hen," said she peevishly, "unless
you go to the White Woods for it."
"Thank you, ma'am," said the children with curtesies, and they all
turned and went down the path between the dead Christmas-trees.
Dame Louisa had no idea that they would go to the White Woods. She had
said it quite at random, although she was so vexed in being disturbed
in her nap that she wished for a moment that they would. She stood in
her front door and looked at her dead Christmas-trees, and that
always made her feel crosser, and she had not at any time a pleasant
disposition. Indeed, it was rumored among the towns-people that that
had blasted her Christmas-trees, that Dame Louisa's scolding, fretting
voice had floated out to them, and smote their delicate twigs like a
bitter frost and made them turn yellow; for the real Christmas-tree is
not very hardy.
No one else in the village, probably no one else in the county, owned
any such tree, alive or dead. Dame Louisa's husband, who had been
a sea-captain, had brought them from foreign parts. They were mere
little twigs when they planted them on the first day of January, but
they were full-grown and loaded with fruit by the next Christmas-day.
Every Christmas they were cut down and sold, but they always grew
again to their full height, in a year's time.
Pages:
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121