That afternoon I watched long and eagerly from
the sitting-room window. At last I saw a dark spot moving on the west
hill, beside the half-buried cornfield, where the sky was taking on a
coppery flush from the sun that did not quite break through. I put on my
cap and ran out to meet Jake. When I got to the pond, I could see that he
was bringing in a little cedar tree across his pommel. He used to help my
father cut Christmas trees for me in Virginia, and he had not forgotten how
much I liked them.
By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a corner
of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper we all
gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the table,
looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was about five
feet high and very shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread animals,
strings of popcorn, and bits of candle which Fuchs had fitted into
pasteboard sockets. Its real splendours, however, came from the most
unlikely place in the world--from Otto's cowboy trunk. I had never seen
anything in that trunk but old boots and spurs and pistols, and a
fascinating mixture of yellow leather thongs, cartridges, and shoemaker's
wax. From under the lining he now produced a collection of brilliantly
coloured paper figures, several inches high and stiff enough to stand
alone.
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