Part 8

Father talked and talked and talked! Derry Willard's father talked and talked and talked! It was about college! It was about girls! It was about boys! It was about all sorts of pranks! Not any of it was about studies! Mother sat and laughed at them!

Rosalee and young Derry Willard sat and looked at each other. Carol and I played checkers. Everybody forgot us. I don't know who put me to bed.

When we came down-stairs the next morning and went into the parlor to see the Christmas tree we screamed!

Every single weeney-teeny branch of it had sprouted tinsel tassels! There were tinsel stars all over it! Red candles were blazing! Glass icicles glistened! There were candy canes! There were tin trumpets! Little white-paper presents stuck out everywhere through the branches! Big white presents piled like a snowdrift all around the base of the tree!

Young Derry Willard's father seemed to be still laughing. He rubbed his hands together.

"Excuse me, good people," he laughed, "for taking such liberties with your tree! But it's twenty years since I've had a chance to take a real whack at a Christmas tree! Palms, of course, are all right, and banana groves aren't half bad! But when it comes to real landscape effect--give me a Christmas tree in a New England parlor!"

"Palms?" we gasped. "Banana-trees?"

Young Derry Willard distributed the presents.

For my father there were boxes and boxes of cigars! And an order on some Dutch importing house for five hundred green tulips! Father almost sw--ooned.

For mother there was a little gold chain with a single pearl in it! And a box of oranges as big as a chicken-coop!

I got four dolls! And a paint-box! One of the dolls was jet-black. She was funny. When you squeaked her stomach she grinned her mouth and said, "Oh, lor', child!"

Rosalee had a white crêpe shawl all fringes and gay-colored birds of paradise! Rosalee had a fan made out of ivory and gold. Rosalee had a gold basket full of candied violets. Rosalee had a silver hand-mirror carved all round the edge with grasses and lilies like the edges of a little pool.

Carol had a big, big box that looked like a magic lantern. And on every branch where he had hung his seven wishes for a camel there was a white card instead with the one word "Palestine" written on it.

Everybody looked very much perplexed.

Young Derry Willard's father laughed.

"If the youngster wants camels," he said, "he must have camels! I'm going to Palestine one of these days before so very long. I'll take him with me. There must be heaps of camels still in Palestine."

"Going to Palestine before--long," gasped my mother. "How wonderful!"

Everybody turned and looked at Carol.

"Want to go, son, eh?" laughed Derry Willard's father.

Carol's mouth quivered. He looked at my mother.

My mother's mouth quivered. A little red came into her checks.

"He wants me to thank you very much, Mr. Willard," she said. "But he thinks perhaps you wouldn't want to take him to Palestine--if you knew that he can't--talk."

"Can't talk?" cried Mr. Derry Willard. "Can't talk?" He looked at mother! He looked at Carol! He swallowed very hard! Then suddenly he began to laugh again!

"Good enough!" he cried. "He's the very boy I'm looking for! We'll rear him for a diplomat!"

Carol got a hammer and opened his big box. It was a magic lantern! He was wild with joy! He beat his fists on the top of the box! He stamped his feet! He came and burrowed his head in mother's shoulder. When Carol burrows his head in my mother's shoulder it means, "Call me anything you want to!"

Mother called him anything she wanted to. Right out loud before everybody. "Shining Face!" said my mother.

There were lots of other presents besides.

My father had made a giant kite for Carol. It looked nine feet tall. My father had made the dearest little wooden work-box for my mother. There was a blue silk waist for Rosalee. My mother had knitted me a doll! Its body was knitted! Its cheeks were knitted! Its nose was knitted! It was wonderful!