Part 9

We ate the peppermint-candy canes. All the pink stripes. All the white stripes. We sang carols. We sang,

O, the foxes have holes! And the birds build their nests In the crotch of the sycamore-tree! But the Little Son of God had no place for His head When He cameth to earth for me!

Rosalee's voice was like a lark in the sky. Carol's face looked like two larks in the sky.

The tame crow stayed in the kitchen. He was afraid of so many strangers. The tame coon wasn't afraid of anything. He crawled in and out of all the wrapping-papers, sniffing and sniffing. It made a lovely crackling sound.

Everything smelt like fir balsam. It was more beautiful every minute. Even after every last present was picked from the tree, the tree was still so fat and fluffy with tinsel and glass balls that it didn't look robbed at all.

We just sat back and stared at it.

Young Derry Willard stared only at the topmost branch.

Father looked suddenly at mother. Mother looked suddenly at Rosalee. Rosalee looked suddenly at Carol. Carol looked suddenly at me. I looked suddenly at the tame coon. The tame coon kept right on crackling through the wrapping-papers.

Young Derry Willard made a funny little face. There seemed to be dust in his throat. His voice was very dry. He laughed.

"My wish," said young Derry Willard, "seems to have been the only one that--didn't bloom."

I almost died with shame. Carol almost died with shame. In all that splendiferousness, in all that generosity, poor Derry Willard's gold-budded wish was the only one that hadn't at least bloomed into something!

Rosalee jumped up very suddenly and ran into the dining-room. She looked as tho she was going to cry.

Young Derry Willard followed her. He didn't run. He walked very slowly. He looked a little troubled.

Carol and I began at once to fold the wrapping-papers very usefully.

Young Derry Willard's father looked at my father. All of a sudden he wasn't laughing at all. Or rubbing his hands.

"I'm sorry, Dick," he said. "I've always rather calculated somehow on having my boy's wishes come true."

My father spoke a little sharply.

"You must have a lot of confidence," he said, "in your boy's wishes!"

"I have!" said young Derry Willard's father, quite simply. "He's a good boy! Not only clever, I mean, but good! Never yet have I known him to wish for anything that wasn't the best!"

"They're too young," said my father.

"Youth," said Derry Willard's father, "is the one defect I know of that is incontestably remedial."

"How can they possibly know their own minds?" demanded my father.

"No person," said Derry Willard's father, "knows his own mind until he's ready to die. But the sooner he knows his own heart the sooner he's ready to begin to live."

My father stirred in his chair. He lit a cigar. It went out. He lit it again. It went out again. He jerked his shoulders. He looked nervous. He talked about things that nobody was talking about at all.

"The young rascal dropped a hundred-dollar bill--when he was here before!" he said. He said it as tho it was something very wicked.

Young Derry Willard's father seemed perfectly cheerful.

"Did he really?" he said.

"It's a wonder the crow didn't eat it!" snapped my father.