talking in tree language, just as they do when the wind whispers softly in their branches. Perhaps one would say, "Ho, I am going to be the Christmas tree. I am going up to the house and help celebrate the glad day when I am tall enough."
"A fine stunt that is," another would retort, a crooked little tree which could never serve in that capacity. "You will be cut down for your pains. You will die and that will be the end of you."
"Oh, well, I don't care," the future Christmas tree would reply, softly sighing in all its needles. "I will have had one glad time. And they will keep me for a long time just to look at and talk about me for months and tell how beautiful I was."
The boy never feels quite so much the man in after years as he does the day he drags home the Christmas tree and all his smaller brothers and sisters run shouting to greet him. He is bringing home the woods, its fragrance and its sentient life, its mystery and its peace, to beautify the home for a brief season.
