ide upward.

Presently we were grouped around the devoted almond-tree: a gnarled old
personage, of a great age and girth, having that pathetic look of
sorrowful dignity which I find always in superannuated trees--and now
and then in humans of gentle natures who are conscious that their days
of usefulness are gone. Esperit, who was beside me, felt called upon to
explain that the old tree was almost past bearing and so was worthless.
His explanation seemed to me a bit of needless cruelty; and I was glad
when Magali, evidently moved by the same feeling, intervened softly
with: "Hush, the poor tree may understand!" And then added, aloud: "The
old almond must know that it is a very great honour for any tree to be
chosen for the Christmas fire!"

This little touch of pure poetry charmed me. But I was not surprised by
it--for pure poetry, both in thought and in expression, is found often
among the peasants of Provence.

Even the children were quiet as old Jan took his place beside the tree,
and there was a touch of solemnity in his manner as he swung his heavy
axe and gave the first strong blow--that sent a shiver through all the
branches, as though the tree realized that death had overtaken it at
last. When he had slashed a dozen times into the trunk, making a deep
gash in the pale red wood beneath the brown bark, he handed the axe to
Marius; and stood watching silently with the rest of us while his son
finished the work that he had begun. In a few minutes the tree tottered;
and then fell with a growling death-cry, as its brittle old branches
crashed upon the ground.

Whatever there had been of unconscious reverence in the silence that
attended the felling was at an end. As the tree came down everybody
shouted. Instantly the children were swarming all over it. In a moment
our little company burst into the flood of loud and lively talk that is
inseparable in Provence from gay occasions--and that is ill held in
check even at funerals and in church. They are the merriest people in
the world, the Provencaux.

IV

Marius completed his work by cutting through the trunk again, making a
noble _cacho-fio_ near five feet long--big enough to burn, according to
the Provencal rule, from Christmas Eve until the evening of New Year's
Day.

It is not expected, of course, that the log shall burn continuously.
Each night it is smothered in ashes and is not set a-blazing again until
the following evening. But even when thus husbanded