they dragged the tree into the kitchen. It was too tall, so they
took it out again and cut it off two or three feet at the base. Then
they propped it up, and the curtains being down over the windows, and
blankets being fastened over the curtains to prevent any one looking in,
and the door being doubly barred to prevent any one coming in, they all
went to bed.

Very early the next morning, while the stars shone on the snow-covered
hills--the same stars that shone sixteen hundred years before on the
hills when Christ was born in Bethlehem--the little Puritan mother in
New England arose very softly. She went out and lit the kitchen fire
anew from the ash-covered embers. She fastened upon the twigs of the
tree the gifts she had bought in Boston for her boys and girl. Then she
took as many as twenty pieces of candle and fixed them upon the
branches. After that she softly called Rupert, Robert and Lucy, and told
them to get up and come into the kitchen.

Hurrying back, she began, with a bit of a burning stick, to light the
candles. Just as the last one was set aflame, in trooped the three
children.

Before they had time to say a word, they were silenced by their mother's
warning.

"I wish to fetch Roger in and wake him up before it," she said. "Keep
still until I come back!"

The little lad, fast asleep, was lifted in a blanket and gently carried
by his mother into the beautiful presence.

"See! Roger, my boy, see!" she said, arousing him. "It is Christmas
morning now! In England they only have Christmas-boughs, but here in New
England we have a whole Christmas-tree."

"O mother!" he cried. "O Lucy! Is it really, really true, and no dream
at all? Yes, I see! I see! O mother, it is so beautiful! Were all the
trees on all the hills lighted up that way when Christ was born? And,
mother," he added, clapping his little hands with joy at the thought,
"why, yes, the stars did sing when Christ was born! They must be glad,
then, and keep Christmas, too, in heaven. I know they must, and there
will be good times there."

"Yes," said his mother; "there will be good times there, Roger."

"Then," said the boy, "I sha'n't mind going, now that I've seen the
Christmas-bough. I--What is that, mother?"

What was it that they heard? The little Olcott home had never before
seemed to tremble so. There were taps at the window, there were knocks
at the door--and it was as yet scarcely the break of day! There were
voices also, shouting s