m the roads would be
obliterated, and a newcomer in the country would be lost ten times
over. Anyway, he would never allow one of his horses to be put to such a
strain.

We decided to have a country Christmas, without any help from town. I
had wanted to get some picture books for Yulka and Antonia; even Yulka
was able to read a little now. Grandmother took me into the ice-cold
storeroom, where she had some bolts of gingham and sheeting. She cut
squares of cotton cloth and we sewed them together into a book. We
bound it between pasteboards, which I covered with brilliant calico,
representing scenes from a circus. For two days I sat at the dining-room
table, pasting this book full of pictures for Yulka. We had files
of those good old family magazines which used to publish coloured
lithographs of popular paintings, and I was allowed to use some of
these. I took 'Napoleon Announcing the Divorce to Josephine' for my
frontispiece. On the white pages I grouped Sunday-School cards and
advertising cards which I had brought from my 'old country.' Fuchs got
out the old candle-moulds and made tallow candles. Grandmother hunted up
her fancy cake-cutters and baked gingerbread men and roosters, which we
decorated with burnt sugar and red cinnamon drops.

On the day before Christmas, Jake packed the things we were sending
to the Shimerdas in his saddle-bags and set off on grandfather's grey
gelding. When he mounted his horse at the door, I saw that he had a
hatchet slung to his belt, and he gave grandmother a meaning look which
told me he was planning a surprise for me. That afternoon I watched
long and eagerly from the sitting-room window. At last I saw a dark spot
moving on the west hill, beside the half-buried cornfield, where the
sky was taking on a coppery flush from the sun that did not quite break
through. I put on my cap and ran out to meet Jake. When I got to the
pond, I could see that he was bringing in a little cedar tree across
his pommel. He used to help my father cut Christmas trees for me in
Virginia, and he had not forgotten how much I liked them.

By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a
corner of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper
we all gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the
table, looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was
about five feet high and very shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread
animals, strings of popcorn