ree.
"It's part of the pregnancy syndrome. Try not to pay any attention."

"Kindly don't explain me to a tree!" Phyllis cried. "I have a right to
prefer green, don't I?"

"There is, as your proverb says, no accounting for strange tastes," the
tree murmured. "However--"

"We're going to have a formal christening," James interrupted, for the
sake of the peace. "We thought we should, since ours will be the first
baby born on the planet. Everybody on Elysium will come--that is, all
the human beings. Only because they _can_ come, you know; we'd love to
have the trees if they were capable of locomotor movement. You'll get to
widen your social contacts, Maggie. Dr. Lakin and Dr. Cutler will
probably be here; I know you'll be glad to see Dr. Lakin again, and
you've been anxious to meet Dr. Cutler. They've been asking after you,
too. I think Dr. Lakin is planning to write a monograph on you for the
_Journal of the American Association of Professors of English
Literature_--with your permission, of course."

"Christening--that's one of your native festivals, isn't it? It should
be most interesting."

"That's right," Phyllis murmured. "It will be Christmas soon. I'd almost
forgotten. It'll be the first Christmas I've ever spent away from home.
And there won't be any snow or--or anything." She started to guttate--to
cry again.

"Cheer up, honey," Jim said. "It won't be as bad as you think, because I
didn't forget Christmas was coming. There's something specially nice for
you on its way from Earth; I only hope it gets here on time." Phyllis
sniffled. "Maybe we'll have a Christmas party, too. Would you like
that?" But she remained unresponsive.

He turned to the tree. "Christening's entirely different, though," he
explained. "It's--I guess naming the fruit would be the best way to
describe it."

"Is that so?" Magnolia said. "What kind of fruit do you expect to have,
Mrs. Haut? Oranges? Bananas? As your good St. Luke says, the tree is
known by its fruit. You look as if yours might be a watermelon."

"Why, the--idea!" Phyllis choked. "Are you going to stand there, James,
and let that _vegetable_ insult me?"

"I'm sure she didn't mean to," he protested. "She got confused by--that
zoology book I read her."

The door slammed behind his weeping wife.

"I don't think you quite understand, Maggie," he said. "In fact,
sometimes I almost think you, too, don't want to understand."

"I know what kind of fruit it's going to be," t