ck parlor together,
and all tried not to see what was going on. Mrs. Peterkin would go in
with Solomon John, or Mr. Peterkin with Elizabeth Eliza, or Elizabeth
Eliza and Agamemnon and Solomon John. The little boys and the small
cousins were never allowed even to look inside the room.
Elizabeth Eliza meanwhile went into town a number of times. She wanted
to consult Amanda as to how much ice-cream they should need, and
whether they could make it at home, as they had cream and ice. She was
pretty busy in her own room; the furniture had to be changed, and the
carpet altered. The "hump" was higher than she expected. There was
danger of bumping her own head whenever she crossed it. She had to
nail some padding on the ceiling for fear of accidents.
The afternoon before Christmas, Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John, and
their father collected in the back parlor for a council. The
carpenters had done their work, and the tree stood at its full height
at the back of the room, the top stretching up into the space arranged
for it. All the chips and shavings were cleared away, and it stood on
a neat box.
But what were they to put upon the tree?
Solomon John had brought in his supply of candles; but they proved to
be very "stringy" and very few of them. It was strange how many
bayberries it took to make a few candles! The little boys had helped
him, and he had gathered as much as a bushel of bayberries. He had put
them in water, and skimmed off the wax, according to the directions;
but there was so little wax!
[Illustration]
Solomon John had given the little boys some of the bits sawed off from
the legs of the chairs. He had suggested that they should cover them
with gilt paper, to answer for gilt apples, without telling them what
they were for.
These apples, a little blunt at the end, and the candles, were all
they had for the tree!
After all her trips into town Elizabeth Eliza had forgotten to bring
anything for it.
"I thought of candies and sugar-plums," she said; "but I concluded if
we made caramels ourselves we should not need them. But, then, we have
not made caramels. The fact is, that day my head was full of my
carpet. I had bumped it pretty badly, too."
Mr. Peterkin wished he had taken, instead of a fir-tree, an apple-tree
he had seen in October, full of red fruit.
"But the leaves would have fallen off by this time," said Elizabeth
Eliza.
"And the apples, too," said Solomon John.
[Illustration]
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