ange-tree thrived. A tiny
green orange appeared. Day by day she watched it grow, looking forward
to the time when it would become large and yellow. The days grew shorter
and colder, but she did not mind; every week the orange grew larger.
After the first snow, she moved the tree into the down-stairs bedroom.
She placed it on a little stand in the South window. The inside blinds,
which she had always kept as her mother liked them best--the lower
blinds closed, the top blinds opened a little to let in the morning
light--she now threw wide open so that the tree would get all of the
sun. And she kept a fire in the small sheet-iron stove, for fear that
the old, drafty wood furnace might not send up a steady enough heat
through the register. When the nights became severe, she crept down the
narrow, winding stairs, and through the cold, bare halls, to put an
extra chunk of hardwood into the stove. Every morning she swept and
dusted the room; the ashes and wood dirt around the stove gave her
something extra to do near the orange-tree. She removed the red and
white coverlet from the bed, and put in its place the fancy patch-quilt
with the green birds and the yellow flowers, to make the room look
brighter.

"Abbie Snover loves that orange-tree more'n anything in the world," Old
Chris cautioned the children when they came after cookies, "an' don't
you dare touch it, even with your little finger."

The growing orange was as wonderful to the children as it was to Abbie.
Instead of taking the cookies and hurrying home, they stood in front of
the tree, their eyes round and big. And one day, when Abbie went to the
clothes-press to get the cookie-pail, Bruce Sanders snipped the orange
from the tree.

The children were unnaturally still when Abbie came out of the
clothes-press. They did not rush forward to get the cookies. Abbie
looked quickly at the tree; the pail of cookies dropped from her hands.
She grabbed the two children nearest and shook them until their heads
bumped together. Then she drove them all in front of her to the door and
down the path to the gate, which she slammed shut behind them.

Once outside the gate the children ran, yelling: "Ab-bie Sno-ver,
na--aa--ah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, na--aa--ah!"

Abbie, her hands trembling, her eyes hot, went back into the house. That
was what came of letting them take fruit from the trees and vines in
the yard; of giving them cookies every time they rang her door-bell.
Well, there woul