ed with
this notion of a truly catholic or universal tree; and everybody wanted
to help. Well, if anybody would send her a box of dominos, or a
jack-knife, or an open-eye-shut-eye doll, who was Alice to say it should
not go on the tree? and when Mrs. Hesperides sent round a box of Fayal
oranges, who was Alice to say that the children should not have oranges?
And when Mr. Gorham Parsons sent in well-nigh a barrel full of
Hubbardston None-such apples, who was Alice to say they should not have
apples? So the tree grew and grew, and bore more and more fruit, till it
was clear that there would be more than eighty reliable presents on it,
besides apples and oranges, almonds and raisins galore.

Now you see this was a very great enlargement of Alice's plan; and it
brought her to grief, as you shall see. She had proposed a cosey little
tree for fifteen or twenty children. Well, if she had held to that, she
would have had no more than she and Lillie, and Mr. Williams, and Mr.
Gilmore, and John Flagg, and I, could have managed easily, particularly
if mamma was there too. There would have been room enough in the chapel
parlor; and it would have been, as I believe, just the pretty and
cheerful Christmas jollity that Alice meant it should be. But when it
came to eighty presents, and a company of eighty of the unwashed and
unticketed, it became quite a different thing.

For now Alice began to fear that there would not be children enough in
the highways and by-ways. So she started herself, as evening drew on,
with George, the old faithful black major-domo, and she walked through
the worst streets she knew anything of, of all those near the chapel;
and, whenever she saw a brat particularly dirty, or a group of brats
particularly forlorn, she sailed up gallantly, and, though she was
frightened to death, she invited them to the tree. She gave little
admittance cards, that said, "7 o'clock, Christmas Eve, 507 Livingstone
Avenue," for fear the children would not remember. And she told Mr.
Flagg that he and Mr. Gilmore might take some cards and walk out toward
Williamsburg, and do the same thing, only they were to be sure that they
asked the dirtiest and most forlorn children they saw. There was a
friendly policeman with whom Alice had been brought into communication
by the boys in her father's office, and he also was permitted to give
notice of the tree. But he was also to be at the street door, armed
with the strong arm of "The People of