Mary Elizabeth paused. “Then I grew bigger, and by and by there were all the children and the baby, and I was the oldest and we all thought that a funny friend who was a jolly old man called Santa Claus brought us the toys we found in our stockings. We thought all the play was real--about his coming down the chimney and about his sleigh with the eight reindeer. It used to seem strange that so big a man as Santa Claus could squeeze down our chimney and by and by I suspected it was all a play and you told me that it was just a funny, jolly way to make the very little children enjoy the fun of Christmas surprises. You told me then that I might help toward Christmas myself by trimming the tree. That was to be my part: each year I was to do it all myself and every year I tried to make it some new and lovely kind of a surprise. I always have loved to fix the tree. I always have felt that it must be the kind of a tree that the little Christ Child would love if he came in the way that I used to think you meant when I was still little.”
“Your tree has always been a beautiful tree, Mary Elizabeth,” Mother smiled. “It has always been a tree that shone with happiness. Each year we have loved it so that the children could not bear to part with it at New Years, you know.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled. But her question still remained unanswered. “Will there be a tree this year?” she asked. “I’m afraid the children would be sad without it, Mother.”
“I, too, have been thinking, Mary Elizabeth,” said Mother. “It is indeed a soldierly Christmas. What do you think we had better do?”
“Well,” answered Mary Elizabeth, thoughtfully. “We have the ornaments, though I usually buy some new ones. I would have to get candles. The tree would not cost so very much, only it seems as if every penny ought to go to the little French and Belgian children--and there are the soldiers to send things to--and when everything is the way it is, why it really hardly seems like Christmas!”
“I know,” returned Mother. “But we sent all the money in the children’s bank and all your money and my money, Mary Elizabeth. We have the soldiers’ things all done--almost. I think we ought to have the tree for the children and you can fix it up somehow, can’t you?”