It was the Christmas week. The shop windows were gay with toys and gorgeous Christmas offerings; the shop doors were opening and shutting on the crowd that came and went through them. A bustling throng of people passed incessantly up and down the narrow sidewalks, and carriages of all descriptions blocked the crossings, or drove recklessly over the frozen pavement.
The old woman in the quilted black hood and shaggy cape, who had charge of the little pine trees, drove a brisk trade that day in her wreaths and holly; but though many people stopped to admire the little pines, and even to ask their price, no purchaser had yet appeared for them.
The old dame was rubbing her mittened hands briskly together, and mumbling in a displeased way at the pine trees, when a carriage drew suddenly up at the curbstone, and out sprang a little girl.
"See, papa, how lovely! So green, and fresh, and thick!" she said, pointing to the row of pines.
A bargain was concluded in a trice. The money was dropped into the eager, outstretched mitten of the old woman, and a little Christmas tree dragged over the sidewalk, and set up in the buggy.
"We must have some of these lower branches cut off; they are in the way," said papa.
"Hev a knife, sir?" shouted a ragged little fellow, whipping a rusty old knife out of his pocket.
"Please, sir, lemme cut it for you. Say, where?" he cried, laying hold of the pine, as the gentleman in the buggy pointed to him where to cut.
The lower branches being trimmed to the gentleman's satisfaction, the Christmas tree, leaning comfortably against the crimson afghan, was soon on its way to Meadow Home, while its lower branches and some jingling small coin remained in the hands of the gaping urchin on the curbstone.
"This here's luck--fust-rate luck," remarked the small boy, stamping his feet, and staring stupidly after the retreating buggy wheels.
"Out of the way there!" growled a man in a farmer's frock, lifting a pile of frozen turkeys from a wagon.
The boy ducked aside, his ragged little trousers fluttering in the wind. Then he sat down on the market steps to count his coin.
"Hi! twenty-five cents. There's a mutton stew and onions for you and your folks a Christmas, Mike Slattery, and all this jolly green stuff thrown in free gratis. That chap was a gen'leman, and no mistake. Won't Winnie hop when she sees me a-h'isting of these here over our stairs, and she a-blowin' at me for a week to bring her some sich, and me niver seein' nary a chance at 'em 'cept stealin's, which is wot this here feller ain't up to no ways whatsomever. No, _sir_. Hi!"