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Christmas Trees a Christmas circular letter.
The city had withdrawn into itself and left

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at last the country to the country, when between worlds of snow not come

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to lie, and worlds of foliage
not yet laid there drove a stranger to

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our yard, who looked the city, yet did in country fashion in that

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There he sat and waited till he
drew us out a buttoning coats to ask

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him who he was. He proved
to be the city, come again to

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look for something it had left behind
and could not do without and keep its

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Christmas. He asked if I could
sell my Christmas trees, my woods,

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the young fir Balsams like a place
where houses all were churches and have spires.

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I hadn't thought of them as Christmas
trees. I doubt if I was

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tempted for a moment to sell them
off their feet, to go in cars

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and leave the slope behind the house
all bare, where the sun shines now

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no warmer than the moon, I'd
hate to have them know it. If

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I was yet more, I'd hate
to hold my trees, except as others

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hold theirs, or refuse for them
beyond the time of profitable growth. The

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trial by market. Everything must come
to I dallied so much with the thought

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of selling. Then, whether from
mistaken courtesy and fear of seeming short of

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speech, or whether from hope of
hearing good of what was mine, I

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said, there aren't enough to be
worth while. I could soon tell how

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many they would cut you. Let
me look them over. You could look,

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but don't expect I'm going to let
you have them. Pasture. They

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spring in, some in clumps too
close that lop each other of boughs,

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but not a few, quite solitary, and having equal bows all round and

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round the latter. He nodded,
yes too, or paused to say,

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beneath some lovelier one with a buyer's
moderation, that would do. I thought

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so too, but wasn't there to
say so. We climbed the pasture on

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the south, crossed over, and
came down to the north. He said,

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a thousand, a thousand Christmas trees. At what a piece. He

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felt some need of softening that to
me, a thousand trees would come to

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thirty dollars. Then I was certain
I had never meant to let him have

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them, never show surprise. But
thirty dollars seemed so small beside the extent

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of pasture, I should strip three
cents, for that was all they figured

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out a piece three cents so small
besides the dollar friends I should be writing

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to within the hour would pay in
cities for good trees like those regular vestry

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trees whole Sunday schools could hang enough
on to pick off enough a thousand Christmas

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trees. I didn't know I had
worth three cents more to give away than

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to sell, as many be shown
by a simple calculation. Too bad I

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couldn't lay one in a letter.
I can't help wishing I could send you

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one in wishing you herewith a merry
Christmas