Speaker 1: Where the Christmas tree grew. It was afternoon recess at
Number four District School in Warner. There was a heavy
snow storm, so everyone was in the warm school room,
except a few adventurous spirits who were tumbling about in
the snow drifts out in the yard, getting their clothes
wet and preparing themselves for chidings at home. Their shrill
cries and shouts of laughter floated into the school room,
but the small group near the stove did not heed
them at all. They were five or six little girls
and one boy. The girls, with the exception of Jenny Brown,
were trim and sweet in their winter dresses and neat
school aprons. They perched on the desks and the arms
of the settee with careless grace, like birds. Some of
them had their arms linked. The one boy lounged against
the blackboard. His dark, stre great profiled face was all
aglow as he talked. His big brown eyes gazed now
soberly and impressively at Jenny. Then gave a gay dance
in the direction of the other girls. Yes it does, honest,
said he. The other girls nudged one another softly, but
Jenny Brown stood with her innocent solemn eyes fixed upon
Earl Monroe's face, drinking in every word. You ask anybody
who knows, continued Earle, ask Judge Barker, ask the minister. Oh,
cried the little girls. But the boy shook his head
impatiently at them. Yes, said he. You just go and
ask mister Fisher tomorrow, and you'll see what he'll tell you.
Why look here, Earle straightened himself and stretched out an
arm like an orator. It's nothing more than reasonable that
Christmas trees grow wild with the presents all on em.
What sense would there be in em if they didn't.
I'd like to know. They grow in different places, of course,
but these around here grow mostly on the mountain over there.
They come up every spring, and they all blossom out
about Christmas time, and folks go hunting for them to
give to the children. Father and Ben are over on
the mountain to day. Oh, oh, cried the little girls.
I mean, I guess they are amended, Earle, trying to
put his feet on the boundary line of truth. I
hope they'll find a full one. Jenny Brown had a little, round,
simple face. Her thin brown hair was combed back and
braided tightly in one tiny braid tied with a bit
of shoe string. She wore a nondescript gown which nearly
trailed behind and showed in front her little, coarsely shod feet,
which towed in helplessly. The gown was of a faded
green color. It was scalloped and bound around the bottom,
and had some green ribbon bows down the front. It was,
in fact the discarded polonaise of a benevolent woman who
aided the poor substantially, but not tastefully. Jenny Brown was
eight and small for her age, a strange, gentle, ignorant
little creature, never doubting the truth of what she was told,
which sorely tempted the other children to impose upon her.
Standing there in the school room, that stormy recess in
the midst of that group of wiser, richer mostly older girls,
and that one handsome, mischievous boy. She believed every word
she heard. This was her first term at school, and
she had never before seen much of other children. She
had lived her eight years all alone at home with
her mother, and she had never been told about Christmas.
Her mother had other things to think about. She was
a dull, spiritless, reticent woman who had lived through much trouble.
She worked doing washings and cleanings, like a poor feeble
machine that still moves, but has no interest in its motion.
Sometimes the Browns had almost enough to eat. At other
times they half starved. It was half starving time just
then Jenny had not had enough to eat that day.
There was a pinched look on the little face upturned
toward Earl Monroe's Earle's words gained authority by coming from himself.
Jenny had always regarded him with awe and admiration. It
was much that he should speak to her at all.
Earl Monroe was quite the king of this little school district.
He was the son of the wealthiest man in town.
No other boy was so well dressed, so gently bred,
so luxuriously lodged and fed. Earle himself really his importance,
and had at times the loftiness of a young prince
in his manner. Occasionally some independent urchin would bristle with
democratic spirit and tell him to his face that he
was stuck up and he hadn't so much more to
be proud of than other folks, that his grandfather wasn't
anything but an old ragman. Then Earle would wilt arrogance
in a free country is likely to have an unstable foundation.
Earles tottered at the mention of his paternal grandfather, who
had given the first impetus to the family fortune by
driving a tin cart about the country. Moreover, the boy
was really pleasant and generous hearted, and had no mind
in the long run for a lonely state and disagreeable haughtiness.
He enjoyed being lordly once in a while. That was
all he did now with Jenny. He eyed her with
a gay condescension, which would have greatly amused his tin
peddler grandfather. Soon the bell rang, and they all filed
to their seats, and the lessons were begun. After school
was done that night, Earle stood in the door when
Jennie passed out. Say Jenny, he called, When are you
goin over on the mountain to find a Christmas tree?
You'd better go pretty sooner they'll be gone. That's so,
chimed in one of the girls. You'd better go right off, Jenny.
She passed along, her face shyly, dimpling with her little
innocent smile, and said nothing. She would never talk much.
She had quite a long walk to her home. Presently,
as she was pushing weakly through the new snow. Earle
went flying past her in his father's sleigh with the
black horses and the fur capped coachman. He never thought
of asking her to ride. If he had, he would
not have hesitated a second before doing so. Jenny, as
she waited along, could see the mountain always before her.
This road led straight to it, then turned and wound
around its base. It had stopped snowing, and the sun
was setting clear. The great white mountain was all rosy.
It stood uposit the red western sky. Jenny kept her
eyes fixed upon the mountain. Down in the valley shadows,
her little simple face, pale and colorless, gathered another kind
of radiance. There was no school the next day, which
was the one before Christmas. It was pleasant and not
very cold. Everybody was out. The little village stores were crowded,
sleds trailing Christmas greens went flying, people with parcels under
their arms, their hands full. Jenny Brown was also out.
She was climbing Franklin Mountain. The snowy pine boughs bent
so low that they brushed her head. She stepped deeply
into the untrodden snow. The train of her green polonaise
dipped into it and swept it along, And all the
time she was peering through those white fairy columns and
arches for a Christmas tree. That night, the mountain had
turned rosy and faded, and the stars were coming out,
when a frantic woman, panting, crying out now and then,
in her distress, went running down the road to the
Monroe house. It was the only one between her own
and the mountain. The woman rained some clattering knocks on
the door. She could not stop for the bell. Then
she burst into the house and threw open the dining
room door, crying out in gasps. Have you seen her? Oh?
Have you? My? My Jenny, My Jenny's lost, She's lost.
Oh oh oh. They said they saw her coming this
way this mornin'. Have you seen her? Have you? Earle
and his father and mother were having tea there in
the handsome oak paneled dining room. Mister Monroe rose at
once and went forward. Missus Monroe looked with a pale
face around her silver tea urn, and Earle sat as
if frozen. He heard his father's soothing questions and the
mother's answers. She had been out at work all day
When she returned, Jenny was gone. Some one had seen
her going up the road toward the Monroes that morning
about ten o'clock. That was her only clue. Earle sat
there and saw his mother draw the poor woman into
the room and try to comfort her. He heard, with
a vague understanding, his father order the horses to be
harnessed immediately. He watched him putting on his coat and
hat out in the hall. When he heard the horses
trot up the drive, he sprang to his feet. When
mister Monroe opened the door, Earle, with his coat and
cap on, was at his heels. Why you can't go, Earle,
said his father, when he saw him go back in
at once. Earle was white and trembling. He half sobbed, Oh, father,
I must go, said he. Earle. Be reasonable. You want
to help, don't you, and not hinder. His mother called
out of the dining room. Earle caught hold of his
father's coat. Father, look here, I I believe I know
where she is. Then his father faced sharply around his
mother and Jenny's stood listening in bewilderment, and Earle told
his ridiculous, childish and cruel little story. I didn't dream
she'd really be such a little goose as to go,
he choked out. But she must have, for with brave candor,
I know she believed every word I told her. It
seemed a fantastic theory, yet a likely one. It would
give method to the search. Yet more alarmed to the searchers,
the mountain was a wide region in which to find
one little child. Jenny's mother screamed out, Oh, if she's
lost on the mountain, they'll never find her. They never will,
they never will, Oh, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. Earle gave a
despairing glance at her and bolted upstairs to his own room.
His mother called pityingly after him, but he only sobbed back,
don't mother, please, and kept on. The boy lying face
downward on his bed, crying as if his heart would break.
Heard presently the church bells clang out, fast and furious.
Then he heard loud voices down in the road, and
the flurry of sleigh bells. His father had raised the alarm,
and the search was organized. After a while, Earle arose
and crept over to the window. It looked toward the mountains,
which towered up, cold and white and relentless, like one
of the ice hearted giants of the old Indian tales.
Earle shuddered as he looked at it. Presently he crawled
downstairs and into the parlor. In the bay window stood
like a gay mockery the Christmas tree. It was quite
a small one, this year, only for the family. Some
expected guests had failed to come, but it was well laden.
After tea, the presents were to have been distributed. There
were some for his father and mother, and some for
the servants, but the bulk of them were for Earl.
By and by his mother, who had heard him come downstairs,
peeped into the room and saw him busily taking his
presence from the tree. Her heart sank with displeasure and amazement.
She would not have believed that her boy could be
so utterly selfish as to think of Christmas presents then,
but she said nothing. She stole away and returned to
poor missus Brown, whom she was keeping with her. Still
she continued to think of it all that long terrible night,
as they sat there waiting, listening to the signal horns
over on the mountain. Morning came at last, and mister
Monroe with it no success, So far, He drank some
coffee and was off again. That was quite early. An
hour or two later, the breakfast bell rang. Earle did
not respond to it, so his mother went to the
foot of the stairs and called him. There was a
stern ring in her soft voice. All this time she
had in mind his heartlessness and greediness over the presence.
When Earle did not answer, she went upstairs and found
that he was not in his room. Then she looked
in the parlor and stood staring in bewilderment. Earle was
not there, but neither was the Christmas tree nor his presence.
They had vanished bodily. Just at that moment. Earle Monroe
was hurrying down the road, dragging his big sled, on
which were loaded his Christmas presents and the Christmas tree.
The top of the tree trailed in the snow. Its
branches spread over the sled on either side and rustled.
It was a heavy load, but Earle tugged manfully in
an enthusiasm of remorse and atonement. A fantastic, extravagant atonement
planned by that same fertile fancy which had invented that
story for poor little Jenny, but instigated by all the good,
repentant impulses in the boy's nature. On every one of
those neat parcels above his own name was written in
a big, crooked, childish hand. Jenny Brown from Earl Monroe
had not saved one Christmas present for himself. Pulling along
his cheeks brilliant, his eyes glowing, he met Maud Barker.
She was Judge Barker's daughter and the girl who had
joined him in advising Jenny to hunt on the mountain
for the Christmas tree. Maud stepped along, placing her trim
little feet with dainty precision. She wore some new high
buttoned over shoes. She also carried a new beaver muff,
but in one hand and only the other dangled mittenless
at her side. It was pink with cold, but on
its third finger sparkled a new gold ring with a
blue stone in it. Oh, Earle, she called out, Have
they found Jenny Brown? I was going up to your
house to why Earle Monroe. What have you got there?
I'm carrying my Christmas presents and the tree up to
Jenny's so she'll find em when she comes back, said
the boy, flushing red. There was a little defiant choke
in his voice. Why what for? I rather think they
belonged to her more'n they do to me. After what's happened?
Does your mother know? No, she wouldn't care. She'd think
I was only doing what I ought all of em,
queried Maud, Feebly, You don't s'pose i'd keep any back.
Maude stood, staring. It was beyond her little philosophy. Earle
was passing up when a thought struck him. Say, Maud,
he cried eagerly. Haven't you got something you can put
in girls? Things might please her better? You know some
of mine are rather queer. I'm afraid what have you got?
Demanded Maud? Well, some of the things are well enough.
There's a lot of candy and oranges and figs and books.
There's one by Jules Verne, I guess she'll like. But
there's a great big jack knife and a brown velvet
bicycle suit. Why, Earl Monroe, what could she do with
a bicycle suit? I thought maybe she could rip the
seams to 'em and sew 'em some sort of way
and get a bask cut or something. Don't you suppose
she could, Earle asked anxiously. I don't know her mother
could tell, said Maud, well, I'll hang it on anyhow, Maud,
haven't you anything to give to her? I don't know.
Earle eyed her, sharply, isn't that muff new? Yes? And
that ring? Maud nodded, Oh, Maud, put em in. She'd
be delighted with him. Maud looked at him, her pretty
mouth quivered a little. Some tears twinkled in her blue eyes.
I don't believe my mother would let me faltered she
You come with me and I'll ask her, all right,
said Earle, with a tug at his sledge rope. He
waited with his load in front of Maud's house until
she came forth, radiant, lugging a big basket. She had
her last winter's red cashmere dress, a hood, some mittens,
some cake and biscuit, and a few nice slices of
cold meat. Mother said these would be much more suitable
for her, said Maud, with a funny little imitation of
her mother's manner. Over across the street, another girl stood
at the gate, waiting for news. Have they found her?
She cried? Where are you going with all those things? Somehow,
Earl's generous romantic impulse spread like an epidemic. This little
girl soon came flying out with her contribution. Then there
were more, quite a little procession filed finally down the
road to Jennie Brown's house. The terrible possibilities of the
case never occurred to them. The idea never entered their
heads that little, innocent, trustful Jenny might never come home
to see that Christmas tree which they set up in
her poor home. It was with no surprise whatever that
they saw about noon mister Monroe's sleigh containing Jenny and
her mother and Missus Munroe drive up to the door. Afterward,
they heard how a wood cutter had found Jenny crying
over on the east side of the mountain at sunset
and had taken her home with him. He lived five
miles from the village and was an old man, not
able to walk so far that night to tell them
of her safety. His wife had been very good to
the child. About eleven o'clock, some of the searchers had
met the old man plodding along the mountain road with
the news. The children did not stop for this now.
They shouted to Jenny to come in quick. They pulled
her with soft violence into the room where they had
been at work. Then the child stood with her hands clasped,
staring at the Christmas tree, all too far away. She
had been searching for it. The Christmas tree grew not
on the wild mountain side, in the lonely woods, but
at home, close to warm, loving hearts, and that was
where she found it.