"It is to welcome you, Granny! It is to welcome you!" cried Gretchen;
"our dear old home wanted to give you a Christmas welcome. Don't you
see, the branches of the evergreen make it look as if it were smiling
all over, and it is trying to say, 'A happy Christmas to you Granny'."
Granny laughed and kissed the little girl, as they opened the door and
went in together. Here was a new surprise for Granny. The four posts
of the wooden bed, which stood in one corner of the room, had been
trimmed by the busy little fingers, with smaller and more flexible
branches of the pine trees. A small bouquet of red mountain ash
berries stood at each side of the fireplace, and these, together with
the trimmed posts of the bed, gave the plain old room quite a festive
look. Gretchen laughed and clapped her hands and danced about until
the house seemed full of music to poor, tired Granny, whose heart had
been sad as she turned toward their home that night, thinking of the
disappointment that must come to loving little Gretchen the next
morning.
After supper was over little Gretchen drew her stool up to Granny's
side, and laying her soft, little hands on Granny's knee asked to be
told once again the story of the coming of the Christ-Child; how the
night that he was born the beautiful angels had sung their wonderful
song, and how the whole sky had become bright with a strange and
glorious light, never seen by the people of earth before.
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