The Animals’ Christmas Tree
The
Animals’ Christmas Tree
By
The Rev. John P. Peters
New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Avenue
Copyright, 1916
BY
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Originally published in thecolumns of The Churchman, thislittle fable has been so often askedfor, and since the outbreak of theWar has proved to embody such anobvious and important truth, thatit has been thought best to give ita wider publicity by re-issuing inits present form.
Acknowledgment is herebymade of the courteous permissiongiven by the Editor of The Churchman.
The Animals’ Christmas Tree
[2]
The
Animals’ Christmas Tree
Once upon a time the animalsdecided to have a Christmas tree,and this was how it came about.The swifts and the swallows inthe chimneys in the country houses,awakened from their sleep by joyand laughter, had stolen downand peeped in upon scenes ofhappiness, the centre of which wasalways an evergreen tree covered[4]with wonderful fruit, bright ballsof many colors, and sparklingthreads of gold and silver, lyinglike beautiful frost-work among thegreen fir needles. A sweet, fairy-likefigure of a Christ-Child oran angel rested high among thebranches, and underneath the treewere dolls and sleds and skatesand drums and toys of every sort,and furs and gloves and tippets,ribbons and handkerchiefs, andall the things that boys and girlsneed and like; and all about thistree were gathered always littlechildren with faces oh! so fullof wonderment and expectation,[5]changing to radiant, sparklingmerriment as toys and candieswere taken off the tree or fromunderneath its boughs and distributedamong them.
The swifts and the swallows toldtheir feathered friends all about it,and they told others, both birdsand animals, until at last it beganto be rumored through all theanimal world that on one day inthe year the children of men weremade wonderfully happy bymeans of some sort of a festivalwhich they held about a fir-treefrom the forest. Now, of coursethe tame animals and the house[6]animals, the dogs and the cats andthe mice, knew something moreabout this festival. But then, theydid not exc