The cedar was about five feet high and very
shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread
animals, strings of popcorn, and bits of candle
which Fuchs had fitted into pasteboard sock-
ets. Its real splendors, however, came from
the most unlikely place in the world -- from
Otto's cowboy trunk. I had never seen any-
thing in that trunk but old boots and spurs
and pistols, and a fascinating mixture of yel-
low leather thongs, cartridges, and shoemak-
er's wax. From under the lining he now pro-
duced a collection of brilliantly colored paper
figures, several inches high and stiff enough
to stand alone. They had been sent to him
year after year, by his old mother in Austria.
There was a bleeding heart, in tufts of paper
lace; there were the three kings, gorgeously ap-
pareled, and the ox and the ass and the shep-
herds; there was the Baby in the manger, and a
group of angels, singing; there were camels and
leopards, held by the black slaves of the three
kings. Our tree became the talking tree of the
fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds
in its branches. Grandmother said it reminded
her of the Tree of Knowledge. We put sheets
of cotton wool under it for a snow-field, and
Jake's pocket-mirror for a frozen lake.

[[94]]

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