So I held the candle and the Colonel lighted the tip end of just one tiny taper to show her how it burned, and what a pretty light it made shining through the green; and Katy clapped her hands and said it was beautiful, and such a darling little tree, and not at all like the big one in the Sunday School that reached nearly to the ceiling, and that nobody dared to touch. And then we all went back to the fire and the Colonel's chair, and before I knew it he had her by his side with his arm around her shoulders, telling her stories, while Aunt Nancy and Jim and I sat listening. And so absorbed was he in the new life, and so happy with the child, that he only gave Fitz three fingers to shake when that friend of his heart came in, and never once said he was glad to see him--an unprecedented omission--and never once made the slightest allusion to the expected guest of the evening, Mr. Klutchem, now that his daughter had turned out to be a child of seven instead of a full-grown woman of twenty. The Colonel told her of the great woods behind Carter Hall, where the Christmas tree had grown, and the fox with the white tail that lived there, and that used to pop into his hole in the snow, and how you'd pass right by and never see him because his tail, which was the biggest part of him, was so white; and the woodpeckers that bored into the bark with their long, sharp bills; and finally of the big turkeys that strutted and puffed their feathers and spread their tails about and ran so fast nothing could catch them. "Not even a dog?" interrupted the child. She had crawled up into his arms now and was looking up into his face with wondering eyes. "Dogs!" answered the Colonel contemptuously, "why, these turkeys would be up and gone befo' a dog could turn 'round." "Tell me what they are like. Have they long--long legs--so?" and she stretched out her arms. "Oh, longer--terrible long legs--long as _this_"--and the Colonel's arms went out to their full length. Jim's eyes were now popping out of his head, but his place was behind his Mistress's chair, ready for her orders, and he had had so many scoldings that day that he thought it best not to move. "And does he puff himself out like a real turkey in the picture books?" "Oh, worse than a real turkey,--big as _so_"--and the Colonel's arms went round in a circle. The child thought hard for a moment until she had the picture of the strutting gobbler fastened in her mind, and said, cuddling closer to the Colonel: "Tell me some more." "About turkeys?" "Yes, about turkeys." "About wild ones or tame ones?" "Was that a wild one that the dogs couldn't catch?" "Yes." "Then tell me about some tame ones. Do they live in the woods?" "No, they live in the barnyard with the chickens, and the cows, and the horses. Why, did you never see one?" "Yes, but I want to hear you tell about them--that's better than seeing."