Everyone was so glad to see them that they quite forgot to scold, and from that time the Flying Pig goes out every day, and he almost always takes Sapphira with him, and usually the Squawking Cockatoo goes too. THE CHRISTMAS TREES Of course, they were bright. Otherwise they could hardly have been for a Christmas tree. They were twelve in a box, and they ran in twos as to color--by this I mean that there were two blues, two reds, two greens, two silvery, two goldy, and two bright pink. The box was divided into little compartments, one for each ball, and lined with a peculiar, dirty cotton, common to Christmas ornament boxes, and the compartments were meant to keep the balls from knocking against each other and breaking. This it did, but it did not keep them from constantly squabbling, fighting and fussing, which, I am sorry to say, they did all the time. They stood, or rather their box stood, on a big table with many other ornaments in Wanamaker's big store, and the never-ceasing crowd pushed backwards and forwards by them all the day. They were much admired by all, but no one bought them. It seemed that being rather a high order of ornament they were quite expensive, so they leaned against the edge of the shelf, and shone, glistened, fought and quarreled as to which was the prettier--until the others were tired of hearing them. A large Santa Claus, resplendent in a red overcoat, stood on the top shelf in the center, trying to keep order, and around him a row of smaller and less magnificent Santa Claus' with black coats, trying to help, but he was not so expensive as the balls, so they paid no heed to him. "Of course," said the goldy balls--they always spoke together,--"you may say what you like, but none of you shine as we do." "We think we give a purer and less lurid light," remarked the silver. "You may do that, but you don't light up as we do," said the red balls. "And we;" "And we," shouted the others. "A nice, fat baby just came by on his mother's arm and tried to take me out of the box," said the top pink ball, trembling with pleasure. "I hoped his mother would buy me." "We are not for sale singly," said the other pink, a little hurt that the baby had not seen him, "besides he would have squeezed you, and broken you, then you might have cut his fingers." "I shouldn't like to do that," said the first pink ball again, looking anxious. "I hope he won't come again, he might snatch me." "Don't you worry, if he snatches at all, it will be at us," said the gold balls again. "Or at us," shouted all the others. "Ding, dong, peace, peace," rang a bell, which hung on a trimmed tree at the corner of the table, "how you quarrel! Santa Claus, can't you stop them?" "No," said the old man, sadly, "they don't heed me, they are so noisy."