the next day the master, the mistress, the baby, william and us dogs went for a walk together. william carried an axe and a piece of rope. i thought we were going hunting. the snow was quite deep and the master and the mistress wore funny flat things under their shoes which kept them from sinking through the snow. the master carried the baby in his arms until we had got to the woods, and she kept saying “kismas twee! kismas twee! booful kismas twee!” all the way. when we were at the edge of the woods the master and william walked around and looked at the trees and at last the master said “this one, william,” and william swung his axe and down came the tree. it was only a small one and i tried to tell them that there were very much larger ones further on, but no one paid any attention to me. when the tree was cut down william tied the rope to it and we went home, william dragging the tree after him over the snow. i thought it was a pretty poor sort of hunt.

it began to snow again before we were back at the house and william put us to bed early that evening. the next morning the snow had stopped and the sun was shining brightly. william let us out and we all tore up to the back door, very hungry indeed. and when cook gave us our breakfast what do you suppose it was? what’s the nicest thing you can think of? mince pie? why, of course not; dogs don’t care for mince pie. no, nor candy—much. what we had that morning was liver and corn-bread, with lots of gravy! how was that for a feast? and cook and delia and william stood around and saw us eat it and laughed and seemed very gay and happy. and after that william took us into the house.

there was the baby and the master and the mistress, and they all cried “merry christmas!” as we came tumbling in; only the baby said “maykismas!” instead, which was the best she could do. between the windows in the big room was that tree we had brought home the day before, but you would never have known it for the same tree. i didn’t know whether to bark at it or wag my tail. so i growled. that tree was all covered with the most wonderful sparkly things! there were glass balls of red and yellow and green and white and blue, and long strings of shiny stuff that glittered in the sunlight, and strings of pop-corn—only i’d never seen any pop-corn just like it before, because it was pink!—and all sorts of little toys and coloured paper bags and, at the very tip-top of the tree, a little white angel with wings like a dragon-fly! and underneath the tree were many things wrapped in paper and tied with red ribbons.

“just see freya!” laughed the mistress. would you believe it, that dog had helped herself to one of the packages and had taken it under the table and was tearing the paper off it! i was terribly ashamed of her, i can tell you! but the master and the mistress didn’t seem to mind it. they only laughed. and the master looked at what freya had taken and said: “smart dog! it had her name on it!” and the baby clapped her hands and every one seemed to think that freya had really done something very clever!

the master reached under the tree then and picked up one of the packages and looked at it and said: “now then, young fritz, here’s a present for you. sit up and ask for it, you rascal!”

so i sat up on my hind legs and begged and he put it in my mouth and i took it off to a corner and smelled of it. it didn’t smell very nice, i thought. it made me think of something but i couldn’t remember what. so i tore the paper off it and—can you guess what i found? a pickled lime! wasn’t that a mean joke? i backed away from it in a hurry and they all laughed at me and i crawled under the couch where freya was chewing on a rubber ball with her eyes closed. i took it away from her, but the mistress said “no, no, fritzie! you mustn’t take freya’s ball away. here’s something nice for you.”

so i sat up and begged again and the master gave me another present and when i’d got the paper and ribbon off it there was a rubber cat that squeaked every time i bit it! it looked a little like ju-ju, who was sitting on the window-sill with a new pink bow around her neck, and when i saw that i bit it harder.

father got a new collar and a rabbit made of cloth, mother got a teddy bear and a tin bug that walked across the floor and went click-click-click, freya got the ball and a cloth cat which was bigger than mine but didn’t taste so good and i got a wooden duck that flapped its wings and opened its mouth when you moved it. i didn’t think that the family knew about the time the duck made me fall into the brook, but they must have. i suppose ju-ju told them. that cat talks too much, anyway.

and we all had sweet biscuits and candy which the baby fed to us until the mistress told her we had had enough. after that we were allowed to stay there and play a long time. i chewed that rubber cat until it stopped squeaking and then tried the duck. the paint tasted very good. freya stole a bag of candy from the tree and ate half of it before i found out about it and took it away from her. really, her manners were awful that day!

i ate the rest of the candy so as to punish her for stealing it, but i didn’t really want it and after i had eaten it i began to feel sick. it was just as well, i think, that they let us out just then. i don’t know what the rest did, but i hurried right down to the stable and got behind the flower-pots and had quite a miserable time of it for a while. you see, besides the sweet biscuits and all that candy, i had eaten most of a rubber cat and one wing of a wooden duck. i think, though, that it was the yellow paint that made me sick.

i felt better in the afternoon and crawled out and went back to the house. the baby had a new sled and she was coasting down a little hill behind the house. she would sit on the sled and take one of us dogs in her arms and then nurse would give her a push and off she would go. i coasted twice but didn’t care much for it. i wasn’t feeling quite well yet. for dinner that day we had turkey, and it was fine; almost as good as liver and corn-bread. i was very glad that i felt well enough by that time to eat all that was given to me—and some of freya’s. then william took us down and put us to bed and that ended that christmas day. i had had a very good time, on the whole, but i was a little glad that christmas didn’t come very often!