It was strange
how many bayberries it took to make a few candles! The little
boys had helped him, and he had gathered as much as a bushel of
bayberries. He had put them in water, and skimmed off the wax,
according to the directions; but there was so little wax!
Solomon John had given the little boys some of the bits sawed off
from the legs of the chairs. He had suggested that they should
cover them with gilt paper, to answer for gilt apples, without
telling them what they were for.
These apples, a little blunt at the end, and the candles were all they
had for the tree!
After all her trips into town Elizabeth Eliza had forgotten to bring
anything for it.
"I thought of candies and sugar-plums," she said; "but I concluded
if we made caramels ourselves we should not need them. But,
then, we have not made caramels. The fact is, that day my head
was full of my carpet. I had bumped it pretty badly, too."
Mr. Peterkin wished he had taken, instead of a fir-tree, an
apple-tree he had seen in October, full of red fruit.
"But the leaves would have fallen off by this time," said Elizabeth
Eliza.
"And the apples, too," said Solomon John.
"It is odd I should have forgotten, that day I went in on purpose to
get the things," said Elizabeth Eliza, musingly. "But I went from
shop to shop, and didn't know exactly what to get. I saw a great
many gilt things for Christmas-trees; but I knew the little boys
were making the gilt apples; there were plenty of candles in the
shops, but I knew Solomon John was making the candles.
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