Paula the Waldensian - Eva Lecomte

"Oh," said Paula whose great eyes seemed to contemplate an invisible
splendor. "In my country we always had a Christmas-tree, and celebrated the
birth of the Lord Jesus."
"Tell me about it," I said, "I have heard about these Christmas
celebrations, but have never seen any."
"Well," said Paula, "sit down here, close to the fire, and I'll tell you what
we did last year. Four of our men went to the mountains and cut down a
beautiful pine tree. They had to go up to their waists in snow, and what a job
it was to bring it all the way down to Villar. But they were all very strong.
My father was one of them. They dragged the tree into the church because
there wouldn't have been room for everybody in the little school-house. We
all helped to decorate it with gold and silver nuts, and we hung apples and
oranges everywhere on its branches. But the beautiful part were the candles.
There were hundreds of them in blue, green, red, white and yellow. If you
could only have seen how beautiful it was, Lisita, when the candles were lit,
especially when they crowned the top of the tree with a lovely white angel.
We sang the wonderful Christmas hymns. Then the pastor gave us a fine talk
about the Saviour. At the close, each of us children was given an apple, an
orange, a little bag of sweets, and a beautiful little book."
"Oh," said I, "how happy I should be if father would let us go to see it
all. It must be a beautiful country!"
"It is the most beautiful in the world," Paula assured me, her eyes
sparkling.
"We too shall go and live there when we grow up; shall we not, Paula?"
"Yes, indeed, Lisita."
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