to show Granny how the wind had made the snow dance that day. She
looked so droll and funny that Granny forgot her cares and worries and
laughed with little Gretchen over her new snow dance. The days passed
on and the morning before Christmas Eve came. Gretchen having tidied
up the little room--for Granny had taught her to be a careful little
housewife--was off to the forest, singing a birdlike song, almost as
happy and free as the birds themselves. She was very busy that day
preparing a surprise for Granny. First, however, she gathered the most
beautiful of the fir branches within her reach to take the next
morning to the old sick man who lived by the mill.

The day was all too short for the happy little girl. When Granny came
trudging wearily home that night, she found the frame of the doorway
covered with green pine branches.

"It is to welcome you, Granny! It is to welcome you!" cried Gretchen;
"our dear old home wanted to give you a Christmas welcome. Don't you
see, the branches of the evergreen make it look as if it were smiling
all over, and it is trying to say, 'A happy Christmas to you Granny'."

Granny laughed and kissed the little girl, as they opened the door and
went in together. Here was a new surprise for Granny. The four posts
of the wooden bed, which stood in one corner of the room, had been
trimmed by the busy little fingers, with smaller and more flexible
branches of the pine trees. A small bouquet of red mountain ash
berries stood at each side of the fireplace, and these, together with
the trimmed posts of the bed, gave the plain old room quite a festive
look. Gretchen laughed and clapped her hands and danced about until
the house seemed full of music to poor, tired Granny, whose heart had
been sad as she turned toward their home that night, thinking of the