By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, December 2, 1933.
“Is the Christmas spirit starting to sneak up on you yet?” asked Jim Frise.
“I feel twitches of it,” I replied.
“It seems to me we don’t do enough to keep alive the old customs,” said Jim.
“I work and slave all year,” I said, “to save enough to spend at Christmas, if that’s nothing.”
“I don’t mean that,” said Jimmie. “I mean customs. Mistletoe.”
“Aw, who’d kiss a couple of old codgers like us?” I snorted.
“Well, there ought to be something to Christmas,” said Jim, “besides a lot of commerce.”
“I tell you,” I stated heatedly, “that my whole year is one long celebration of Christmas. On the first of January, I start trying to be in a properly purified condition, financially, to celebrate the next Christmas!”
“If you performed a few simple rites,” said Jim, “if you revived a few dear old fashions, it would be far sweeter for you.”
“My sons and daughters,” I said, “don’t want any antique customs. They want the goods.”
“I tell you,” said Jim. “We might drive out into the country and cut our own Christmas tree right out of the swamp. That would be something.”
“It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Early nothing,” said Jim. “All the Christmas trees for this coming season were cut in Oregon and British Columbia by last August.”
“I’ll go out with you about December 20,” I suggested.
“The roads won’t be fit,” said Jim. “Let’s go now and make a ceremony out of it.”
“How make it a ceremony?”
“Well,” said Jim impatiently, “put a little imagination into it. We’ll dress up in our fancy hunting clothes, you wear that French-Canadian sash of yours, and I’ll wear my scarlet shirt and cap. And then we will walk through the swamp gaily, dancing this way and that, and when we find the right tree, we will sing carols around it.”
“Aw,” said I.
“Why not!” cried Jimmie. “This tree is to be the focus of the joyful interest of our little ones! It is an ancient symbol, dating back centuries …”
“To pagan times,” I interposed.
A Noble Tradition
“What of it?” went on Jimmie, excitedly. “Think of the millions of Christmas trees that have been used in little homes through all the ages! Think of the millions of little children that have run with joyful outstretched arms toward those trees, toward a symbol of love! You should not cut such a tree as if it were kindling wood.”
“Jim,” I said, somewhat moved. “I believe you have a beautiful idea there.”
“Of course I have,” said Jim. “Let all men go forth and cut their own Christmas tree. Gone may be the childish joy from men’s hearts. But there should be some tender devotion to sweet and beautiful traditions. And we men can get our share of the Christmas spirit out of a secret and beautiful ceremony in the woods.”
“Jimmie,” I said, “we may be starting, right here, a noble and beautiful tradition! Who knows but in a hundred years, it may be the men of this great Dominion of ours will be flocking on a certain sacred day of the year into the forests, garbed in gay raiment, to dance and sing and cut the Christmas trees! By George, it’s beautiful, that’s what it is! Just like those Swiss mountaineers in leather panties and yodelling and feathers in the hats and all that sort of thing!”
“Let’s go,” cried Jimmie.
The next day being fine and clear, Jim and I drove, after lunch, out north of Toronto on the Woodbridge road and up about level with Bradford, we came to some beautiful swamps.
The country was deserted. No farmers were to be seen on the far fields. The farm houses appeared cold and deserted.
“Nobody would care anyway,” said Jim, as we turned into a lonely looking side road.
What he meant was that we were rather picturesquely clothed. I had on a true French-Canadian toque and sash, bright red and yellow and blue, over a Hudson Bay coat, with hood, and fringed buckskin leggings and moccasins. Jim, not being as patriotically inclined, had on hunting cap with a large rooster feather in it, a bright blue ski shirt, the kind that doesn’t tuck in, a broad leather belt, high hunting boots and a scarf around his neck that he had filched from one of his daughters’ clothes press.
“Still,” I said, “we wouldn’t want curious busybodies standing around gazing at us as we originated a noble custom.”
About a mile down the sideroad we came to a great dark swamp, on the higher portions of which grew an abundance of spruce and balsam, ideal Christmas trees.
Jim had brought an axe, with red and green ribbon wound around the handle.
We parked the car on the side of the road and found a good dry spot to enter the swamp. After pushing through a dense tangle of cedar and alder, we reached some nice high ground, all studded with spruces. And after a short search, we discovered the ideal spot, a sort of glade or park, simply filled with the most beautiful little spruces, eight to twelve feet tall.
The ground was all brown and sprinkled with a sparkle of snow. The dark green trees stood so silent and respectful, with the dazzling blue sky overhead.
“Jim,” I said emotionally, “in such sacred groves as this did our Druid ancestors worship the trees!”
“Let’s march around here,” said Jim, until we come upon the two perfect trees.”
The Dance Interrupted
So Jim leading, with the axe over his shoulder, just like a secret society, we marched around the grove of spruces, and since Jimmie has not a very good sense of tune and his voice being slightly cracked, I supplied the music. At first, all I could think of was “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf,” but after I got my pipes warmed up. I easily thought of “Good King Wenceslaus” and “Here We Go Gathering Christmas Trees.” I admit none of these were very suitable, but I knew that as the years went by, musical genius would be attracted to this lovely cult, and we would some day have music suited to the occasion. My idea was more to try out the march around, and any music would do.
In fact, if you must have the truth, we got to prancing around after about five minutes, and Jimmie would go one way around a tree while I would take the other, and we would meet on the far side and swing once around each other, before advancing to the next tree. It was like country dancing. A sort of Allemany left and Allemany right around the tree! Swing your partner and miss him with the axe! Jim joined hoarsely in the tunes, and we had a grand time.
Then we came on the first tree. It was a perfect specimen. About eight feet high, dense, round, every branch just perfectly tapered, and all the tufts curved up.
Round and round the tree we pranced, to song and dance, and then Jimmie did the honors, by laying about the tree with the axe, while I sang “Trees” and “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree” and a few other tunes not quite so art.
Down fell the tree and Jimmie trimmed its trunk and hauled it aside.
We had just started to dance around the second free, which was the twin of the first one, when Jimmie and I, at the same instant, or fraction of a second, became aware of a figure.
We were being watched!
There, squatting down on his heels, with a double-barrelled shotgun on his lap, was a small fat man.
He was staring at us with an expression of mixed astonishment and cunning. He had overalls on.
“Hello,” I said being the less shamefaced of the two of us.
“What are you cutting my trees for?” demanded the farmer, rising and walking toward us, the shotgun held in his hands.
“Are these your trees?” I asked, surprised. “I thought this was just a swamp.”
“Do you think swamps don’t belong to anybody?” snarled the small, fat farmer.
I had never thought of that!
“Who would want a swamp?” I cried.
“This here swamp,” said the farmer, advancing a few more feet, “gives me twenty dollars a year in Christmas trees! That’s more than chickens, pigs and potatoes and everything else does!”
“Well,” cut in Jim, “we’re very sorry. We were just looking around for a Christmas tree or two. We’ll pay you for them.”
“Oh, no, you won’t!” said the farmer. “You’re trespassing.”
“Oh, come now!” expostulated Jimmie.
“Trespassing,” said the farmer. “And carrying on in a very curious, not to say suspicious, manner. I’ve been watching you two for the past ten minutes. Dancing and singing. What is this?”
“We were just putting a little imagination,” I said, “into one of the oldest customs in the world. The cutting of the Christmas tree. Like bringing in the Yule log. You know.”
“When I tell the county magistrate about the way you two was cutting up in this bush, he’ll be very interested,” said the small, fat farmer, giving the shotgun a flourish.
Jim and I looked aghast at the man.
“The magistrate!” we exclaimed. “You wouldn’t do that!”
“I certainly would,” said the farmer. “I catch you trespassing on my land, and I catch you stealing my trees. Trespass and theft. That’s what I’m taking you in for.”
“Look,” I cried, “we can’t go to court in these outfits!”
Jimmie looked terrible in that rooster feather.
He might throw it away, but how could I get rid of the sash and fringed leggings?
“Sir,” I said, “we will pay you five dollars for your two trees!”
“Nothing doing,” retorted the farmer. “Every year I have thieves stealing my Christmas trees. I’m going to make an example of you.”
“Ten dollars!” I cried.
The farmer seemed to consider.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “It’s about three o’clock now. If you two can cut fifty Christmas trees for me by dark, I’ll call it square.”
“We only have one axe,” said Jim.
“I brought a couple of hand saws with me,” said the farmer. “They’re over there by the snake fence.”
With us walking ahead of him, he herded us through the grove of spruces to a snake fence we had not seen, and there, sure enough were two common hand saws.
“Saws are far better for cutting Christmas trees than an axe,” he said.
He led us back into the swamp a little way.
“Now,” he said, “I’ll just set here and if you can do fifty of them by dark, I’ll forget all about trespass and attempted theft.”
He pointed out the trees for us, and Jimmie and I sawed them and carried them to the snake fence and piled them over the fence in the field.
“You can dance and sing if you care to,” said the farmer, lighting his pipe.
Quaint Customs Need Space
But Jim and I just went to it. After about six or seven trees, the palm of my hand began to ache. At the fourteenth tree, I got a blister on the fat part of my thumb.
Jim led by two trees, then he got three ahead, so I quit racing.
Whenever I straightened up to rest my back, and had a look at him sitting there so small and fat, the farmer would just look up at the sky and opine that it was getting a little darker. I tried sawing with my left hand, but it was no good.
Jim was going great guns, and had his twenty-five done when I had only sixteen, but the farmer said he hadn’t said anything about each of us doing twenty-five.
So Jim went right on, and when dark fell, we had forty-seven trees piled in the field, and couldn’t see to do any more.
“That’ll do, boys,” said the farmer.
“How about us taking a couple of the poorer ones?” I asked him.
“Nothing doing,” he said. “I got an order for fifty trees and now I’ll have to cut three myself by to-morrow morning.”
“Well, of all the dirty tricks…” began Jimmie.
“Just a minute!” cried the farmer, warningly, “One peep out of you, and I’ll still run you in for trespass.”
“And we’ll tell the judge you made us cut forty-seven trees at the point of a gun!”
“I never pointed any gun,” said the farmer. “And anyway, the judge would love to hear about it. Especially the dancing part and the singing.”
“Well, you certainly have got us in hole,” admitted Jim, admiringly. He likes farmers.
“Yes,” said the farmer, getting a little friendly. “They call me Lazy Lou around here. But I’m not lazy. My mind is active. Do you know, every year. I get all my Christmas trees cut like this? Yes, sir, I catch people stealing my trees and as a penalty, they do all my cutting.”
“It’s a quaint custom,” I said, with a look at Jim.
“I’m letting you fellows off easy,” said the farmer. “You are three short on me. I got to get up now to-morrow and cut three more before eight o’clock, because there’s a man coming for fifty trees with a truck. But still, I could let you down easy on account of the dancing and singing. That was real nice.”
Jimmie and I hung our heads modesty. We didn’t actually shake hands with him, but we left him with pleasant words.
And shoved our way back through the swamp to our car in the dark.
“Well,” said Jim.
But I didn’t say anything. I just thought that in order to revive or introduce quaint customs, you ought to have a lot of wild country about you, like up near Great Slave lake or something.
Editor’s Note: The only songs I could find were Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? (popular at the time of writing due to the Disney cartoon release that year), and In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.
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