Explore "Bertie's Ride" by Edward Everett Hale on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Here's a nice state of things! We have run short of candles for the Tree, and of course the shops will be shut to-morrow, and the day after. What _is_ to be done? Almost anything else might have been managed in some way, but a Christmas Tree in semi-darkness -- can anything more dismal be imagined? " And Alice Chetwynd's usually bright face looks nearly as gloomy as the picture she has called up.
"What's the row? " cries schoolboy Bertie, planting two good-natured, if somewhat grubby hands on his sister's shoulders. "Alice in the dumps? That is something quite new. Can't you cut some big candles in two and stick them about? Here's Cousin Mildred -- ask her. She'll be sure to hit upon something."