A Seasonal Scene
Somewhere up the valley a turkey keeps bubbling away. Either it is near feeding time or something is disturbing the bird. The sound reminds me that Christmas is at hand, and this afternoon I passed several magnifi- cent bushes of red-berried holly. In a few days some of the holly bushes will certainly have been mutilated by those who prowl to gather Christmas decoration where they con. The proud turkey will be silent, a trussed corpse in a deep freeze, and the local paper will probably have an account of one or two people being caught with fir-trees they could not explain away. Every year the forestry people have to keep watch to preserve the young trees. There is no great shortage of Christmas trees, for thinning and general work in the plantations seem to produce all that the retailers need, but a tree that costs nothing is a great attraction, and it is only when the receipt is asked for that the man who slipped into the wood begins to discover that Christmas goodwill stops short of licence to take away the property of others.
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