"Christmas was a charmed time in Brooklyn in 1912. The spruce trees began coming into Francie Nolan's neighborhood the week before Christmas. Their branches were corded to make shipping easier. Vendors rented space on the curb before a store and stretched a rope from pole to pole and leaned the trees against it. All day they walked up and down this one-sided avenue of aromatic leaning trees, blowing on stiff ungloved fingers. And the air was cold and still, and full of the pine smell and the smell of tangerines which appeared in the stores only at Christmastime and the mean street was truly wonderful for a little while. There was a cruel custom in the neighborhood. At midnight on the Eve of our dear Saviour's birth, the kids gathered where there were unsold trees. There was a saying that if you waited until then, you wouldn't have to buy a tree; that "they'd chuck 'em at you." This was literally true. The man threw each tree in turn, starting with the biggest. Kid! s volunteered to stand up against the throwing. If a boy didn't fall down under the impact, the tree was his. If he fell, he forfeited his chance at winning a tree. Only the roughest boys and some of the young men elected to be hit by the big trees. The others waited shrewdly until a tree came up that they could stand against. The littlest kids waited for the tiny, foot-high trees and shrieked in delight when they won one. On the Christmas Eve when Francie was ten, and her brother, Neeley, nine, Mama consented to let them go down and have their first try for a tree. Francie had picked out her tree earlier in the day. She had stood near it all afternoon and evening praying that no one would buy it. To her joy, it was still there at midnight. It was ten feet tall and its price so high that no one could afford to buy it. Its branches were bound with new white rope and it came to a sure pure point at the top. The man took this tree out first. Before Francie could sp! eak up, a neighborhood bully, a boy of eighteen known as Punky Perkins stepped forward and ordered the man to chuck the tree at him. The man hated the way Punky was so confident. He looked around and asked, "Anybody else wanna take a chanct on it? Francie stepped forward, "Me, Mister, me and my brother, we're not too little together." ....Francie saw the tree leave his hands. The whole world stood still as something dark and monstrous came through the air. There was nothing but pungent darkness and something that grew and grew and rushed at them. She staggered as the tree hit them. Neeley went to his knees but she pulled him up fiercely before he could go down. There was a mighty swishing sound as the tree settled. Everything was dark, green and prickly. Then she felt a sharp pain at the side of her head where the trunk of the tree had hit her. She felt Neeley trembling...blood was coming from scratches on Neeley's face. The tree man screamed, "And now get the h! ell out of here with your tree." Such phrases could mean many things according to the tone used in saying them. So Francie smiled tremulously at the kind man. she knew that he was really saying, "Good-by--God bless you.'" -- Excerpt, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," Betty Smith