A Tree for Peter

Peter Marsh is a well-known builder in a big city.

But that wasn't always the case. As he relates his story to a fellow-builder, Thomas Crandon, they realize that a glimpse of Peter Marsh through a train window many years ago is what inspired “Tommy” to become a builder as well.

Peter Marsh's inauspicious beginning is as a little lame boy on the outskirts of the city, in “Shantytown” in fact. His widowed mother goes to the city and works in a laundry every day and Peter stays home. He can't really run and play with the other boys. He is cautious and timid, afraid of many things. He's afraid of stray cats and thunderstorms, he's even afraid of the neighborhood policeman, who walks his beat through Shantytown and always seems so gruff, to Peter.

Sunday is a special day.

It's the only day Peter's mother doesn't have to go to work.

Instead, she and Peter can leave Shantytown and their troubles and poverty behind them, and walk along the riverbank, enjoying the sunshine. Peter's mother tells him stories of how it used to be, before his father died.

Then one day, something unexpected happens: Peter finds a friend.

Peter hears cheerful whistling, and rounding a corner, he almost collides with an old tramp sitting before a fire in the old dump. They huddle together before the fire and the tramp reveals that he used to be called Mr Peter King, before he “lost” his name. So Peter begins calling his friend King Peter, and King Peter calls Peter, Prince Peter. The two friends even welcome a stray dog to the warmth of their circle and name him Pal.

King Peter take Prince Peter and Pal rowing and fishing on the river. He helps him to walk and climb and overcome his fears. He even helps him to overcome his fear of the patrolman, Pat, so Peter's circle of friends continues to increase. Now the weekdays seem almost like Sundays too.

One day, Peter admits that he loved the smell of the earth when King Peter dug it up looking for worms to fish with. So King Peter leaves him the gift of a spade one morning, a little red spade that Prince Peter can use to turn up the earth. With the help of his new friend, the patrolman Pat, Prince Peter begins to build a garden in the middle of Shantytown. Prince Peter and Pat plant grass together and bulbs that will bud in the spring.

But they agree that the garden needs a tree.

Prince Peter has never seen King Peter again but he whispers a prayer for him to bring a tree for the garden, and for him to come and make the houses in Shantytown clean and white. And King Peter does bring a tree, all lit with candles. And what that tree does for Peter and his mother and Pat and all the people in Shantytown is nothing short of a miracle, a Christmas miracle.

So that the area is no longer known as “Shantytown,” but as “Peter's Landing.” This is the fairy tale. This is the gospel. This is the story of Christmas.

I can't say enough good things about this delightful book.

This is exactly what I was looking for in a Christmas read, appropriate for ALL ages. If your children know the gospel story, this will have them making connections all over the place. Your olders will make more connections than the youngers, of course, but everyone will enjoy this tale of  eternal, luminous hope triumphing over dark circumstances, and eventually changing the lives of an entire community.

This edition is especially beautiful. It is a high quality, hardcover edition published by Purple House Press, which is devoted to republishing older, worthy works that are no longer available. My advice to you, “Get it!”

CONTENT CONSIDERATIONS

Exactly three sentences portray stereotypes that were common at the time: The windows began to sparkle, “because the women had cleaned them.” Also “So women, old and young went after the dirt inside and chased it with old mops and brooms.”

And small boys are running, “yelling like young Indians.”