Grandpa and the 10 Tobys (all of his dogs were named Toby) rarely visited the southwest corner of the farm, except one winter in the mid-'60s when I accompanied them on multiple quests to that inhospitable marshland. I stood on the tractor hitch behind Grandpa and gripped the back of the cold metal seat to keep my balance as he steered through snowy fields ever downward toward the swamp. He told whoever would listen that the tractor was even older than him and tougher than any two new tractors in the county. "She's cantankerous, though," he would add. "Gotta sweet-talk her or she'll surprise you."

The day was steely gray with a biting northern wind, but as we approached the lowest lying part of the farm, it grew quieter. The snow was hard and crusty, and the tractor tires broke through the top layer of ice as we approached the thickets of the swamp's perimeter. "We're on foot from here," said Grandpa. The dogs pranced around as we climbed from the tractor, excited about the adventure.

Our feet broke through the crust as we trudged toward the overgrown edge of the swamp. Some of the dogs broke through as well, though the smallest, a little terrier we called Toby, managed to stay on top. She slid pretty often, though, which amused the other dogs. They pawed at her and pushed her like a hockey puck over the ice. They didn't keep score but it looked like a close game.

We wore hip waders for sloshing through the putrid water that stagnated under a sheet of ice that circumferenced the hundreds of hummocks of prickly shrubs punctuated by cedar, birch, and tamarack. In warmer seasons it was populated by possums, bullfrogs, cottonmouths, and snapping turtles, but the winter was less active, though just as smelly. The ice wasn't thick and we broke through into three feet of water with every other step, the sucking mud pulling at our feet and inviting us to a lengthier visit.

The dogs loved it. Their abundance of feet provided weight displacement so they could stay on top of the ice most of the time, but they regularly broke through and disappeared, only to bound out onto the ice, shake the slime from their coats, and dash off in another direction to break through again. Sometimes when they fell, they broke through head first and seemed just as surprised every time. They smelled bad. Really bad. But in a short time, so did we.

It was a hard trudge. I pretended it was all new to me, but I was familiar. My pals and I often played in the swamp in warmer weather and the raft we built for catching critters was just a few dozen yards west of our current path. It was something we didn't share with our families because we'd been forbidden from playing in the swamp ever since my friend Mothman Brubaker brought home a 30-pound snapping turtle that terrorized their cat and bit through two legs of an end table. It was the same day our pal Roadkill McClosky took home a cottonmouth and chased his sister into the attic with it. I'd brought home only a bullfrog the size of a Thanksgiving turkey and didn't weaponize it at all except to scare the living aspirations out of my brother, but all our parents concluded that we could no longer play in the swamp. My friends and I disagreed, but didn't agitate the situation. We saw no purpose in revealing that we hadn't stopped our swamp adventures; we only stopped bringing home souvenirs.

After we were sufficiently covered with muck and growing tired, Grandpa picked up the pace. "Getting close now," he said. The water became shallow and the land rose. We climbed from the swamp and the dogs sprang up the slope to disappear into the trees. Relieved to emerge from the stench, Grandpa lit his pipe. "There's something special up this hill," said Grandpa. "Me and the Tobys found it last summer and have been saving it to surprise the family."

That part of the farm was mainly swamp but on the far side was a steep rise with stands of tall trees: oak, cherry, maple, and aspen, with white pine trees at the top of the ridge. I couldn't think of anything surprising up there. An interesting beaver pond was on the other side of this hill, and I wouldn't mind looking at that again, but Grandpa seemed preoccupied with the summit.

When we got to the top, Grandpa led me south of the pine trees to another stand of conifers segregated from the rest of the woods by boulders. Above that boulder line, the ground was mossy and riddled with decaying stumps and logs, and sturdy trees of all sizes rose from that fairyland landscape. These were trees I didn't recognize, and in the very middle of them all was a regal tree, full, colorful, and healthy, nine feet tall with spectacular proportions. It was immediately evident that this tree was remarkable, perhaps of a forgotten lineage and tended by elves. It stood proudly at the peak of elevation as if welcoming the admiration of all who passed. One of the Tobys positioned himself to pee on it, but Grandpa shooed him away.

I examined the branches and felt the needles. "What is this?" I asked. "The bark is smooth and gray. The needles are soft and spiral around the branch." The tops of the needles were a deep, glossy green, while the underside color-contrasted with silvery bands. I walked around the tree, noting its impossibly perfect symmetry. "I've never seen this kind of tree."

"It's a Fraser Fir," said Grandpa. "I've never seen one around here either. You usually have to go as far south as the Carolinas or Tennessee to find these. It's spectacular, isn't it."

"Y'know," I said, still gazing at the beautiful tree, "this would make a great Christmas tree."

"Exactly what I've been thinking since we discovered it. The dogs and I have been coming here every weekend." He pulled a small cloth sack from his pocket and started sprinkling the contents around the base of the tree. "We've been giving it some of my special tree food every week, and just look at the results."

"Tree food?"

"It's my own mixture: two parts compost, one part cow manure, one part bone meal, and a sprinkle of gunpowder." Grandpa had given up making fireworks after blowing up his shed and chicken coop, but he still found lots of other uses for gunpowder.

"Do you think it could blow up?" I asked.

He frowned. "I hadn't thought of that. But it would be entertaining if it launched like a Gemini rocket through the ceiling of your living room."

"My living room?"

"That's where it's going when we come back next week and harvest it. The Christmas Eve party is at your house this year, and we're going to provide the most beautiful tree, I think, that has ever lived. Just look at it."

Grandpa filled his pipe with Carter Hall and lit it to call the dogs back from wherever they were exploring. When they smelled it, they'd quickly find us. "Let's head back," he said. "Next time we see it, we'll be hauling this tree home." The dogs bounded into the trees and happily surrounded us. "Ready for the swamp again, Toby? Let's go."

The next weekend, we trekked back to the Fraser Fir, climbing the ridge and the boulders to the center of the fir trees. As we neared, Grandpa stopped and stared. I followed his gaze and saw nothing.

"Where is it?" I asked, but Grandpa just pushed forward to stand over the stump of what was once the most splendid tree ever seen.

"Was it stolen?" I wondered out loud, but Grandpa said, "No. Look at the stump. This was chewed by a beaver. The little rodent must have dragged it away. Look, there's a track in the snow. You can't see the beaver prints because he dragged the tree behind him."

"What do we do now? The tree-surprise is ruined."

"No it isn't. We're going to get that tree back. This track is only a day old; the tree will still be fine."

We followed the trail to the beaver pond, locating the dam immediately. Grandpa stood at the edge of the water to see both sides of the beaver dam, but he was disappointed. The tree was not there. He kicked at the ground in frustration, and smoked his pipe so hard that it fogged the immediate area. I looked out across the pond at the sky, trying to decipher the mystery, when my eye caught something. "Grandpa," I said. "Look over there."

Twenty yards out in the pond was the beaver lodge, and near the top was our tree, now incorporated in the lodge as part of the wall. "Well," said Grandpa. "That won't do." He started taking off his waders. "Hang tight. I'm going to fetch our tree."

The pond was iced over, but it didn't seem solid. There were small pools of water visible in the ice on the other side of the beaver lodge, perhaps where the beavers came up. Grandpa stoked his pipe and stepped onto the ice.

It held, but not without some creaking and complaining. "I think I better get low," said Grandpa, and he got down on all fours. The ice still groaned, though, and he went down on his belly to commando crawl.

The dogs were as worried as I was, and they paced back and forth along the shore, whining and barking as Grandpa crawled toward the beaver lodge. He stopped quickly, however, with the sound of a large crack. He remained motionless except for the smoke rising from his pipe. "Come back," I called. "It's too risky. We'll find another tree."

"There is no other tree like this one," he called back. "I'm almost there."

He didn't make it. Ten feet from the lodge, the ice buckled beneath him and he plunged into the water. A yard-wide sheet of ice upended and struck him in the face, dislodging the pipe from his mouth. That pipe had no hope of floating. It was an old Falcon and not only was its shank metal, but its bowl was wrapped in copper wire and electrical tape to hold it together. It sank immediately.

Grandpa spluttered, treading water in his heavy coveralls, boots, and jacket. "I'll be right back," he called. "Gotta find my pipe." He dove under the ice.

When he disappeared, the Tobys became frantic. I was kept extraordinarily busy trying to keep them from going onto the ice to find Grandpa. They minded me, but they didn't like it, barking and endlessly whining while running back and forth.

It seemed like minutes before Grandpa reappeared. He had a double handful of mud, which he sifted through the water. "No pipe," he said. He turned for a better position for a new dive, but as he was pulling in a mighty inhale, a beaver appeared in the water just a couple of feet away, almost nose-to-nose with Grandpa. "You took my tree, you despicable varmint," said Grandpa, and the beaver gazed at him for a moment, then slapped the water once with its tail and submerged, his head popping up from a different hole in the ice 20 feet away.

"I never liked beavers," said Grandpa, and he dove again under the ice. He was underwater for a long time, and the Tobys were in a frenzy. It took everything I had to restrain them. They quieted only when Grandpa's head broke the surface.

"Can't find it," he called. "I better get out of here. I'll come back for the pipe." He swam to the edge of the ice and tried to heave himself up, but couldn't manage it. "I think I let myself get too cold," he said. "I can't seem to pull myself up." He began slamming the edge of the ice with his arms, trying to break it, but it now seemed solid. He tried floating his legs to better crawl onto the ice, but his clothes were too waterlogged and he became exhausted.

"Listen," he called. "I want you to go back to my house and call your dad. Send him here alone, don't come back with him. He'll know what to do."

"It'll take more than an hour!"

"I'll be fine. The water feels barely cold now. Go on, get going."

I plunged into the woods and found the longest dead branch I could and pulled it to the edge of the pond. I shoved it onto the ice and stepped out to push it toward Grandpa.

He didn't like that move. "Don't you dare come onto this ice!" he shouted. "Get back. Get home."

I think I've already established that I was not an obedient child. Grownups, as far as I could see, were just other kids with more resources. I crawled across the ice, pushing the branch ahead of me.

I'd never heard Grandpa cuss so industriously. He used words I wouldn't know the meaning of until high school. He ordered me back to shore and promised the beating of a lifetime if I didn't get off the ice, but his empty threat meant nothing to me.

When I was finally close enough for Grandpa to reach the branch, he gave in and grabbed it. But when he tried to pull himself up with it, it pulled me toward him instead. I wasn't heavy enough to anchor it.

"It won't work," said Grandpa. "Listen, I know you're worried, but the best thing to do now is get help. Please go."

That's when I felt a tug on my pantsleg. It was the littlest Toby, the terrier the other dogs had used as a hockey puck. She clamped onto my pants and pulled. Then another Toby bellycrawled across the ice and grabbed the terrier's tail. Another Toby came behind and grabbed that Toby's tail, and one by one all the Tobys were lined along the ice, teeth to tail, all pulling, and Grandpa was at last able to haul himself out.

We stood on the bank. He was drenched, shivering, and his teeth chattered. "That was a spectacular failure," he said. "I gotta get that pipe back. It was stupid to take it out there."

"Yeah," I said. "That was your mistake."

He blinked at me. "How old are you?"

"Ten."

"You have a great future in sarcasm. Let's get home and warm up. We'll come back this afternoon with Plan B. And you," he said, addressing the dogs, all vigorously wagging their tails. "No kibble for you tonight. You're getting venison."

A few hours later, we found ourselves again in the swamp, this time with a 30-foot aluminum extendible ladder. Let me tell you, carrying a long ladder through the overgrowth of a swamp in the winter is an exercise in frustration that everyone should experience. We somehow managed it though, and arrived at the edge of the beaver pond with our new plan.

Grandpa extended the ladder to its full length, pushing it across the ice toward the beaver lodge. It wasn't long enough to reach, but Grandpa crawled behind it, pushing until it rested against the lodge. Then he crawled along the ladder until he reached that huge mound of sticks and trees. He grabbed the Fraser Fir and pulled, but it didn't budge. He pulled again and again until it came loose and fell to the ice. It left a gaping hole in the lodge, and I saw the head of a beaver peeking through. It hissed and dove under the lodge.

Grandpa gazed at the hole. "We'll have to do something about that," he said. "We can't damage the lodge like that." He came back on the ladder, pushing the fir tree as he went. On the bank again, he examined the tree. "Not only beautiful," he said, "but resilient. Look how it's springing back to shape. Remarkable tree."

He told me to help him gather saplings and the largest branches we could find. We built a pile and Grandpa started shuttling the branches out to the lodge, where he repaired the hole he'd left. Two beavers observed from the water where he'd fallen through. When he finished, we pulled the ladder back and observed the handiwork. The beavers had disappeared, but we thought they would approve.

It would take two trips through the swamp to get the ladder and tree through, and as we were collapsing the ladder, we heard a splash at the edge of the pond and the slap of a beaver tail on the water. We went to the water but saw no beaver. Miraculously, however, Grandpa's pipe sat on a patch of grass near the edge. It wasn't even muddy. Grandpa picked it up and looked out over the pond. "Well, look at that," he said. "Those rascals."

That Fraser Fir was the most awesome Christmas tree we ever had. It seemed to bring real magic to our holidays, and villagers came in groups to marvel at it. Grandpa continued his treks to the swampy part of the farm afterward. He said it was to look for another fantastic Fraser, but I think he liked to visit the beavers.