Part 2

They dwelt in a part of the village Where the houses were poor and small, But the house of little Gottlieb Was the poorest one of all.

He was not large enough to work, And his mother could no more (Though she scarcely laid her knitting down) Than keep the wolf from the door.

She had to take their threadbare clothes, And turn, and patch, and darn; For never any woman yet Grew rich by knitting yarn.

And oft at night beside her chair Would Gottlieb sit, and plan The wonderful things he would do for her When he grew to be a man.

One night she sat and knitted, And Gottlieb sat and dreamed, When a happy fancy all at once Upon his vision beamed.

'Twas only a week till Christmas, And Gottlieb knew that then The Christ-child, who was born that day, Sent down good gifts to men.

But he said, "He will never find us, Our home is so mean and small; And we, who have most need of them, Will get no gifts at all."

When all at once a happy light Came into his eyes so blue, And lighted up his face with smiles, As he thought what he could do.

Next day, when the postman's letters Came from all over the land, Came one for the Christ-child, written In a child's poor, trembling hand.

You may think he was sorely puzzled What in the world to do; So he went to the Burgomaster, As the wisest man he knew.

And when they opened the letter, They stood almost dismayed, That such a little child should dare To ask the Lord for aid.

Then the Burgomaster stammered, And scarce knew what to speak, And hastily he brushed aside A drop, like a tear, from his cheek.

Then up he spoke right gruffly, And turned himself about: "This must be a very foolish boy, And a small one, too, no doubt."

But when six rosy children That night about him pressed, Poor, trusting little Gottlieb Stood near him, with the rest.

And he heard his simple, touching prayer Through all their noisy play, Though he tried his very best to put The thought of him away.

A wise and learned man was he, Men called him good and just; But his wisdom seemed like foolishness, By that weak child's simple trust.

Now, when the morn of Christmas came, And the long, long week was done, Poor Gottlieb, who scarce could sleep, Rose up before the sun,

And hastened to his mother; But he scarce might speak for fear, When he saw her wondering look, and saw The Burgomaster near.

He wasn't afraid of the Holy Babe, Nor his mother, meek and mild; But he felt as if so great a man Had never been a child.

Amazed the poor child looked, to find The hearth was piled with wood, And the table, never full before, Was heaped with dainty food.

Then, half to hide from himself the truth, The Burgomaster said, While the mother blessed him on her knees, And Gottlieb shook for dread:

"Nay, give no thanks, my good dame, To such as me for aid; Be grateful to your little son, And the Lord, to whom he prayed!"

Then turning round to Gottlieb, "Your written prayer, you see, Came not to whom it was addressed, It only came to me!

"'Twas but a foolish thing you did, As you must understand; For though the gifts are yours, you know, You have them from my hand."

Then Gottlieb answered fearlessly, Where he humbly stood apart, "But the Christ-child sent them all the same; He put the thought in your heart!"

TINY TIM'S CHRISTMAS DINNER.

_By Charles Dickens._

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to be let out and peeled.

"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an hour!"

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's _such_ a goose, Martha!"

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"

"Well! never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!"

"No, no! there's father coming," cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"

So Martha hid herself; and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable, and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas Day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only a joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs,--as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby,--compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds,--a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course; and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose,--a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass,--two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:--

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us."

Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you, Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!"

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. "I wished I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it."

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day!"

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!"

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas Day!"

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it! Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as Peter," at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by and by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

CHRISTMAS CAROL.

_By Hans Christian Andersen._

Child Jesus comes from heavenly height, To save us from sin's keeping: On manger straw, in darksome night, The Blessed One lies sleeping. The star smiles down, the angels greet, The oxen kiss the Baby's feet. Hallelujah, hallelujah, Child Jesus.

Take courage, soul, in grief cast down, Forget the bitter dealing: A Child is born in David's town, To touch all souls with healing. Then let us go and seek the Child, Children like him, meek, undefiled. Hallelujah, hallelujah, Child Jesus.

LAST NIGHT, AS I LAY SLEEPING.

_Anonymous._

Last night, as I lay sleeping, When all my prayers were said, With my guardian angel keeping His watch above my head, I heard his sweet voice carolling, Full softly on my ear, A song for Christian boys to sing, For Christian men to hear:

"Thy body be at rest, dear boy, Thy soul be free from sin; I'll shield thee from the world's annoy, And breathe pure words within. The holy Christmas-tide is nigh, The season of Christ's birth; Glory be to God on high, And peace to men on earth.

"Myself and all the heavenly host Were keeping watch of old, And saw the shepherds at their posts, And all the sheep in fold. Then told we, with a joyful cry, The tidings of Christ's birth; Glory be to God on high, And peace to men on earth.

"He bowed to all his Father's will, And meek he was and lowly; And year by year his thoughts were still Most innocent and holy. He did not come to strive or cry, But ever, from his birth, Gave glory unto God on high, And peace to men on earth.

"Like him be true, like him be pure, Like him be full of love; Seek not thine own, and so secure Thine own that is above. And still, as Christmas-tide draws nigh, Sing thou of Jesus' birth; Glory be to God on high, And peace to men on earth."

CHRISTMAS DAY IN LONDON.

_By Charles Dickens._

The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' shops were radiant in their glory. There were great round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by and glanced demurely at the hung up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shop-keepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle-deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humor possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel; and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much; for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch; for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humor was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!

UNDER THE HOLLY-BOUGH.

_By Charles Mackay._

Ye who have scorned each other, Or injured friend or brother, In this fast-fading year; Ye who, by word or deed, Have made a kind heart bleed,-- Come gather here. Let sinned against and sinning Forget their strife's beginning, And join in friendship now; Be links no longer broken, Be sweet forgiveness spoken Under the holly-bough.

Ye who have loved each other, Sister and friend and brother, In this fast-fading year; Mother and sire and child, Young man and maiden mild,-- Come gather here; And let your hearts grow fonder, As memory shall ponder Each past unbroken vow: Old loves and younger wooing Are sweet in the renewing Under the holly-bough.

Ye who have nourished sadness, Estranged from hope and gladness, In this fast-fading year; Ye with o'erburdened mind Made aliens from your kind,-- Come gather here. Let not the useless sorrow Pursue you night and morrow; If e'er you hoped, hope now,-- Take heart, uncloud your faces, And join in our embraces Under the holly-bough.

THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL.

_By Hans Christian Andersen._

It was terribly cold; it snowed and was already almost dark, and evening came on,--the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets. When she left her own house she certainly had had slippers on; but of what use were they? They were very big slippers, and her mother had used them till then, so big were they. The little maid lost them as she slipped across the road, where two carriages were rattling by terribly fast. One slipper was not to be found again; and a boy had seized the other, and run away with it. He thought he could use it very well as a cradle, some day when he had children of his own. So now the little girl went with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches and a bundle of them in her hand. No one had bought anything of her all day, and no one had given her a farthing.

Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along, a picture of misery, poor little girl! The snowflakes covered her long fair hair, which fell in pretty curls over her neck; but she did not think of that now. In all the windows lights were shining, and there was a glorious smell of roast goose, for it was New Year's Eve. Yes, she thought of that!

In a corner formed by two houses, one of which projected beyond the other, she sat down, cowering. She had drawn up her little feet, but she was still colder, and she did not dare to go home, for she had sold no matches, and did not bring a farthing of money. From her father she would certainly receive a beating; and, besides, it was cold at home, for they had nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistled, though the largest rents had been stopped with straw and rags.