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 shovel full 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 .
`` Spirit , '' said Scrooge with an interest he had never felt before , `` tell me if Tiny XXXXX will live . ''
Bob Cratchit Tim bedight cannon-ball fire goblets pudding re-echoed tumblers