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[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration]




By Samuel M. Crothers

          MEDITATIONS ON VOTES FOR WOMEN.
          HUMANLY SPEAKING.
          AMONG FRIENDS.
          BY THE CHRISTMAS FIRE.
          THE PARDONER'S WALLET.
          THE ENDLESS LIFE.
          THE GENTLE READER.
          OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: THE AUTOCRAT AND HIS FELLOW
              BOARDERS. With Portrait.
          MISS MUFFET'S CHRISTMAS PARTY. Illustrated.


          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
          BOSTON AND NEW YORK




MISS MUFFET'S CHRISTMAS PARTY

[Illustration: _A visitor came_ (page 4)]




MISS MUFFET'S CHRISTMAS PARTY

BY

SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS

ILLUSTRATIONS BY OLIVE M. LONG

          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
          The Riverside Press Cambridge




          COPYRIGHT 1902 BY SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS
          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

          _Published November, 1902_




          TO MARGERY
          BECAUSE, AMONG OTHER THINGS,
          WE LIKE THE SAME PEOPLE

[Illustration]




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                    PAGE

  _A visitor came_ (_page 4_)                               Frontispiece
  _Chapter Heading_                                                    1
  _Mrs. Muffet had read this in a book_                                2
  _To meditate on the passage of time_                                 3
  _The kind of thing that Miss Muffet sat on_                          4
  _Fairly jumped off her tuffet_                                       6
  _Chapter Heading_                                                    8
  _They sat down_                                                      9
  _Every town crier in England_                                       13
  _The blighted being_                                                15
  _Chapter Heading_                                                   18
  _Miss Muffet closed her eyes_                                       19
  _She could catch glimpses of travelers_                             20
  _Tom Sawyer trying to "hitch on" behind_                            21
  _Alice with all the strange friends she had found in Wonderland_    23
  "_This is the main caravan road to Bagdad_"                         25
  _Elves_                                                             28
  _The woods were full of merry little people_                        29
  _An old witch who was not nearly so bad as she looked_              31
  _Chapter Heading_                                                   32
  _Introduced the Orientals to the North Country people_              33
  _Aladdin explains the virtues of his lamp_                          37
  "_Listening... is hard on the eyes_"                             39
  _Chapter Heading_                                                   44
  _The shyest persons in the room_                                    45
  _Scampering off into the dark_                                      47
  _Chapter Heading_                                                   54
  "_I am sorry to be so late_"                                        55
  _Hal cut his string_                                                63
  "_I don't think I ever knew two persons more different_"            65
  "_You dear little Rosamond_"                                        67
  _Chapter Heading_                                                   69
  _One was beating the other_                                         71
  _A little talk about dervishry_                                     73
  _An expressive glance at the executioner_                           75
  _Aladdin's brother and the Dervish_                                 79
  _Chapter Heading_                                                   82
  "_I must have the full set_"                                        85
  _Telling anecdotes_                                                 87
  "_It all depends on grammar_"                                       89
  _Chapter Heading_                                                   92
  _Wynken, Blynken, and Nod_                                          93
  _He was a little prudent_                                           96
  _The Rockaby Lady saying good-night_                                97
  _Flew away... into the night_                                   100
  _Into his overcoat pocket_                                         101
  _Red Riding-Hood's Grandmother began to dance_                     103
  _A long time to get on their overshoes_                            105
  _Closed her eyes_                                                  106
  _Tail Piece_                                                       107




[Illustration: Chapter I]


'Twas the night before Christmas, and it was very quiet in Mrs. Muffet's
house,--altogether too quiet, thought little Miss Muffet, as she sat
trying to eat her curds and whey. For Mrs. Muffet was a very severe
mother and had her own ideas about bringing up children,--and so had Mr.
Muffet, or rather he had the same ideas, only warmed over. One of these
was on the necessity of care in the diet of growing children. "First,"
said Mrs. Muffet, "we must find out what the children don't like, and
then we must make them eat plenty of it; next to breaking their wills,
there is nothing so necessary as breaking their appetites." Mrs. Muffet
had read this in a book, and so she knew it must be true; and Mr. Muffet
had heard Mrs. Muffet say it so many times that he knew it was true.

[Illustration: _Mrs. Muffet had read this in a book_]

So every morning little Miss Muffet had three courses: first, curds and
whey; second, whey and curds; third, curdled whey. She had the same
things for the other meals, but the order was changed about. An
experienced housekeeper tells me that the third course is impossible to
prepare, as whey cannot be curdled. All I have to say is that this
housekeeper had not known Mrs. Muffet. Mrs. Muffet could curdle
anything. But the worst days of the year for little Miss Muffet were the
holidays, for they were occasions that had to be improved. Now for a
little girl to improve an occasion is about the hardest work she can do,
especially when she doesn't know how. If she had been left to herself,
Miss Muffet wouldn't have improved them at all, but would have left them
in their natural state.

[Illustration: _To meditate on the passage of time_]

"Christmas," said Mrs. Muffet in her most economical tone, "comes but
once a year, so we must make it go as far as possible. The best way for
a child to do that is to sit and meditate. You've no idea how long a
holiday seems till you sit still and think about it. Count sixty, that
will be just one minute, and another, and another, and then
another--sixty times one, and then sixty times that, and then
twenty-four times that makes--well--it makes--the exact number doesn't
matter much," said Mrs. Muffet, who wasn't quick at mental arithmetic,
"but you'll see that there are quite a considerable number of seconds in
Christmas Day--quite enough for any growing child." So at Christmas time
Mrs. Muffet would go out to visit the neighbors, leaving the little girl
seated on a very uncomfortable tuffet, to meditate on the passage of
time.

[Illustration: _The kind of thing that Miss Muffet sat on_]

Perhaps some of you would like to know what a tuffet is. I have thought
of that myself, and have taken the trouble to ask several learned
persons. They assure me that the most complete and satisfactory
definition is,--a tuffet is the kind of thing that Miss Muffet sat on.
With this explanation I shall go on with my story. As she sat on her
tuffet counting up the seconds of Christmas Eve, and had already reached
the sum of two thousand one hundred and seven, a strange thing happened.
A visitor came and sat down beside her. You guess who he was? Yes--an
elderly, benevolent spider. He was short-sighted and wore green
spectacles, and had evidently a little rheumatism in his legs, but as he
had eight of them, he managed to get along very well.

Now the way you may have heard the story is that when the kind old
spider sat down beside her, it frightened Miss Muffet away. That story
must be true because I myself have seen it in print, but it happened at
another time, when Miss Muffet was very little indeed.

On the Christmas Eve I am telling about, she had become a very sensible
little girl, and knew all about spiders, so instead of running away, she
made room for him on the tuffet and said, "I am very glad to see you,
Mr. Spider." Mr. Spider bowed and looked at her in a kindly way through
his spectacles, but said nothing.

"I hope your family are all well; I mean the family Arachnida,
sub-order, I forget the name. We've enjoyed dissecting those we could
get; and you deserve a great deal of credit for the curious way in which
you are put together, with your funny thorax and everything."

"Let's change the subject, Miss," said the spider, moving toward the
further side of the tuffet. "This is Christmas Eve."

[Illustration: _Fairly jumped off her tuffet_]

"Yes," answered Miss Muffet wearily. "Sixty seconds make a minute; sixty
minutes make an hour. Even Christmas Eve will come to an end some time;
but what's the good? For then Christmas will come, and that will _never_
get through."

"What do you say to a party?"

Miss Muffet fairly jumped off her tuffet, for she had never had a party
in her life. "Who will invite the people?"

"I will," said the spider.

"But do you think any one will come if _you_ invite them?"

"Why not?"

"Oh! I was just thinking; some people are such 'fraid-cats; and then,
you know, once, one of your family invited the fly to walk into his
parlor. I don't believe the story one bit, but then, you know, Mr.
Spider, it caused talk."

Mr. Spider positively blushed green. "If you have no objection, let's
change the subject again. Business is business; as for flies, there is a
difference of opinion about them, and we can't all live on curds and
whey, Miss Muffet. But this is to be your party, and we should not
invite flies but folks. How would you like to have a literary party, and
invite all the people you've read about?"

"How delightful!" cried Miss Muffet gleefully. "What a dear old spider
you are!"

"Let's write the invitations immediately," said Mr. Spider, taking out
of his pocket a ream of the most delicate cobweb paper.




[Illustration: Chapter II]


They sat down with their heads very close together, and such a number of
letters you never saw as Miss Muffet and the spider wrote. Some of them
were very informal, like those beginning "Dear Little Bo-Peep" and "Dear
Red Riding-Hood." They said, "Won't you come to a party at my house?
We're going to have games." Others were very formal like that addressed
to

          The Reverend Swiss Robinson and Family,
                            Tent House,
                                     Desert Island,

stating that "Miss Muffet requests the pleasure of your company," etc.
Then there were letters addressed to Wonderland and Back of the North
Wind, and to Lilliput and the Land where the Jumblies Live, and to all
sorts of places which are to be found only on the best maps, and are not
in the school geographies at all.

Mr. Spider was very careful and businesslike, and insisted that Miss
Muffet should always put down the exact address, for it would never do
to have any of the letters go to the dead-letter office. Sometimes,
however, they were puzzled to find the right direction.

[Illustration: _They sat down_]

"Shall I address this letter to Norwich or the Moon?" asked Miss Muffet,
handing him an envelope.

"Ah!" said the spider, "this is a difficult case; it's hard to reach
these traveling men. Here is a gentleman residing in the Moon, who
suddenly sets out for Norwich without leaving his address. Better direct
the letter to 'Norwich, General Delivery,' and write in the upper left
hand corner, 'If not called for in five minutes, forward to the Moon.'"

"And I suppose that Gloucester is Dr. Foster's address? That is where I
last heard of him."

"No; I'm afraid we shall have to give the doctor up. He is a very
peculiar man and took a prejudice against the town, and vowed he would
never go that way again."

"Oh, yes, I remember," said Miss Muffet; "it was because he didn't like
the way they kept the roads."

It was a difficult matter to get the correct titles for all the princes
and princesses of Fairyland, and to learn the names of all the crowned
heads. Of course, where their names were in the Court Directory it was
easy enough, for the spider had a huge volume at his elbow; but he said
that it was far from complete. All the giant-killers and the young men
who married the kings' daughters were in it, but the kings themselves
were often forgotten.

"'A certain king had three daughters,'" said Miss Muffet; "that's all
that I know about him, but he ought to be invited. The postman will want
to know which 'Certain King' it is, and what he's king of."

"The best way to do," said the spider, "would be to address a hundred
letters, each to 'A Certain King,' asking His Majesty to honor your
party with his presence, and to bring with him a 'Certain Queen.' Then
whenever the messenger comes across a king without any particular name
he can give him an invitation. If you want to be more definite, you may
address each letter to 'A Certain Kingdom.'"

"But he has usually given away half of his kingdom."

"That's true," said the spider; "you had better address it to 'The Other
Half.'"

Miss Muffet was troubled about the persons who had only lately risen in
life.

"There is Dumbling, who went out to chop wood, and the dwarf gave him a
golden goose that made everything stick to it. The king's daughter in
that certain kingdom had been so serious that the king had offered her
to any one who would make her laugh; and when she saw Dumbling with the
goose under his arm and the maids and the parson and all the rest
following after, she laughed outright. She didn't mean to, but she
couldn't help it. And now Dumbling is a prince, and is living happily
ever afterward. I wonder if that makes any difference in his feelings,
or if he likes to be called Dumbling."

The spider said that it all depended on his wife. With such a serious
person as she had been one must be careful about etiquette. Because she
had laughed once was no sign that she would do it again.

"Shall you invite any plain boys and girls who live in the Every Day
Country?" asked the spider.

This was a hard question, for the Muffets were an old family who had
come across with Mother Goose, and at this moment Every Day Country
seemed a long way off and just a bit uninteresting. But then Miss Muffet
remembered how many kind friends she had found there, and answered,--

"Oh, certainly, we must send invitations to the Every Day Country, for
some of the folks there are just as good as the Dreamland people, only
of course they haven't had the same advantages."

[Illustration: _Every town crier in England_]

So letters were sent to Prudy and Dotty Dimple and the Bodley Family,
and to the Little Men and Little Women and Lord Fauntleroy and the rest.
A special letter was written to the little Ruggleses, and to Tiny Tim
and all the Cratchetts, for Miss Muffet knew that they were always ready
to have a good time on Christmas. A message was sent to every town crier
in England, asking him to make immediate proclamation in the streets
that if any small boy who was a Prince and a Pauper would make himself
known, he would hear something greatly to his advantage, for he was
invited to Miss Muffet's Party.

The longest letter was that sent to Agamemnon Peterkin. Miss Muffet
wrote it very carefully, underscoring all the important parts, and
adding a map showing the way from the Peterkins' house to the palace.
She asked him to bring all the family, including the little boys.

"I don't see how he can make a mistake," she said, "but he probably
will. They are all so ingenious. They find out how to make mistakes that
other folks would never think of."

"What about Mr. Henty's boys?" said the spider; "there are so many of
them."

"There seem to be a great many of them," said Miss Muffet, "but I've
sometimes thought that there may be only two, only they live in
different centuries and go to different wars. Boys can do that, can't
they, Mr. Spider, if they are very brave?"

The spider said he thought they could without changing their characters,
but of course they would have to change their names.

So an invitation was sent to Ronald Leslie, alias Wulf, Roger, Lionel,
Stanley, etc., On The Firing Line, Near Carthage, Quebec, Crecy,
Waterloo, Khartoum, or wherever the Enemy may be found in force. Forward
by a swift messenger, trusty and true.

"I shouldn't wonder if they might be a little late, for they may be
taken prisoner, and it always takes them some time to escape."

"Shall you invite any bad boys?" asked the spider.

[Illustration: The blighted being.]

"No," answered Miss Muffet severely, "not as a rule; but I think we
shall ask Mr. Aldrich's Bad Boy, for he is a blighted being. I think
it's our duty to have him,--and then it would be such fun. And I