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THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF CHRISTMAS STORIES

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS JOLLITY

(_John Leech's "Mr. Fezziwig's Ball," from Dickens' "Christmas
Carol."_)]




THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF CHRISTMAS STORIES

EDITED BY

ASA DON DICKINSON

AND

ADA M. SKINNER

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.

          COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY DOUBLEDAY &
          COMPANY, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

          PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




ACKNOWLEDGMENT


The Publishers desire to acknowledge the kindness of the J. B.
Lippincott Co., Houghton Mifflin Co., D. C. Heath & Co., The
Bobbs-Merrill Co., Milton Bradley Co., Henry Altemus Co., Lothrop, Lee &
Shepherd Co., Little, Brown & Co., Moffat, Yard & Co., American Book
Co., Perry, Mason Co., Duffield & Co., Chicago Kindergarten College, and
others, who have granted them permission to reproduce herein selections
from works bearing their copyright.




PREFACE


Many librarians have felt the need and expressed the desire for a select
collection of children's Christmas stories in one volume. This book
claims to be just that and nothing more.

Each of the stories has already won the approval of thousands of
children, and each is fraught with the true Christmas spirit.

It is hoped that the collection will prove equally acceptable to
parents, teachers, and librarians.

                                          ASA DON DICKINSON.




CONTENTS

(_Note_.--The stories marked with a star (*) will be most enjoyed by
younger children; those marked with a dagger (+) are better suited to
older children.)


                                                                    PAGE

  Christmas at Fezziwig's Warehouse. _By Charles Dickens_              3

  *The Fir-Tree. _By Hans Christian Andersen_                          6

  The Christmas Masquerade. _By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman_              19

  *The Shepherds and the Angels. _Adapted from the Bible_             34

  +The Telltale Tile. _By Olive Thorne Miller_                        36

  *Little Girl's Christmas. _By Winnifred E. Lincoln_                 48

  +A Christmas Matinee. _By M. A. L. Lane_                            57

  *Toinette and the Elves. _By Susan Coolidge_                        68

  The Voyage of the Wee Red Cap. _By Ruth Sawyer Durand_              86

  *A Story of the Christ-Child (a German Legend for Christmas
    Eve). _As told by Elizabeth Harrison_                             96

  *Jimmy Scarecrow's Christmas. _by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman_         103

  Why the Chimes Rang. _By Raymond McAlden_                          113

  *The Birds' Christmas (founded on fact). _By F. E. Mann_           120

  +The Little Sister's Vacation. _By Winifred M. Kirkland_           126

  *Little Wolff's Wooden Shoes. _By Francois Coppee, adapted
    and translated by Alma J. Foster_                                139

  +Christmas in the Alley. _By Olive Thorne Miller_                  146

  *A Christmas Star. _By Katherine Pyle_                             158

  +The Queerest Christmas. _By Grace Margaret Gallaher_              165

  Old Father Christmas. _By J. H. Ewing_                             179

  A Christmas Carol. _By Charles Dickens_                            193

  How Christmas Came to the Santa Maria Flats. _By Elia W. Peattie_  196

  The Legend of Babouscka. _From the Russian Folk Tale_              208

  *Christmas in the Barn. _By F. Arnstein_                           211

  The Philanthropist's Christmas. _By James Weber Linn_              216

  *The First Christmas-Tree. _By Lucy Wheelock_                      230

  The First New England Christmas. _By G. L. Stone and M. G.
    Fickett_                                                         232

  The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner. _By Charles Dickens_              242

  Christmas in Seventeen Seventy-Six. _By Anne Hollingsworth
    Wharton_                                                         253

  *Christmas Under the Snow. _By Olive Thorne Miller_                261

  Mr. Bluff's Experience of Holidays. _By Oliver Bell Bunce_         273

  +Master Sandy's Snapdragon. _By Elbridge S. Brooks_                284

  A Christmas Fairy. _By John Strange Winter_                        297

  The Greatest of These. _By Joseph Mills Hanson_                    303

  *Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe. _By Elizabeth Harrison_      316

  +Christmas on Big Rattle. _By Theodore Goodridge Roberts_          329




THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF CHRISTMAS STORIES




I

CHRISTMAS AT FEZZIWIG'S WAREHOUSE

CHARLES DICKENS


"YO HO! my boys," said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night! Christmas Eve,
Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up!" cried old
Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack
Robinson...."

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with
wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room
here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Cheer-up, Ebenezer!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or
couldn't have cleared away with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in
a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from
public life forevermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were
trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug,
and warm, and dry, and bright a ballroom as you would desire to see on a
winter's night.

In came a fiddler with a music book, and went up to the lofty desk and
made an orchestra of it and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs.
Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Misses
Fezziwig, beaming and lovable. In came the six followers whose hearts
they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the
business. In came the housemaid with her cousin the baker. In came the
cook with her brother's particular friend the milkman. In came the boy
from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his
master, trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one
who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress; in they all
came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once;
hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up
again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping, old
top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting
off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a
bottom one to help them.

When this result was brought about the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de
Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top
couple, too, with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or
four and twenty pairs of partners; people who were not to be trifled
with; people who would dance and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been thrice as many--oh, four times as many--old
Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig.
As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term.
If that's not high praise, tell me higher and I'll use it. A positive
light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part
of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted at any given time
what would become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig
had gone all through the dance, advance and retire; both hands to your
partner, bow and courtesy, corkscrew, thread the needle, and back again
to your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly that he appeared to wink
with his legs, and came upon his feet again with a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven the domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs.
Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and
shaking hands with every person individually, as he or she went out,
wished him or her a Merry Christmas!




II

THE FIR-TREE[A]

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN


OUT in the woods stood a nice little Fir-tree. The place he had was a
very good one; the sun shone on him; as to fresh air, there was enough
of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as
firs. But the little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree.

He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air; he did not care
for the little cottage children that ran about and prattled when they
were in the woods looking for wild strawberries. The children often came
with a whole pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on
a straw, and sat down near the young tree and said, "Oh, how pretty he
is! what a nice little fir!" But this was what the Tree could not bear
to hear.

At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and after another year
he was another long bit taller; for with fir-trees one can always tell
by the shoots how many years old they are.

"Oh, were I but such a high tree as the others are!" sighed he. "Then I
should be able to spread out my branches, and with the tops to look
into the wide world! Then would the birds build nests among my branches;
and when there was a breeze, I could bend with as much stateliness as
the others!"

Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds, which morning
and evening sailed above them, gave the little Tree any pleasure.

In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would
often come leaping along, and jump right over the little Tree. Oh, that
made him so angry! But two winters were past, and in the third the tree
was so large that the hare was obliged to go round it. "To grow and
grow, to get older and be tall," thought the Tree--"that, after all, is
the most delightful thing in the world!"

In autumn the wood-cutters always came and felled some of the largest
trees. This happened every year; and the young Fir-tree, that had now
grown to a very comely size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent
great trees fell to the earth with noise and cracking, the branches were
lopped off, and the trees looked long and bare; they were hardly to be
recognized; and then they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged
them out of the woods.

Where did they go to? What became of them?

In spring, when the Swallows and the Storks came, the Tree asked them,
"Don't you know where they have been taken? Have you not met them
anywhere?"

The Swallows did not know anything about it; but the Stork looked
musing, nodded his head, and said: "Yes, I think I know; I met many
ships as I was flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent
masts, and I venture to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. I
may congratulate you, for they lifted themselves on high most
majestically!"

"Oh, were I but old enough to fly across the sea! But how does the sea
look in reality? What is it like?"

"That would take a long time to explain," said the Stork, and with these
words off he went.

"Rejoice in thy growth!" said the Sunbeams, "rejoice in thy vigorous
growth, and in the fresh life that moveth within thee!"

And the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears over him; but the
Fir understood it not.

When Christmas came, quite young trees were cut down; trees which often
were not even as large or of the same age as this Fir-tree, who could
never rest, but always wanted to be off. These young trees, and they
were always the finest looking, retained their branches; they were laid
on carts, and the horses drew them out of the woods.

"Where are they going to?" asked the Fir. "They are not taller than I;
there was one indeed that was considerably shorter; and why do they
retain all their branches? Whither are they taken?"

"We know! we know!" chirped the Sparrows. "We have peeped in at the
windows in the town below! We know whither they are taken! The greatest
splendour and the greatest magnificence one can imagine await them. We
peeped through the windows, and saw them planted in the middle of the
warm room, and ornamented with the most splendid things--with gilded
apples, with gingerbread, with toys, and many hundred lights!"

"And then?" asked the Fir-tree, trembling in every bough. "And then?
What happens then?"

"We did not see anything more: it was incomparably beautiful."

"I would fain know if I am destined for so glorious a career," cried the
Tree, rejoicing. "That is still better than to cross the sea! What a
longing do I suffer! Were Christmas but come! I am now tall, and my
branches spread like the others that were carried off last year! Oh,
were I but already on the cart. Were I in the warm room with all the
splendour and magnificence! Yes; then something better, something still
grander, will surely follow, or wherefore should they thus ornament me?
Something better, something still grander, _must_ follow--but what? Oh,
how I long, how I suffer! I do not know myself what is the matter with
me!"

"Rejoice in our presence!" said the Air and the Sunlight; "rejoice in
thy own fresh youth!"

But the Tree did not rejoice at all; he grew and grew, and was green
both winter and summer. People that saw him said, "What a fine tree!"
and toward Christmas he was one of the first that was cut down. The axe
struck deep into the very pith; the tree fell to the earth with a sigh:
he felt a pang--it was like a swoon; he could not think of happiness,
for he was sorrowful at being separated from his home, from the place
where he had sprung up. He knew well that he should never see his dear
old comrades, the little bushes and flowers around him, any more;
perhaps not even the birds! The departure was not at all agreeable.

The Tree only came to himself when he was unloaded in a courtyard with
the other trees, and heard a man say, "That one is splendid! we don't
want the others." Then two servants came in rich livery and carried the
Fir-tree into a large and splendid drawing-room. Portraits were hanging
on the walls, and near the white porcelain stove stood two large Chinese
vases with lions on the covers. There, too, were large easy chairs,
silken sofas, large tables full of picture-books, and full of toys worth
hundreds and hundreds of crowns--at least the children said so. And the
Fir-tree was stuck upright in a cask that was filled with sand: but no
one could see that it was a cask, for green cloth was hung all around
it, and it stood on a large gayly  carpet. Oh, how the Tree
quivered! What was to happen? The servants, as well as the young ladies,
decorated it. On one branch there hung little nets cut out of 
paper, and each net was filled with sugar-plums; and among the other
boughs gilded apples and walnuts were suspended, looking as though they
had grown there, and little blue and white tapers were placed among the
leaves. Dolls that looked for all the world like men--the Tree had never
beheld such before--were seen among the foliage, and at the very top a
large star of gold tinsel was fixed. It was really splendid--beyond
description splendid.

"This evening!" said they all; "how it will shine this evening!"

"Oh," thought the Tree, "if the evening were but come! If the tapers
were but lighted! And then I wonder what will happen! Perhaps the other
trees from the forest will come to look at me! Perhaps the sparrows will
beat against the window-panes! I wonder if I shall take root here, and
winter and summer stand covered with ornaments!"

He knew very much about the matter! but he was so impatient that for
sheer longing he got a pain in his back, and this with trees is the same
thing as a headache with us.

The candles were now lighted. What brightness! What splendour! The Tree
trembled so in every bough that one of the tapers set fire to the
foliage. It blazed up splendidly.

"Help! Help!" cried the young ladies, and they quickly put out the fire.

Now the Tree did not even dare tremble. What a state he was in! He was
so uneasy lest he should lose something of his splendour, that he was
quite bewildered amidst the glare and brightness; when suddenly both
folding-doors opened, and a troop of children rushed in as if they
would upset the Tree. The older persons followed quietly; the little
ones stood quite still. But it was only for a moment; then they shouted
so that the whole place reechoed with their rejoicing; they danced round
the tree, and one present after the other was pulled off.

"What are they about?" thought the Tree.