Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year Part 12

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, a.s.sisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; 5 while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous s.h.i.+rt 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 10 linen in the fas.h.i.+onable 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 15 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 5 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 10 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 15 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, 20 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! 25

"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 30 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 washhouse, that he might hear the pudding singing in the 5 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 10 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 15 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 20 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 25 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 30 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 5 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 10 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, 15 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 cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal 20 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 eaten it all at last! Yet everyone had had enough, and the 25 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. 30

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.

Halloo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out 5 of the copper. A smell like a was.h.i.+ng 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 10 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 15 achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs.

Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quant.i.ty of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but n.o.body said or thought it was at all a small pudding for 20 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 25 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 gla.s.s--two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. 30

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. G.o.d bless us!"

Which all the family reechoed.

"G.o.d bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. 5

--_A Christmas Carol._

1. A few days before Christmas you should read d.i.c.kens's _A Christmas Carol_. It is one of the best, if not the best, Christmas story ever written. How does d.i.c.kens make you feel while you read this selection? How many people are present at the Cratchits'? To whom does your sympathy go?

2. Select a list of words and phrases that suggest happiness. How does d.i.c.kens make you wish you were at the Cratchit feast?

3. Appoint a committee of three from your cla.s.s to report fully on d.i.c.kens's life and writings. Take brief notes on their report.

THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

BY eMILE SOUVESTRE

Twelve o'clock.--A knock at my door; a poor girl comes in and greets me by name. At first I do not recall her, but she looks at me and smiles. Ah, it is Paulette! But it is nearly a year since I have seen her, and Paulette is no longer the same; the other day she was 5 a child; to-day she is almost a young woman.

Paulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad; but she has always the same open and straightforward look--the same mouth, smiling at every word as if to plead for sympathy--the same voice, timid yet caressing. Paulette is not 10 pretty--she is even thought plain; as for me, I think her charming. Perhaps that is not on her account but on my own. Paulette is a part of one of my happiest recollections.

It was the evening of a public holiday. Our princ.i.p.al buildings were lighted with festoons of fire, a thousand flags floated in the night wind, and the fireworks had just shot forth their jets of flame in the midst of the _Champ de Mars_. Suddenly one of those unaccountable panics which 5 seize a mult.i.tude falls upon the dense crowd; they cry out, they rush on headlong; the weaker ones fall and the frightened crowd tramples them down in its convulsive struggles. Escaping from the confusion by a miracle, I was hastening away when the cries of a peris.h.i.+ng child 10 arrested me; I went back into that human chaos and after unheard-of exertions I brought Paulette away at the peril of my life.

That was two years ago; since then I had seen the child only at long intervals and had almost forgotten her; but 15 Paulette had a grateful heart, and she came at the beginning of the year to bring me her good wishes. She brought me, too, a wallflower in full bloom; she herself had planted and reared it; it was something that belonged wholly to herself, for it was because of her care, her perseverance, 20 and her patience that it was hers.

The wallflower had grown in a common pot; but Paulette, who is a bandbox maker, had put it into a case of varnished paper ornamented with arabesques. These might have been in better taste, but I felt the good will 25 none the less.

This unexpected present, the little girl's modest blushes, the compliments she stammered out, dispelled, as by a sunbeam, the mist which had gathered round my heart; my thoughts suddenly changed from the leaden tints of 30 evening to the rosiest colors of dawn. I made Paulette sit down and questioned her with a light heart.

At first the little girl replied by monosyllables; but very soon the tables were turned and it was I who interrupted with short interjections her long confidences. The poor child leads a hard life. She was left an orphan long ago and with a brother and sister lives with an old grandmother, 5 who has _brought them up to poverty_, as she says.

However Paulette now helps her to make bandboxes, her little sister Perrine begins to sew, and her brother Henri is apprenticed to a printer. All would go well if it were not for losses and want of work--if it were not for clothes which 10 wear out, for appet.i.tes which grow larger, and for the winter, when you must buy your suns.h.i.+ne. Paulette complains that candles go too quickly and that the wood costs too much. The fireplace in their garret is so large that a f.a.got produces no more effect than a match; it is so near 15 the roof that the wind blows down the rain and in winter it hails upon the hearth; so they have given up using it.

Henceforth they must be content with an earthen chafing dish, upon which they cook their meals. The grandmother had often spoken of a stove that was for sale at the huckster's 20 on the ground floor, but he asked seven francs for it and the times are too hard for such an expense; the family, therefore, resign themselves to cold for economy's sake!

As Paulette spoke I felt more and more that I was rising above my low spirits. The first disclosures of the little 25 bandbox maker created within me a wish that soon became a plan. I questioned her about her daily occupations and she told me that on leaving me she must go with her brother, her sister, and her grandmother, to the different people for whom they work. My plan was immediately settled. I 30 told the child that I would go to see her in the evening, and I sent her away, thanking her anew.

I placed the wallflower in the open window, where a ray of suns.h.i.+ne bade it welcome; the birds were singing around, the sky had cleared, and the day which began so gloomily had become bright. I sang as I moved about my room, and having hastily got ready I went out. 5

Three o'clock.--All is settled with my neighbor, the chimney doctor; he will repair my old stove, the old stove which I had replaced, and promises to make it as good as new. At five o'clock we are going to put it up in Paulette's grandmother's room. 10

Midnight.--All has gone well. At the hour agreed upon I was at the old bandbox maker's; she was still out.

My Piedmontese fixed the stove, while I arranged in the great fireplace a dozen logs borrowed from my winter's stock. I shall make up for them by warming myself with 15 walking or by going to bed earlier.