Chapter III: Part 3

When I undertook it, I confess that I had no idea how many little ones belonged to the compound. I sent our good Ogita round to invite them all solemnly to come to Ichiban (Number One) on the 3d at five o’clock. Ogita threw himself into the business with delighted good-will, having five little people of his own to include in the invitation; but all the servants were eager to help as soon as they knew we were preparing a treat for the children. That is work which would always appeal to Japanese of any age or class. No trouble is too great, if it brings pleasure to the “treasure flowers,” as the babies are called. Some of them were not little, and these were more difficult to buy presents for; but after many cold hours passed in the different bazaars, it seemed to me that there must be something for everybody, although we had really spent very little money.

The wares were so quaint and pretty that it was a pleasure to sort and handle them. There were work-boxes in beautiful polished woods, with drawers fitting so perfectly that when you closed one the compressed air at once shot out another. There were mirrors enclosed in charming embroidered cases; for where mirrors are mostly made of metal, people learn not to let them get scratched. There were dollies of every size, and dolls’ houses and furniture, kitchens, farmyards, rice-pounding machines—all made in the tiniest proportions, such as it seemed no human fingers could really have handled. For the elder boys we bought books, school-boxes with every school requisite contained in a square the size of one’s hand, and penknives and scissors, which are greatly prized as being of foreign manufacture. For decorations we had an abundant choice of materials. I got forests of willow branches decorated with artificial fruits; pink and white balls made of rice paste, which are threaded on the twigs; surprise shells of the same paste, two lightly stuck together in the form of a double scallop shell, and full of miniature toys; _kanzashi_, or ornamental hairpins for the girls, made flowers of gold and silver among my dark pine branches; and I wasted precious minutes in opening and shutting these dainty roses—buds until you press a spring, when they open suddenly into a full-blown rose. But the most beautiful things on my tree were the icicles, which hung in scores from its sombre foliage, catching rosy gleams of light from our lamps as we worked late into the night. These were—chopsticks, long glass chopsticks, which I discovered in the bazaar; and I am sure Santa Klaus himself could not have told them from icicles. Of course every present must be labelled with a child’s name, and here my troubles began. Ogita was told to make out a correct list of names and ages, with some reference to the calling of the parents; for even here rank and precedence must be observed, or terrible heart-burnings might follow. The list came at last, and if it were not so long, I would send it to you complete, for it is a curiosity. Imagine such complicated titles as these: “Minister’s second cook’s girl, Ume, age 2;” “Minister’s servant’s cousin’s boy, age 11;” “Student’s interpreter’s teacher’s girl;” “Vice-Consul’s jinrikisha-man’s boy.” And so it went on, till there were fifty-eight of them of all ages, from one up to nineteen. Some of them, indeed, were less than a year old; and I was amused on the evening of the 2d at having the list brought back to me with this note (Ogita’s English is still highly individual!) “Marked X is declined to the invitation.” On looking down the column, I found that ominous looking cross only against one name, that of Yasu, daughter of Ito Kanejiro, Mr. G——’s cook. This recalcitrant little person turned out to be six weeks old—an early age for parties even nowadays. Miss Yasu, having been born in November, was put down in the following January as two years old, after the puzzling Japanese fashion. Then I found that they would write boys as girls, girls as boys, grown-ups as babies, and so on. Even at the last moment a doll had to be turned into a sword, a toy tea-set into a work-box, a history of Europe into a rattle; but people who grow Christmas trees are prepared for such small contingencies, and no one knew anything about it when on Friday afternoon the great tree slowly glowed into a pyramid of light, and a long procession of little Japs was marshalled in, with great solemnity and many bows, till they stood, a delighted, wide-eyed crowd, round the beautiful shining thing, the first Christmas tree any of them had ever seen. It was worth all the trouble to see the gasp of surprise and delight, the evident fear that the whole thing might be unreal and suddenly fade away. One little man of two fell flat on his back with amazement, tried to rise and have another look, and in so doing rolled over on his nose, where he lay quite silent till his relatives rescued him. Behind the children stood the mothers, quite as pleased as they, and with them one very old lady with a little child on her back.

_Copyright, 1908, by Underwood & Underwood, New York_

MAKING GLASS AND TINSEL ORNAMENTS FOR CHRISTMAS TREES]

The children stood, the little ones in front and the taller ones behind, in a semicircle, and the many lights showed their bright faces and gorgeous costumes, for no one would be outdone by another in smartness—I fancy the poorer women had borrowed from richer neighbors—and the result was picturesque in the extreme. The older girls had their heads beautifully dressed, with flowers and pins and rolls of scarlet crape knotted in between the coils; their dresses were pale green or blue, with bright linings and stiff silk obis; but the little ones were a blaze of scarlet, green, geranium pink, and orange, their long sleeves sweeping the ground, and the huge flower patterns on their garments making them look like live flowers as they moved about on the dark velvet carpet. When they had gazed their fill, they were called up to me one by one, Ogita addressing them all as “San” (Miss or Mr.), even if they could only toddle, and I gave them their serious presents with their names, written in Japanese and English, tied on with red ribbon—an attention which, as I was afterwards told, they appreciated greatly. It seemed to me that they never would end; their size varied from a wee mite who could not carry its own toys to a tall, handsome student of sixteen, or a gorgeous young lady in green and mauve crape, and a head that must have taken the best part of the day to dress.

In one thing they were all alike; their manners were perfect. There was no pushing or grasping, no glances of envy at what other children received, no false shyness in their sweet, happy way of expressing their thanks. I was puzzled by one thing about the children: although we kept giving them sweets and oranges off the tree, every time I looked around the big circle all were empty-handed again, and it really seemed as if they must have swallowed the gifts, gold paper and ribbon and all. But at last I noticed that their square, hanging sleeves began to have a strange, lumpy appearance, like a conjurers waistcoat just before he produces twenty-four bowls of live goldfish from his internal economy; and then I understood that the plunder was at once dropped into these great sleeves, so as to leave hands free for anything else that Okusama might think good to bestow. One little lady, O’Haru San, aged three, got so overloaded with goodies and toys that they kept rolling out of her sleeves, to the great delight of the Brown Ambassador dachshund, Tip, who pounced on them like lightning, and was also convicted of nibbling at cakes on the lower branches of the tree.

The bigger children would not take second editions of presents, and answered, “Honorable thanks, I have!” if offered more than they thought their share; but babies are babies all the world over! When the distribution was finished at last, I got a Japanese gentleman to tell them the story of Christmas, the children’s feast; and then they came up one by one to say “_Sayonara_” (“Since it must be,” the Japanese farewell), and “_Arigato gozaimasu_” (“The honorable thanks”).

“Come back next year,” I said; and then the last presents were given out—beautiful lanterns, red, lighted, and hung on what Ogita calls bumboos, to light the guests home with. One tiny maiden refused to go, and flung herself on the floor in a passion of weeping, saying that Okusama’s house was too beautiful to leave, and she would stay with me always—yes, she would! Only the sight of the lighted lantern, bobbing on a stick twice as long as herself, persuaded her to return to her own home in the servants’ quarters. I stood on the step, the same step where I had set the fireflies free one warm night last summer, and watched the little people scatter over the lawns, and disappear into the dark shrubberies, their round, red lights dancing and shifting as they went, just as if my fireflies had come back, on red wings this time, to light my little friends to bed.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The British Legation compound is the enclosure in which the official representatives of the English government in any Japanese city live with their assistants, families, and servants.

From Far Away

From far away we come to you.
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
To tell of great tidings, strange and true.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor.
From far away we come to you,
To tell of great tidings, strange and true._

For as we wandered far and wide,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
What hap do you deem there should us betide?
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._

Under a bent when the night was deep,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
There lay three shepherds, tending their sheep.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._

“O ye shepherds, what have ye seen,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
To stay your sorrow and heal your teen?”
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._

“In an ox stall this night we saw,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
A Babe and a maid without a flaw.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._

“There was an old man there beside;
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,

His hair was white, and his hood was wide.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._

“And as we gazed this thing upon,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
Those twain knelt down to the little one.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._

“And a marvellous song we straight did hear,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
That slew our sorrow and healed our care.”
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._

News of a fair and a marvellous thing,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, we sing.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor.
From far away we come to you,
To tell of great tidings, strange and true._

Lordings, listen to our Lay

Lordings, listen to our lay—
We have come from far away
To seek Christmas;
In this mansion we are told
He his yearly feast doth hold:
’Tis to-day!
May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.

Where the Christmas Toys Come From

Almost all the wooden toys come from Germany, where peasants in the mountains of the Tyrol and Bavaria still make them by hand. A herd-boy on the hillside will see that his cattle are safely feeding in a narrow valley which they cannot leave without passing him, and then he will sit on the grass or on a rock and whittle and whistle or jodel as the soft wood shapes itself in his fingers, through a long summer day. And during the winter, while the snow lies deep on the mountain paths, entire families give their time to making Noah’s arks, toy villages with stiff little green trees, toy furniture, carved figures of all kinds. Anything which a man’s knife can make from poplar or plane wood is carved during the long weeks when outdoor work is impossible. At one time whole German villages used to work in their own homes on cheap wooden toys of all kinds. Nowadays, since the invention of the machines by which the simpler forms are made, most of the toy trades have been swept into the factories of German cities.

Toy reins, such as you see with tinkling sleigh-bells on them, may be woven elsewhere in New England, but it is fairly certain that the bells at least were made in Connecticut, where the industry is a very old one, and where most of the sleigh-bells in the country have been made, as well as cow-bells and the tiny tinkler on the tea-table. And, naturally, the state in which are so many clock factories produces those toys which are made to go by a winding key.

Hundreds of thousands of tin trumpets, and other toy musical instruments which used to be made in France and Germany, are now made in this country, mainly in Pennsylvania and New York. It is fascinating to watch the making of them by machinery. Pull a handle here! Click! down comes a frame and a long sheet of metal is cut into pieces of the exact shape wanted. See! the frame on which the metal rested is a moving belt bringing a fresh sheet of metal under the stamps and at the same time carrying the cut pieces forward over a row of steel cones where a set of clamps like steel jaws catches each separate bit. The clamps close once, nip! open, and each cone pushes forward with a jerk into another which with one motion adds a mouthpiece. What passes on now is a bent tube which needs only a touch of solder to keep it closed, a few rings of paint to make it gay, and perhaps a curved handle, to be a very presentable toy trumpet.

Drums are almost all made in Massachusetts; marbles, the best of them, come from Saxony; the old-fashioned kinds of music-boxes, some of them very elaborate and beautiful, still come from Switzerland. Glass ornaments for Christmas trees are made in Germany; many of the tinsel and cut-paper ornaments also come from Nüremburg and other German cities which are the great toy markets of the world. In one French village near Paris almost all the bone dominoes have been made for years; another section of France turns out nearly all the bone chessmen—such figures as Alice found in the Looking-Glass country; and a quantity of the furry rabbits, silky-haired dogs, and woolly lambs on green-painted bellows which bleat _ba-a-a_, have been made by one Parisian family for many years. The old proprietor, his sons and daughters and even grandchildren, have lived and worked together at the very top of an old house in one of the side streets of the city, from a time beyond the memory of all but few.

As for dolls—the making of a Christmas doll—that is another story.

The Making of a Christmas Doll

Does it seem to you that it would be a delightful business to make hundreds of thousands of dolls every year? H’m! Does this huge kettle of bad-smelling mush make you think of the dainty, smiling dolls in the toy-shop window? Dolly is made, though you would never guess it, of chopped up bits of old kid gloves and pieces of cardboard boiled to a pulp in a gum made from the horns of goats. And here is a man shovelling sawdust into a kettle half full of boiling water. Now he is turning the mass into a big mixing trough, adding one shovelful after another of the gluey mush. The machinery creaks and turns and cuts and slaps as this mixture is kneaded into a composition pulp. Now he is carrying some of it in a hod, for all the world like sticky mortar, to a weighing table! Sweep! it is spread out in an even thickness. Clip! down come the knives which part it into the right quantities, and it is swiftly pressed and moulded to the shape of a body, an arm, or a leg. In one factory alone the parts of as many as forty thousand dolls are thus made in one day, and the ugly, greenish shapes set aside to harden. Another day they pass quickly under the brushes in the painters’ hands after which they have the more familiar rosy pink color, and dolly can now be put together except for the head.

_Copyright, 1908, by Underwood & Underwood, New York_

DOLL-MAKING]

Of these dolls the heads are to be of porcelain. Once for all, long ago, some artist made the model of which many duplicate moulds stand ready. Into these moulds liquid porcelain clay is poured; before it hardens the openings for the eyes are cut and tiny holes made by which it can be joined to a body. After the moulds are opened, as the rows and rows of little heads stand in metal trays, a painter comes by, covers them with a glaze-wash, tints the cheeks and outlines the brows and lashes. Now into the oven goes the tray for hours of slow baking. But even with the head sewed on we have but a sad-looking dolly, both blind and bald.

If all goes well, the eyes and the wig come next. The eyes are not made in this factory at all. They come from Germany, and it would probably give you a queer, scared feeling to see the making of them. Look into this long, dark room, and when your eyes are a little used to the strange shadowiness, you will see that down its sides there are rows of tables, before each of which sits a woman with a blue-flame gas lamp in front of her. At little distances are retorts of glowing molten glass, and each woman dips her short glass tube into the melted glass, and, keeping it soft by the help of that weird blue flame of the blowpipe jet, blows a little oblong globe which she colors white for the eyeball, and then upon it paints a pupil of blue, brown, or black, as the doll-makers may have ordered. The musical click which you hear all the time is the sharp stroke which breaks the finished and cooled eye from the glass rod, letting it drop into a box lined with cotton by her side. This boy coming out has been collecting them, and it makes us shiver to see those hundreds of eyes rolling uncannily at us from the bottom of his basket. Come away!

A wig for an inexpensive doll is an easy matter; the chosen strands of hair are laid along a double thread, which passes below one strand and above the next. This thread makes the “part,” and under it is stuck a bit of pasteboard by which the wig is fastened on. A quick-fingered French woman can turn out over a hundred dozen such wigs in a day. And with the wig dolly is made at last.

Her clothes, of course, are a separate matter, just as yours are; there are dolls’ shoemakers, and dolls’ dressmakers, and the elaborate completeness of dolly’s outfit depends only upon the price one is willing to pay.

_Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York_

WIG-MAKING]

Irina’s Day on the Estates

Irina is a Russian who answers promptly if you ask her what Christmas she remembers best, “The one we spent on the estates.” But that may be because it was so unusual to be there at all in the winter. Christmas Eve is the great time in Russia, but Santa Claus does not come until evening and the day before Christmas being a fast-day is usually somewhat depressing.

Old Mashinka, who comes in to open the heavy, outer shutters, usually has some lively gossip to tell while she lets in the light. Perhaps wolves slipped into the courtyard in the night and were fighting with the watch-dogs; perhaps the snow has fallen again and is so deep that Ivan and the stablemen have been out since daybreak cutting new paths to the kitchens, stables, and farm buildings, and breaking out the roads. Or perhaps Dmitri, who moved yesterday into a new house, took with him a cock and hen, and this morning the cock refused to crow at dawn so that all the family are sure that evil fortune will enter the house with the new year. But on this morning she has no news to tell; she moves silently and slowly, for it is a fast-day.

Even Irina, who is always ready to run and jump, feels oppressed by the still, silent house. The dining room is desolate with its breakfastless table, usually so cosy with its steaming samovar. As a rule they are at this time in St. Petersburg where, though Irina stays quietly all day in an upper room, except when attending church services, she can at least look out upon all the coming and going on the river and the Nevski Prospect. But this year Andrei the steward is raising questions about the plans and locations for new stables and barns, so they are here where everything is depressingly still and silent, and upstairs her father and mother are praying in their rooms. So she puts on fur-lined boots, a long fur coat with deep collar, and a fur cap which comes well down over the forehead, and once outside the house finds herself in the thick forest. Further on she comes to a frozen river, and fast-days and solemn services are all forgotten, for there are her two fur-wrapped brothers busy with a little sledge. The red scarves of the boys are taken for guiding reins, and far along the ice for two hours or more she drives her team. They have passed beyond the forest and out upon the steppes, where for miles ahead no trees are to be seen except where willows mark the curve of the river, or a few stunted saplings show black against the snow. On one side is a long, low sheepfold belonging to Irina’s father, and out comes the shepherd with a clamor of dogs. He has no chairs, so he throws down three heaps of clean straw for the children to sit on; and he, too, forgets that it is a fast-day as he reaches cakes of dark brown bread from a shelf below the tiny square window, and pours for them cups of goats’ milk. Black crust and all—it goes quickly, and then they rest and stroke the half-tamed sheep that come to nibble the straw while the shepherd tells the children stories. He cannot read, to be sure, but when he was a boy his old grandmother told them to him. Perhaps, because it is the Christmas season, he tells them of the old woman whom the Russians call Babouscka and the Italians Befana. Irina’s favorite is one that would remind you of Cinderella, although the fairy godmother is much more like an old witch; and as the children start off for home they wonder a little fearfully if this forest is not very like the one in the shepherd’s story.

On arriving home they confess their sins—only the little matter of the rye bread is really forgotten. Everybody is busy; the cook is getting the supper, and father in the drawing-room has the door locked. Some one has said there will be no Christmas tree, for there are no shops here; but why was mother away for four days, and why did that pedler who came by a few days ago stay so long? Irina finds a book, curls up on a rug, and tries to read, but she does not understand Kryloff’s “Fables” very well; the day out-doors has made her drowsy and she does not quite know what becomes of the time until her brothers shake her a little, the clock rings out “Cuckoo” six times, and then open comes the door. There _is_ a Christmas tree after all, a tall one with a shining star at the top. Hundreds of burning candles light it up, and tiny wax figures dance among hanging oranges. At the foot of the tree lie four or five heaps of parcels,—ah, then, mother _was_ shopping; no one is forgotten and every one is merry. Then comes Pavel to say that supper is ready. But the white cloth looks very different from usual; it is not laid smoothly at all. Underneath it has been spread a layer of hay, and each one as he sits down pulls out a straw. Irina gives a cry of joy: her piece is quite complete, with its yellow, dried flower—which shows that she will be lucky all the next year.

There is no meat at this Christmas Eve supper, only fish dishes and the special _Kostya_, or puddings which belong to the season very much as do mince pie and plum pudding in England. Of these puddings there are two kinds,—the white _Kostya_, made of rice, almonds, and raisins, and the black _Kostya_, made of honey, barley, and walnuts.

During supper the children from the village school which Irina’s mother has started come and sing carols outside the window until Pavel with a handful of coins tells them to be off. Other young villagers follow to acknowledge their gifts with more singing. Lastly comes the church choir, who are invited in to supper after Irina and her brothers have returned to the tree and their new toys. For each there is a gift and from each a torrent of good wishes.

This practice of carol singing is probably in its origin akin to the religious processions which one may see on any holy day in all the villages of Greece, the Balkan provinces, and up through Russia,—wherever, in fact, the Greek church has diverted into the service of religion the old customs of the people. For centuries back and probably long before the Christian era, it was the practice of the young people here and elsewhere to gather into bands and go about the country roads at this time of year singing hymns which were at first, no doubt, songs of rejoicing that the shortest days were over and the sun returning to the world again. Nowadays the songs are chants or carols, and the village boys are proud to carry in religious processions pictures of the saints and the banners of the church.

A Visit from St. Nicholas

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap—
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick!
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys—and St. Nicholas, too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf;
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

_Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York_

A CHRISTMAS TREE AT THE IMMIGRANT STATION, NEW YORK]

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang in his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight:
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

The Cratchits’ Christmas Dinner

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 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 around 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 the 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 on 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 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 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 so large a 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 all, my dears. God bless us!”

Which all the family reëchoed.

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim the last of all.

After the Christmas Dinner

When dinner had had time to settle and all the kitchen work was done, Father took his seat at the end of the long table, with all the household gathered about, the servants included and the baby without fail, and read the story of The Child: “And it came to pass in those days,” while Mother hushed the baby. Then we sang together “A Child is Born in Bethlehem,” which was the simplest of our hymns, and also the one we children loved best, for it told of how in heaven we were to walk to church

“On sky-blue carpets, star-bedeckt,”

which was a great comfort. Children love beautiful things, and we had few of them. The great and precious treasure in our house was the rag carpet in the spare room, which we were allowed to enter only on festive occasions such as Christmas. It had an orange streak in it which I can see to this day. Whenever I come across one that even remotely suggests it, it gives me yet a kind of solemn feeling. We had no piano,—that was a luxury in those days,—and Father was not a singer, but he led on bravely with his tremulous bass and we all joined in, Ane the cook and Maria the housemaid furtively wiping their eyes with their aprons, for they were good and pious folk and this was their Christmas service. So we sang the ten verses to end, with their refrain “Hallelujah! hallelujah!” that always seemed to me to open the very gates of Yule.

And it did, literally; for when the last hallelujah died away, the door of the spare room was flung wide and there stood the Christmas tree, all shining lights, and the baby was borne in, wide-eyed, to be the first, as was proper; for was not this The Child’s holiday? Unconsciously we all gave way to those who were nearest Him, who had most recently come from His presence, and were therefore in closest touch with the spirit of the holiday. So, when we joined hands and danced around the tree, Father held the baby, and we laughed and were happy as the little one crowed his joy and stretched the tiny arms toward the light.

Hang up the Baby’s Stocking

Hang up the baby’s stocking:
Be sure you don’t forget;
The dear little dimpled darling!
She ne’er saw Christmas yet;
But I’ve told her all about it,
And she opened her big blue eyes;
And I’m sure she understood it—
She looked so funny and wise.

Dear! what a tiny stocking!
It doesn’t take much to hold
Such little pink toes as baby’s
Away from the frost and cold;
But then for the baby’s Christmas
It will never do at all;
Why, Santa wouldn’t be looking
For anything half so small.

I know what will do for the baby.
I’ve thought of the very best plan:
I’ll borrow a stocking of grandma,
The longest that ever I can;
And you’ll hang it by mine, dear mother,
Right here in the corner, so!
And write a letter to Santa,
And fasten it on the toe.

Write, “This is the baby’s stocking
That hangs in the corner here;
You never have seen her, Santa,
For she only came this year;
But she’s just the blessedest baby!
And now before you go,
Just cram her stocking with goodies,
From the top clean down to the toe.”

A German Christmas

In Germany a little girl begins to think about Christmas almost as soon as she gets back from a summer holiday, for it is still very much the custom there to make something yourself for those you love best, and German girls learn while they are still little to embroider beautifully all kinds of articles for household use,—a monogram on a fine handkerchief, or spray of flowers on a bit of linen to wear at the neck. An older girl makes such things as a canvas traveller’s-case, or a set of shoe-bags, embroiders a sofa-cushion or knits a silk necktie. Mothers and aunts are more likely to make soberly useful gifts of stockings, underclothing, dresses; nothing is thought out-of-place. But every one must give to every one else. That is _law_. And every one aims to keep as a secret what she is making; it must be hidden at least from the one for whom it is intended, so there is quite an air of “I know something nice, but I cannot tell it,” about a German household through all the weeks before the holiday.

About a fortnight before Christmas the fair begins which Mrs. Sidgwick tells us is to be seen “in any one of the old German cities in the hill country, when the streets and the open places are covered with crisp clean snow, and the mountains are white with it, and the moon shines on the ancient houses, and the tinkle of sledge bells reaches you when you escape from the din of the market, and look down at the bustle of it from some silent place, a high window, perhaps, or the high empty steps leading into the cathedral. The air is cold and still, and heavy with the scent of the Christmas trees brought from the forest for the pleasure of the children. Day by day you see the rows of them growing thinner, and if you go to the market on Christmas Eve itself you will find only a few trees left out in the cold. The market is empty, the peasants are harnessing their horses or their oxen, the women are packing up their unsold goods. In every home in the city one of the trees that scented the open air about a week ago is shining now with lights and little gilded nuts and apples, and is helping to make that Christmas smell, all compact of the pine forest, wax candles, cakes, and painted toys, you must associate so long as you live with Christmas in Germany.”

We have Christmas trees in plenty, but to the German mind we have them all wrong. In the first place, their trees are small, and every one, from the Emperor down to the poorest laborer, has a tree. But he has it at home, on Christmas Eve if he can, less often on Christmas Day, and only sometimes on the day after, which they call the Second Christmas Day. A German family never invites a _party_ to its Christmas tree, only relatives or intimate friends. As a rule, there is one tree, fixed on a small stand in the centre of a large square table covered with a snow-white cloth, and around the tree the presents are arranged, those for each person in a separate pile. The tree is lighted for beauty, and is decorated with ornaments of glass and tinsel, sweetmeats, apples, gilded nuts, and a few very small toys. Some of the sweetmeats made for German trees are very elaborate. There are _Kringeln_, transparent sugar candies twisted in figure eights or circles, so that they easily hang on. There are sugar candy animals of every shape and color; and here and there a fascinating scene in colored sugar on a white background, a sportsman in a red coat, perhaps, pointing his gun at an enormous rabbit that sits up almost touching the end of the gun-barrel. The celebrated _Lübecker Marzipan_ (a kind of almond paste which you have tasted, maybe, on bride-cake) imitates all kinds of fruit and vegetables so well that they can easily be mistaken for real.

_Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York_

DRESSING DOLLS IN GERMANY FOR AMERICAN CHRISTMAS TREES]

The trees are set in the front rooms and the curtains are drawn up to give any passer-by a glimpse of their beauty. The family gathers in the room behind, sometimes a carol or hymn is sung, and at its end suddenly the parlor doors fly back, showing the little green tree all alight and the piles of presents for every one. Then comes a scramble and search for one’s own pile,—a long silence while parcels are opened breathlessly. Such a handshaking and embracing and thanking as follows!

In some families where there are several children and plenty of money, each person may have a tree of his own, and at any rate will have his own table covered with presents and things to eat. Of such a family the mother writes:—

Every time the three babies go into the garden they expect to meet the Christ Child with His arms full of gifts. They firmly believe that it is thus their presents are brought, and it is such a charming idea that Christmas would be worth celebrating for its sake alone.

The library is uninhabitable for several days before and after, as it is there that we have the trees and presents. All down one side are the trees, and the other three sides are lined with tables, a separate one for each person in the house. When trees are lighted, and stand in their radiance shining down on the happy faces, I forget all the trouble it has been, and the number of times I have had to run up and down stairs, and the various aches in head and feet, and enjoy myself as much as anybody. First the June baby is ushered in, then the others and ourselves according to age, then the servants, then come the head inspector and his family, and other inspectors from the different farms, the mamsells, the bookkeepers and secretaries, and then all the children, troops and troops of them—the big ones leading the little ones by the hand and carrying the babies in their arms, and the mothers peeping round the door. As many as can get in stand in front of the trees, and sing two or three carols; then they are given their presents, and go off triumphantly, making room for the next batch. My three babies sung lustily, too, whether they happened to know what was being sung or not....

When they came to say good night they were all very pale and subdued. The April baby had an exhausted-looking Japanese doll with her, which she said she was taking to bed, not because she liked him, but she was so sorry for him, he seemed so very tired. They kissed me absently, and went away, only the April baby glancing at the trees as she passed and making them a courtesy.

“Good-by, trees,” I heard her say; and then she made the Japanese doll bow to them, which he did, in a very languid and blase fashion. “You’ll never see such trees again,” she told him, giving him a vindictive shake, “for you’ll be brokened long before next time.”

She went out, but came back as though she had forgotten something.

“Thank the Christkind so much, Mummy, won’t you, for all the lovely things He brought us. I suppose you’re writing to Him now, isn’t you?”

Crowded Out

Nobody ain’t Christmas shoppin’
Fur his stockin’,
Nobody ain’t cotch no turkey,
Nobody ain’t bake no pie.
Nobody’s laid nuthin’ by;
Santa Claus don’t cut no figger
Fur his mammy’s little nigger.

Seems lak everybody’s rushin’
An’ er crushin’;
Crowdin’ shops an’ jammin’ trolleys,
Buyin’ shoes an’ shirts an’ toys
Fur de white folks’ girls an’ boys;
But no hobby-horse ain’t rockin’
Fur his little wore-out stockin’.

He ain’t quar’lin’, recollec’,
He don’t spec
Nuthin’—it’s his not expectin’
Makes his mammy wish—O Laws!—
Fur er nigger Santy Claus,
Totin’ jus’ er toy balloon
Fur his mammy’s little coon.

An English “Adoration”

Art in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was far more closely connected with the church than it is to-day. The most beautiful buildings were those of the church, and the art of painting was soon called upon for their decoration. Books at that time were rare and costly, and the stories of the saints whose “holydays” were times of festivity for the people, were mostly handed down by word of mouth, and often with a good deal of confusion of times and people. And naturally, when the rich men of 1300 called in a workman to decorate a church or to paint a panel which could be moved from one building to another, they liked to see on their walls pictures of their favorite saints and heroes, pictures which reminded them of the stories they could not read. It made no difference to them if saint and hero and king lived hundreds of years apart.

There is one such picture, one of the oldest in England, so old that no one knows who painted it, which is interesting because it is so easy to see that the king who ordered it painted was thinking of the old Christmas story of the Adoration of the Magi, who were always thought of in the Middle Ages as being kings. The picture is painted on two wooden panels, joined with hinges so that it can be closed, and is in bright colors against a background of gold.

The English king who probably ordered it to celebrate his coronation was Richard II. of England, son of the famous Black Prince. One likes to think that although he thought of himself as one of a long line of kings ruling by divine right, whom it was natural to see surrounded by persons royal and divine, yet he wished to be painted not in the act of receiving but of giving homage. After all, in spite of the king’s crown and the robe of state, too big for a child’s figure, he was only a boy barely eleven, and whatever he became later here he is shown offering his kingdom to the Holy Child in His Mother’s arms.

There was a special reason for Richard’s having his picture resemble pictures of the Adoration of the Magi for the Day of the Kings, January 6, was not only his own birthday, but also the day upon which he was crowned. And an account of his coronation tells us that after the ceremony he made an offering at the Shrine of Our Lady at Pewe, nearby, of “eleven angels,” one for each year of his young life. Exactly what these eleven angels were no one now knows; they may have been gold coins with an angel stamped upon them, or they may have been small images. But perhaps he remembered his eleven years and this offering when he told the painter to surround Mother Mary with the eleven angels in sapphire blue whom you see in the picture. One sees at least that they are _his_ angels, for each wears his special badge, the Jewel of the White Hart, and the Collar of Broom-pods. Almost all the Magi pictures represent one of the kings as kneeling, with the two others standing behind him, and one can imagine Richard boyishly choosing the other two kings. He was crowned in Westminster Abbey, so it is natural enough that one of them should be Edward the Confessor who founded the Abbey; the other, holding an arrow, is St. Edmund, an early king of England who is said to have been shot to death with arrows by the Danes, because he refused to abandon Christianity. Joseph, too, is a customary figure in paintings of the Adoration, but cannot you hear the boy king saying, “No, I do not want St. Joseph; my father died in midsummer so I really became king about the time of St. John’s Day, if I _am_ crowned at Epiphany; so I will have St. John with a lamb and Edward the Confessor; and Edward shall hold a ring?” There is a pretty story that St. John the Evangelist, wandering in the disguise of a beggar, asked alms of King Edward the Confessor; and, that the king, rather than refuse a poor man, gave him a ring from his finger, because he had no money with him. And it would be so like a boy not to care that the two St. Johns were not at all the same. That which mattered is that one of the angels was holding toward the Holy Child’s reaching hands the banner of England as the gift of the kneeling boy.

The Children’s Own Saint

What a most convenient thing it is that good St. Nicholas does not have to keep the Christmas holiday in all the world at once! He has been the children’s own saint, you know, ever since he ceased to be a bishop in far-away Asia Minor. The oldest story we hear of him is that once three little boys on their way to school at Athens stopped over night at an inn, of which the innkeeper was also a butcher, and a robber besides. This wicked man killed the boys in the night and threw their bodies into his salting tub. But the very next morning the saint walked in and asked for them, for though he was only Bishop Nicholas then, he knew all about it in some wonderful way. The trembling butcher took him out to the pork barrel; the saint struck the edge of it sharply with his staff and called the boys by name. Out jumped the three little pickles all alive, and of course the wicked butcher was punished and Nicholas became the school-boys’ saint.

There is also a story that one night Bishop Nicholas wished to carry a purse of gold to a worthy nobleman who was so proud and so unwilling to have his poverty noticed that it was a difficult matter to make the gift without hurting his feelings. When the house was reached the old noble was to be seen through the window fast asleep by the fire, and without disturbing him good St. Nicholas climbed to the top of the wide chimney and dropped the purse, intending it to fall on the hearth. But as the old man’s daughter had hung her father’s stockings by the fire to dry, it chanced to fall into one of them. There it was found the next day and most opportunely provided a marriage portion for the oldest daughter. The story goes on to say that after that whenever one of the noble’s daughters was of marrying age he hung up a stocking,—and St. Nicholas’s gift was never lacking.