 Kerstfeest bij Willem Bielderdijk, Red in Dutch. Dit is een LibreVox-recording. Alle LibreVox-recodings zijn in het publiek domain. Voor meer informatie en autowalentie, dan bezoek je LibreVox.org. God op aard in het vlees verscheenen? Ho meensel, geloofd jij dit? God in het kinder krabben je venen met de mensgelijkheid vrenen als een zondig medelid? Hij de ellenden op zich laden? Hij de jammerzee doorwaden van ons zomdend volgeslacht? Alle leiden, alle plagen op een aardrijk komen dragen met verdiende vloek bevraagd? Nee, dit kan geen hart geloven, stort hij het zelf niet in het gemoet. Opnen zie ik de hemmelhoven, dalen de engelenskaar van boven met dienblijden zegengroet? Breek, woors klik en donderslagen, godsbevredigt wel behagen door de wolken neer op de aard. Laat door duizend engelen monden dit blijmaar zich verkonden. God, uitmaagd hun schoot gebaard. U, eenvoudig als uw skappen grasende door Bethlem staal, u, in onschuld ingeslapen. U, oprekte herders knappen, wekt dat hemmels juik geschaal. Gij, gij gaat het wiktje vinden in de doeken die het omvinden, stort u neer op het aangesicht. Gij, gij streeft om het aan te bidden en zijn godheid in uw midden straalt u door met hemmels ligt. Ja, vanwaar de zon aan het reizen deersten straal op Bethlem sprijt, naderen morgenlandse wijzen om de god der eerte prijzen in des wiktjens nedergijt. Ja, om hem te voeten vallen huppelen bij duizentalen, semmels maakten om die koets. En wij zondaars, wij vertragen hem de scatting op te dragen van ons kuldig handvolbloed? Geef, oh gij die het kunt verlenen, geef ons het overtuigd geloof. Ja, gij zijt in het vlees verskenen om het verbroken te herenen ons te ontrukken aan de roof. Om een zuiverbloed te blengen dat de afval weer moest brengen godsgeterkte vrak voldoen, zonde, dood en afgerend vallen, onschuld, heiligheid, herstellen bracht ge uw eiligheid ten zoon. Stort u geest, oh albehoeder, wonderkind en vredeworst, wereldschepper, wereldvoeder, in die krabbesmensenbroeder, in de toegeslooten borst. Geef bij onze nederbuiging, geef het geloof, geef de overtuiging dat gij ons in het vlees verskeent en door u met God verbonden en ontlaast van dood en zonden heeft het menskdom uitgeweend. End of kerstfeest by Willem Bildertake read by Ezwa in Belgium in december 2008. A Christmas Tree by Charles Dickens read in English. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Christmas Tree by Charles Dickens. I have been looking on this evening for a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy cheeked dolls hiding behind the green leaves and there were real watches with movable hands at least and an endless capacity of being wound up dangling from innumerable twigs. There were French polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, 8-day clocks and various other articles of domestic furniture wonderfully made in tin at Wolverhampton perched among the boughs in preparation for some fairy housekeeping. There were jolly broad-faced little men much more agreeable in appearance than many real men and no wonder for their heads took off and showed them to be full of sugarplums. There were fiddels and drums. There were tambourines, books, work boxes, paint boxes, piep-show boxes en all kinds of boxes. There were trinkets for the elder girls far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels. There were baskets and pincushions in all devices. There were guns, swords and banners. There were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard to tell fortunes. There were teetotems, hummingtops, needlecases, penwipers, smelling bottles, conversation cards, bouquet holders. Real fruit made artificially dazzling with gold leaf. Imitation apples, peers and walnuts crammed with surprises. In short, as a pretty child before me delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, there was everything and more. This motley collection of odd objects clustering on the tree like magic fruit and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side. Some of the diamond eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts and nurses. Made a lively realisation of the fancies of childhood and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth have their wild adornments at that well remembered time. Being now at home again and alone the only person in the house awake, my thoughts are drawn back by a fascination which I do not care to resist to my own childhood. I begin to consider what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas tree of our own young Christmas days by which we climbed to real life. Straight in the middle of the room cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls or soon reached ceiling a shadowy tree arises and looking up into the dreamy brightness of its top for I observe in this tree the singular property that it appears to grow downward towards the earth. I look into my youngest Christmas recollections. All toys at first I find. Up yonder among the green holly and red berries is the tumbler with his hands in his pockets who wouldn't lie down but whenever he was put upon the floor persisted in rolling his fat body about until he rolled himself still and brought those lobs to eyes of his to bear upon me when I affected to laugh very much but in my heart of hearts was extremely doubtful of him. Close beside him is that infernal snuff box out of which there sprang a demoniacal counsellor and a black gown with an obnoxious head of hair and a red cloth mouth wide open who was not to be endured on any terms but could not be put away either for he used suddenly in a highly magnified state to fly out of the mammoth snuff boxes in dreams when least expected. Nor is the frog with cobbler's wax on his tail far off for there was no knowing where he wouldn't jump en when he flew over the candle and came upon one's hand with that spotted back red on a green ground he was horrible. The cardboard lady in a blue silk skirt who was stood up against the candlestick to dance and whom I see on the same branch was milder and was beautiful but I can't say as much for the larger cardboard man who used to be hung against the wall and pulled by a string there was a sinister expression in that nose of his and when he got his legs round his neck which he very often did he was ghastly and not a creature to be alone with when did that dreadful mask first look at me who put it on and why was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life it is not a hideous visage in itself it is even meant to be drol why then were its dollyd features so intolerable surely not because it hid the wearer's face an apron would have done as much and though I should have preferred even the apron away it would not have been absolutely insupportable like the mask was it the immovability of the mask the doll's face was immovable but I was not afraid of her perhaps that fixed and set change coming over a real face infused into my quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to come on every face and make it still nothing reconciled me to it no drummers from whom preceded a melancholy chirping on the turning of a handle no regiment of soldiers with a mute band taken out of a box and fitted one by one upon a stiff and lazy little set of lazy tongs no old woman made of wires and a brown paper composition cutting up a pie for two small children could give me a permanent comfort for a long time of was it any satisfaction to be shown the mask and see that it was made of paper or to have it locked up and be assured that no one wore it the mere recollection of that fixed face the mere knowledge of its existence anywhere was sufficient to awake me in the night all perspiration and horror with oh I know it's coming oh the mask I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers there he is, was made of then his hide was real to the touch I recollect and the great black horse with the round red spots all over him the horse that I could even get upon I never wondered what had brought him to that strange condition or thought that such a horse was not commonly seen at Newmarket the four horses of no colour next to him that went into the wagon of cheeses and could be taken out and stabled under the piano appear to have bits of fur tippet for their tails and other bits for their mains and to stand on pegs instead of legs but it was not so when they were brought home for a Christmas present they were all right then neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into their chests as appears to be the case now the tinkling works of the music cart I did find out to be made of quill toothpicks and wire and I always thought that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves perpetually swarming up one side of a wooden frame and coming down head foremost on the other rather a weak-minded person too good-natured but the Jacob's ladder next him made of little squares of red wood that went flapping and clattering over one another each developing a different picture and the hole en livened by small bells was a mighty marvel and a great delight the doll's house of which I was not proprietor but where I visited I don't admire the houses of parliament half so much as that stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows and doorsteps and a real balcony greener than I ever see now except at watering places and even they afford but a poor imitation and though it did open all at once the entire house front which was a blow I admit as cancelling the fiction of a staircase it was but to shut it up again and I could believe even open there were three distinct rooms in it a sitting room and bedroom elegantly furnished and best of all a kitchen with uncommonly soft fire irons a plentiful assortment of diminutive utensils all the warming pan and a tin man cooking profile who was always going to fry two fish what barmicide justice have I done to the noble feasts where in the set of wooden platters figured each with its own peculiar delicacy as a ham or turkey glued tied on to it and garnished with something green which I recollect as moss could all the temperance societies of these later days united give me such a tea drinking as I have had through the means of yonder little set of blue crockery which really would hold liquid it ran out of the small wooden cast I recollect and tasted of matches and which made tea nectar and if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugar tongs did tumble over one another and want purpose like punches hands what does it matter and if I did once shriek out as a poisoned child and strike the fashionable company with consternation by reason of having drunk a little teaspoon inadvertently dissolved in too hot tea I was never the worst for it except by a powder upon the next branches of the tree lower down hard by the green roller and miniature gardening tools how thick the books begin to hang thin books in themselves at first but many of them and with deliciously smooth covers of bright red or green what fat black letters to begin with A was an archer and shotter to frog of course he was he was an apple pie also and there he is was a good many things in his time was A and so were most of his friends except X who had so little versatility that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Zantipi like Y who was always confined to a yacht or a U-tree and Z condemned forever to be a zebra or a zany but now the very tree itself changes and becomes a beanstalk the marvellous beanstalk up which Jack climbed to the giant's house and now those dreadfully interesting double-headed giants with their clubs over their shoulders begin to stride along the boughs in a perfect throng dragging knights and ladies home for dinner by the hair of their heads and Jack how noble with his sword of sharpness and his shoes of swiftness again those old meditations come upon me as I gaze up at him and I debate within myself whether there was more than one Jack which I am loath to believe possible or only one genuine original admirable Jack who achieved all the recorded exploits Good for Christmas time is the ruddy colour of the cloak in which the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through with her basket Little Red Riding Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling wolf who ate her grandmother without making any impression on his appetite en then ate her after making that ferocious joke about his teeth she was my first love I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood I should have known perfect bliss but it was not to be and there was nothing for it but to look out the wolf in the Noah's Ark there and put him late in the procession on the table as a monster who was to be degraded Oh, the wonderful Noah's Ark it was not found sea worthy when put in a washing tub and the animals were crammed in at the roof and needed to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in even there and then ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door which was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch but what was that against it Consider the noble fly a size or two smaller than the elephant the ladybird, the butterfly all triumphs of art Consider the goose whose feet were so small and whose balance was so indifferent that he usually tumbled forward and knocked down all the animal creation Consider Noah and his family like idiotic tobacco stoppers and how the leopard stuck to warm little fingers and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string Hush, again a forest and somebody up in a tree not Robin Hood not Valentine not the yellow dwarf I have passed him and all mother bunches wonders without mention but an eastern king with a glittering cimeter and turban by Allah, two eastern kings for I see another looking over his shoulder down upon the grass at the tree's foot lies the full length of a cold black giant stretched asleep with his head in a lady's lap and near them is a glass box fastened with four locks of shining steel in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is awake I see the four keys at his girdle now the lady makes signs to the two kings in the tree who softly descend it is the setting in of the bright Arabian knights oh now all common things become uncommon en enchanted to me all lamps are wonderful all rings are talismans common flower pots are full of treasure with a little earth scattered on the top trees are for Ali Baba to hide in beefstakes are to throw down into the valley of diamonds that the precious stones may stick to them and be carried by the eagles to their nests the traders with loud cries will scare them tarts are made according to the recipe of the vizier's son of Basara who turned pastry cook after he was set down in his drawers at the gate of Damascus cobblers are all mustafas and in the habit of sewing up a people cut into four pieces to whom they are taken blindfold any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave which only waits for the magician and the little fire and the necromancy that will make the earth shake all the dates imported come from the same tree as that unlucky date with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the genie's invisible son all olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit concerning which the commander of the faithful overheard the boy conduct the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive merchant all apples are akin to the apple purchased with two others from the sultan's gardener for three sequins and which the tall black slave stole from the child all dogs are associated with the dog really a transformed man who jumped upon the baker's counter and put his paw on the piece of bad money all rice recalls the rice which the awful lady who was a ghoul could only peck by grains because of her nightly feasts in the burial place my very rocking horse there he is with his nostrils turned completely inside out indicative of blood should have a peg in his neck by virtue thereof to fly away with me as the wooden horse did with the prince of Persia in the sight of all his father's court yes on every object that I recognize among those upper branches of my Christmas tree I see this fairy light when I wake in bed at daybreak on the cold dark winter mornings the white snow dimly beheld outside through the frost on the window pane I hear dinazade sister, sister, if you are yet awake I pray you've finished the history of the young king of the black islands Scheherazade replies if my lord the sultan will suffer me to live another day sister I will not only finish that but tell you a more wonderful story yet then the gracious sultan goes out giving no orders for the execution and we all three breathe again at this height of my tree I begin to see cowering among the leaves it may be born of turkey or of pudding or mince pie or of these many fancies jumbled with Robinson Crusoe on his desert island Philip Quall among the monkeys Sandford and Merton with Mr Barlow Mother Bunch and the Mask or it may be the result of indigestion assisted by imagination and overdoctoring a prodigious nightmare it is so exceedingly indistinct that I don't know why it's frightful but I know it is I can only make out that it is an immense array of shapeless things which appear to be planted on a vast exaggeration of the lazy tongs that used to bear the toy soldiers and to be slowly coming close to my eyes and receding to an immeasurable distance when it comes closest it is worse in connection with it I describe remembrances of winter nights incredibly long of being sent early to bed as a punishment for some small offence and waking in two hours with a sensation of having been asleep two nights of the laden hopelessness of mourning ever dawning in the oppression of a weight of remorse and now I see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the ground before a vast green curtain now a bell rings a magic bell which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells and music plays amidst a buzz of voices a pleasant smell of orange peel and oil and on the magic bell commands the music to cease and the great green curtain rolls itself up majestically and the play begins the devoted dog of Montages avenges the death of his master foully murdered in the forest of Bondi and a humorous peasant with a red nose and a very little hat from this hour forth to my bosom as a friend I think he was a waiter or an Osler at a village inn but many years have passed since he and I have met remarks that the sassigacity of that dog is indeed surprising and evermore this jocular conceit will live in my remembrance fresh and unfading overtopping all possible jokes unto the end of time or now I learn with bitter tears how poor Jane Shaw dressed all in white and with her brown hair hanging down went starving through the streets or how George Barnwell killed the worthiest uncle that ever man had and was afterwards so sorry for it that he ought to have been let off come swift to comfort me the pantomime stupendous phenomenon when clowns are shot from loaded mortars into the great chandelier bright constellation that it is when harlequins covered all over with scales of pure gold twist and sparkle like amazing fish when pantaloon whom I deem it no irreverence to compare in my own mind to my grandfather puts red hot pokers in his pocket and cries here somebody coming or taxes the clown with petty larceny by saying now I sawed you do it when everything is capable with the greatest ease of being changed into anything and nothing is but thinking makes it so now too I perceive my first experience of the dreary sensation often to return in afterlife of being unable next day to get back to the dull settled world of wanting to live forever in the bright atmosphere I have quitted of doting on the little fairy with the wand like a celestial barber's pole and pining for a fairy immortality along with her she comes back in many shapes as my eye wanders down the branches of my Christmas tree and goes as often as never yet stayed by me out of this delight springs the toy theatre there it is with its familiar proscenium and ladies in feathers in the boxes and all its attendant occupation with paste and glue and gum and watercolours in the getting up of the miller and his men and Elizabeth or the exile of Siberia in spite of a few resetting accidents and failures particularly an unreasonable disposition in the respectable Kelmar and some others to become faint in the legs and double up at exciting points of the drama a teaming world of fancies so suggestive and all embracing that far below it on my Christmas tree I see dark dirty real theatres in the daytime adorned with these associations as with the freshest garlands of the rarest flowers and charming me yet but hark the weights are playing and they break my childish sleep what images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree known before all the others keeping far apart from all the others they gather round my little bed an angel speaking to a group of shepherds in a field some travellers with eyes uplifted following a star a baby in a manger a child in a spacious temple talking with grave men a solemn figure with a mild and beautiful face raising a dead girl by the hand again near a city gate calling back the son of a widow on his beer to life a crowd of people looking through the open roof of a chamber where he sits and letting down a sick person on a bed with ropes the same in a tempest walking on the water to a ship again on a seashore teaching a great multitude again with a child upon his knee and other children round again restoring sight to the blind speech to the dumb hearing to the deaf health to the sick strength to the lame knowledge to the ignorant again dying upon a cross watched by armed soldiers a thick darkness coming on the earth beginning to shake and only one voice heard forgive them they know not what they do still on the lower and mature branches of the tree Christmas associations cluster thick schoolbooks shut up Ovid and Virgil silenced the rule of three with its cool impertinent inquiries long disposed of Terence and Plautus acted no more in an arena of huddled desks and forms gipte en nocht en inkte cricket bats stumps en balls leidt higher up met de smell of trodden gras en de softend nois of shouts in the evening air the tree is still fresh, still gay if I know more come a home at Christmas time there will be boys and girls thank heaven while the world lasts and they do yonder they dance and play upon the branches of my tree God bless them merrily and my heart dances and plays too and I do come home at Christmas we all do or we all should we all come home or ought to come home for a short holiday the longer the better from the great boarding school where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates to take and give a rest as to going a visiting where can we not go if we will where have we not been when we would starting our fancy from our Christmas tree away into the winter prospect there are many such upon the tree on by low lying misty grounds through fends and fogs up long hills winding dark as cabins between thick plantations almost shutting up the sparkling stars so out on broad heights until we stop at last with sudden silence at an avenue the gate bell has a deep half awful sound in the frosty air the gate swings open on its hinges and as we drive up to a great house the glancing lights grow larger in the windows and the opposing rows of trees seem to fall solemnly back on either side to give us place at intervals all day a frightened hare has shot across this whiteened turf or the distant clatter of a herd of deer trampling the hard frost has for the minute crushed the silence too their watchful eyes beneath the fern is shining now if we could see them like the icy dew drops on the leaves but they are still and all is still and so the lights growing larger and the trees falling back before us and closing up again behind us as if to forbid retreat we come to the house there is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts en other good comfortable things all the time for we are telling winter stories ghost stories or more shame for us round the Christmas fire and we have never stirred except to draw a little nearer to it but no matter for that we came to the house and it is an old house full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth and grim portraits some of them with grim legends too lower distrustfully from the open panels of the walls we are a middle aged nobleman and we make a generous supper with our host and hostess and their guests it's being Christmas time and the old house full of company and then we go to bed our room is a very old room it is hung with tapestry we don't like the portrait of a cavalier in green over the fireplace there are great black beams in the ceiling and there is a great black bedstead supported at the foot by two great black figures who seem to have come off a couple of tomes in the old baronial church in the park for our particular accommodation but we are not a superstitious nobleman and we don't mind we dismiss our servant, lock the door and sit before the fire in our dressing-gown musing about a great many things at length we go to bed well, we can't sleep we toss and tumble and can't sleep the embers on the hearth burn fitfully and make the room look ghostly we can't help peeping out over the counterpane at the two black figures and the cavalier that wicked looking cavalier in green in the flickering light they seem to advance and retire which, though we are not by any means a superstitious nobleman is not agreeable well, we get nervous more and more nervous we say, this is very foolish but we can't stand this we'll pretend to be ill and knock up somebody well, we're just going to do it when the locked door opens and there comes in a young woman deadly pale and with long, fair hair who glides to the fire and sits down in the chair we have left there ringing her hands then we notice that her clothes are wet our tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth and we can't speak but we observe her accurately her clothes are wet her long hair is dabbled with moist mud she is dressed in the fashion of 200 years ago and she has at her girdle a bunch of rusty keys well, there she sits and we can't even faint we're in such a state about it presently she gets up and tries all the locks in the room with the rusty keys which won't fit one of them then she fixes her eyes on the portrait of the cavalier in green and says in a low, terrible voice the stags know it after that, she rings her hands again passes the bedside and goes out at the door we hurry on our dressing gown seize our pistols we always travel with pistols and are following when we find the door locked we turn the key look out into the dark gallery no one there we wander away and try to find our servant we kan't be done we pace the gallery till daybreak then return to our deserted room fall asleep and are awakened by our servant nothing ever haunts him and the shining sun well, we make a wretched breakfast and all the company say we look queer after breakfast we go over the house with our host and then we take him to the portrait of the cavalier in green and then it all comes out he was false to a young housekeeper once attacked to that family and famous for her beauty who drowned herself in a pond and whose body was discovered after a long time because the stags refused to drink of the water since which it has been whispered that she traverses the house at midnight but goes especially to that room where the cavalier in green was wont to sleep trying the old locks with the rusty keys well, we tell our host of what we had seen and a shade comes over his features and he begs it may be hushed up and so it is but it's all true and we said so before we died we are dead now to many responsible people there is no end to the old houses with resounding galleries and dismal state bed chambers and haunted wings shut up for many years through which we may ramble with an agreeable creeping up our back and encounter any number of ghosts but it is worthy of remark perhaps reducible to a very few general types and classes for ghosts have little originality and walk in a beaten track thus it comes to pass that a certain room in a certain old hall where a certain bad lord, baronet, knight or gentleman shot himself has certain planks in the floor from which the blood will not be taken out you may scrape and scrape as the present owner has done of grandfather did or burn and burn with strong acids as his great grandfather did but there the blood will still be no redder and no paler no more and no less always just the same thus in such another house there is a haunted door that never will keep open or another door that never will keep shut or a haunted sound of a spinning wheel or a hammer or a footstep or a cry or a sigh or a horse's tramp or the rattling of a chain or else there is a turret clock which at the midnight hour strikes 13 when the head of the family is going to die or a shadowy immovable black carriage which at such a time is always seen by somebody waiting near the great gates in the stable yard or thus it came to pass how Lady Mary went to pay a visit at a large wild house in the Scottish Highlands and being fatigued with her long journey retired to bed early en innocently said next morning at the breakfast table how odd to have so late a party last night in this remote place and not to tell me of it before I went to bed then everyone asked Lady Mary what she meant then Lady Mary replied why all night long the carriages were driving round and round the terrace underneath my window then the owner of the house turned pale en so did his lady and Charles McDoodle of McDoodle signed to Lady Mary to say no more and everyone was silent after breakfast Charles McDoodle told Lady Mary that it was a tradition in the family that those rumbling carriages on the terrace betoken to death and so it proved for two months afterwards the lady of the mansion died en Lady Mary, who was a maid of honour at court often told this story to the old Queen Charlotte by this token that the old king always said hey, hey, what, what ghosts, ghosts, no such thing no such thing and never left off saying so until he went to bed or a friend of somebody's whom most of us know he was a young man at college had a particular friend with whom he made the compact that if it were possible for the spirit to return to this earth after its separation from the body he of the twain who first died should reappear to the other in course of time this compact was forgotten by our friend the two young men having progressed in life en taken diverging paths that were wide asunder but one night many years afterwards our friend being in the north of England and staying for the night in an inn on the Yorkshire Moors happened to look out of bed and there in the moonlight leaning on a bureau near the window steadfastly regarding him saw his old college friend the appearance being solemnly addressed replied in a kind of whisper but very audibly do not come near me I am dead I am here to redeem my promise I come from another world but may not disclose its secrets then the whole form becoming paler melted as it were into the moonlight en faded away of there was the daughter of the first occupier of the picturesque Elizabethan house so famous in our neighbourhood you have heard about her? no? why she went out one summer evening at twilight when she was a beautiful girl just 17 years of age to gather flowers in the garden and presently came running terrified into the hall to her father saying oh dear father I have met myself he took her in his arms and told her it was fancy but she said oh no I met myself in the broad walk and I was pale and gathering withered flowers and I turned my head and held them up and that night she died and a picture of her story was begun though never finished and they say it is somewhere in the house to this day with its face to the wall or the uncle of my brother's wife was riding home on horseback one mellow evening at sunset when in a green lane close to his own house he saw a man standing before him in the very centre of a narrow way why does that man in the cloak stand there? he thought does he want me to ride over him? but the figure never moved he felt a strange sensation seeing it so still but slackened his trot and rode forward when he was so close to it as almost to touch it with his syrup his horse shied and the figure glided up the bank in a curious unearthly manner backward and without seeming to use its feet and was gone the uncle of my brother's wife exclaiming good heaven it's my cousin Harry from Bombay put spurs to his horse which was suddenly in a profuse sweat and wondering at such strange behaviour dashed round to the front of his house there he saw the same figure just passing in at the long French window of the drawing room opening on the ground he threw his bridle to a servant and hastened in after it his sister was sitting there alone Alice, where's my cousin Harry? your cousin Harry, John? yes, from Bombay I met him in the lane just now and saw him enter here this instant not a creature had been seen by anyone and in that hour and minute as it afterwards appeared this cousin died in India or it was a certain sensible old maiden lady who died at 99 and retained her faculties to the last who really did see the orphan boy a story which has often been incorrectly told but of which the real truth is this because it is in fact a story belonging to our family and she was a connection of our family when she was about 40 years of age and still an uncommonly fine woman her lover died young which was the reason why she never married though she had many offers she went to stay at a place in Kent which her brother, an Indian merchant, had newly bought there was a story that this place had once been held in trust by the guardian of a young boy who was himself the next heir and who killed the young boy by harsh and cruel treatment she knew nothing of that it has been said that there was a cage in her bedroom in which the guardian used to put the boy there was no such thing there was only a closet she went to bed made no alarm whatever in the night en in the morning said composedly to her maid when she came in who is the pretty for lawn looking child who has been peeping out of that closet all night the maid replied by giving a loud scream and instantly decamping she was surprised but she was a woman of remarkable strength of mind and she dressed herself and went downstairs and closeted herself with her brother now Walter she said I have been disturbed all night by a pretty for lawn looking boy who has been constantly peeping out of that closet in my room which I can't open this is some trick I am afraid not Charlotte said he for it is the legend of the house it is the orphan boy what did he do he opened the door softly she said and peeked out sometimes he came a step or two into the room then I called to him to encourage him and he shrunk and shuddered and crept in again and shut the door the closet has no communication Charlotte said her brother with any other part of the house and it's nailed up this was undeniably true and it took two carpent as a whole fornoon to get it open for examination then she was satisfied that she had seen the orphan boy but the wild and terrible part of the story is that he was also seen by three of her brother's sons in succession who all died young on the occasion of each child being taken ill he came home in a heat twelve hours before en said oh mama, he had been playing under a particular oak tree in a certain meadow with a strange boy a pretty forlorn looking boy who was very timid and made signs from fatal experience the parents came to know that this was the orphan boy and that the course of that child whom he chose for his little playmate was surely run Legion is the name of the German castles where we sit up alone to wait for the spectre where we are shown into a room made comparatively cheerful for our reception where we glance round at the shadows thrown on the blank walls by the crackling fire where we feel very lonely when the village innkeeper and his pretty daughter have retired after laying down a fresh store of wood upon the hearth and setting forth on the small table such supper cheer as a cold roast capon bread, grapes and a flask of old rind wine where the reverberating doors close on their retreat one after another like so many peels of sullen thunder and where about the small hours of the night we come into the knowledge of divers supernatural mysteries Legion is the name of the haunted German students in whose society we draw yet nearer to the fire while the schoolboy in the corner opens his eyes wide and round and flies off the footstool he has chosen for his seat when the door accidentally blows open vast is the crop of such fruit shining on our Christmas tree in blossom almost at the very top ripening all down the boughs among the later toys and fancies hanging there as idle often and less pure be the images once associated with the sweet old weights the softened music in the night ever unalterable encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged in every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings may the bright star that rested above the poor roof be the star of all the Christian world a moment's pause o' vanishing tree of which the lower boughs are dark to me as yet and let me look once more I know there are blank spaces on my branches where eyes that I have loved have shone and smiled from which they are departed but far above I see the razor of the dead girl and the widow's son and God is good if age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growths oh may I with a grey head turn a child's heart to that figure yet and a child's trustfulness and confidence now the tree is decorated with bright merriment and song and dance and cheerfulness and they are welcome innocent and welcome be they ever held beneath the branches of the Christmas tree which cast no gloomy shadow but as it sinks into the ground I hear a whisper going through the leaves this in commemoration of the law of love and kindness mercy and compassion this in remembrance of me End of a Christmas tree by Charles Dickens Recording by Ruth Golding Christmas 2008 Christmas is a coming by Paul Lawrence Dunbar Red in English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Born to get an egg, get back a feeling cold Hands are growing shaky just like I was old Frost upon the mirror to look mighty white Snow draped like a feather, slipped him down at night Just keep things at home in spite of frost and chores Christmas is a coming and all the week is ours Little master Axon, who is Sani Claus Mexican attacks not to break the laws Children's powerful, trying to oppose them's grace When do you go up high and right on the road to your face Down among your feelings Just pairs like that you Gotta change your dealings So tell them truth Am I picking any dreaming in the sleep Come beyond Mama Ginny, come and take a peep Oh my sbaba, missus in the house up there Got no child like this They ain't not anywhere Sleep my little limey, sleep you little limb He don't know what mama, don't say it up for him They'll be buying your picking, dancing all night long There'll be lots of chicken, plenty toky too Dreams to wet you whistle, suits to dry our chills Would I care for drizzles falling on the hills Just keep things at home in Spijt a call and show us Christmas days are coming And all the week is ours End of Christmas is a coming By Paul Lauren Stunbar Read by Joseph Finkberg Christmas 1873 By George Macdonald Read in English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Christmas days are still in store Will they change, still faded hither Will come fresh as year 24 Summaring all our winter weather Surely they will keep their bloom All the countless spacing ages In the country once they come Children only are the sages Hither every hour and year Children come to cure our oldness Oft alas to gather seer Unbelief in earthy boldness When they grow and women cold Selfish, passionate and plaining Ever faster they grow old On the world our health is gaining Child whose childhood ne'er departs Jesus with the perfect Father Drive the age from parents' hearts To thy heart the children gather Send thy birth into our souls With its grand and tender story Hark the gracious thunder rolls News to men to God-old glory End of Christmas 1873 By George Macdonald A Christmas Carol By William Topas McGonigal Read in English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Visit LibriVox.org Let Christ their Saviour was born The snow was on the ground When Christ was born And the Virgin Mary His mother fell very fallen As she lay in a horse's stall At her roadside inn Till Christ our Saviour Was born to free us from sin Oh, think of the Virgin Mary As she lay in a lowly stable On her bed of hay An angel's watching oor her Till Christ was born For all the people should respect Christmas morn The way to respect Christmas time Is not by a drinking whiskey or wine But to sing praises to God On Christmas morn The time that Jesus Christ His Son was born Whom he sent into the world To save sinners from hell And by believing in him In heaven we'll dwell Then bless be the morn Of death and scorn Then he warned And respect the Saviour dear And treat with less respect The new year And respect always the blessed morn That Christ our Saviour was born For each new morn To the Christian is dear As well as the morn Of the new year And he thanks God For the light of each new morn Especially the morn That Christ was born Goed people be warned in time And on Christmas morn don't Get drunk with wine But praise God above On Christmas morn Who sent his Son to save us from hell And scorn There, the heavenly babe He lay in a stall among a lot of hay While the angel host by Betheldehem Sang a beautiful and heavenly anathem Christmas time ought to be held Most dear, much more so Than the new year Because that's the time That Christ was born Therefore respect Christmas Morn And let the rich be kind To the poor And think of the hardships They do endure Who are neither clothed Nor fed And many Without a blanket to their bed End of a Christmas Carol By William Topas McGonigal Read by Joseph Finkberg Christmas Eve on Lonesome By John Fox Jr. This is a Librevox recording All Librevox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Librevox.org Recording by Linda McDaniel Christmas Eve on Lonesome By John Fox Jr. It was Christmas Eve on Lonesome But nobody on Lonesome knew it was Christmas Eve Although a child of the outer world could have guessed it Even out in those wilds Where Lonesome slipped from one lone log cabin High up in the steeps Down through a stretch of jungle darkness To another lone cabin At the mouth of the stream There was the holy hush in the grey twilight That comes only on Christmas Eve There were the big flakes of snow That fell as they never fall Except on Christmas Eve There was a snowy man on horseback Toilet, en with saddle pockets That might have been bursting with toys for children In the little cabin at the head of the stream But not even he knew it was Christmas Eve He was thinking of Christmas Eve But it was of the Christmas Eve of the year before When he sat in prison with a hundred other men in stripes And listened to the chaplain talk of peace And goodwill to all men upon earth When he had forgotten all men upon earth but one And had only hatred in his heart for him Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord That was what the chaplain had thundered at him And then, as now, he thought of the enemy Who had betrayed him to the law And had sworn away his liberty And had robbed him of everything in life Except of fierce longing For the day when he could strike back And strike to kill And then, while he looked back hard Into the chaplain's eyes And now, while he splashed through the yellow mud Of Christmas Eve, Buck shook his head And then, as now, his sullen heart answered MINE The big flakes drifted to crotch and twig and limb They gathered on the brim of Buck's slouch hat Filled out the wrinkles of his big coat Whitened his hair and his long mustache And sifted into the yellow twisting path That guided his horse's feet High above he could see through the whirling snow A gleem of a red star He knew it was the light from his enemy's window But somehow the chaplain's voice kept ringing in his ears And every time he saw the light He couldn't help thinking of the story of the star That the chaplain had told that Christmas Eve And he dropped his eyes by and by So as not to see it again And rode on until the light shone in his face Then he led his horse up a little ravine And hitched it among the snowy holly En rode dendrens en slipped toward the light There was a dog somewhere, of course And like a thief he climbed over the low rail fence And stole through the tall snow-wet grass Until he leaned against an apple tree With the sill of the window Two feet above the level of his eyes Reaching above him he caught a stout limb And dragged himself up to a crotch of the tree A massive snow slipped softly to the earth The branch creaked above the light wind Around the corner of the house A dog growled, and he sat still He had waited three long years And he had ridden two hard nights And laying out two cold days In the woods for this And presently he reached out very carefully And noiselessly broke leaf and branch and twig Until a passage was cleared for his eye And for the point of the pistol That was gripped in his right hand A woman was just disappearing through the kitchen door En he peered cautiously and saw nothing but darting shadows From one corner a shadow loomed suddenly out in human shape Buck saw the shadow gesture of an arm And he cocked his pistol That shadow was his man And in a moment he would be in a chair In the chimney corner to smoke his pipe maybe His last pipe Buck's smile, pure hatred, made him smile But it was mean, a mean and sorry thing To shoot this man in the back Dog, though he was And now that the moment had come A wave of sickening shame ran through Buck No one of his name had ever done that before But this man and his people had And with their own lips They had framed polliation for him What was fair for one was fair for the other They always said A poor man couldn't fight money in the courts And so they had shot from the brush And that was why they were rich now And Buck was poor Why his enemy was safe at home And he was out here homeless In the apple tree Buck thought of all this but it was no use The shadow slouched suddenly and disappeared And Buck was glad With a gritting oath between his chattering teeth He pulled his pistol in And thrust one leg down To swing from the tree He would meet him face to face next day And kill him like a man And there he hung as rigid He turned him blood, bones and marrow into ice The door had opened And full in the firelight Stood the girl he had heard was dead He knew now how and why that word was sent him And now she who had been his sweetheart Stood before him the wife of the man he meant to kill Her lips moved He thought he could tell what she said Get up Jim get up Then she went back A flame flared up within him Now that must have come straight from the devil's forge Again the shadows played over the ceiling His teeth grated as he cocked his pistol And pointed it down the beam of light That shot into the heart of the apple tree And waited The shadow of a head shot along the rafters And over the fireplace It was a madman clutching the butt of the pistol now And as his eye caught the glinting sight And his heart thumped There stepped into the square light of the window A child It was a boy with yellow tumbled hair And he had a puppy in his arms In front of the fire the little fellow Dropped the dog and they began to play Yap yap yap Buck could hear the shrill barking of the fat little dog And the joyous shrieks of the child As he made his playfellow chase his tail around and around Or tumbled him head over heels on the floor It was the first child Buck had seen for three years It was his child and hers And in the apple tree Buck watched fixedly They were down on the floor now Rolling over and over together And he watched them until the child grew tired And turned his face to the fire And lay still looking into it Buck could see his eyes closed presently And then the puppy crept closer Put his head on his playmate's chest And the two laid thus asleep And still Buck looked His clasp loosening on his pistol And his lips loosening under his stiff mustache And kept looking until the door opened again And the woman crossed the floor A flood of light flashed suddenly on the snow Barely touching the snow-hung tips of the apple tree And he saw her in the doorway Saw her look anxiously into the darkness Look and listen a long while Buck dropped noiselessly to the snow When she closed the door He wondered what they would think when they saw his tracks In the snow next morning And then he realized they would be covered before morning As he started up the ravine where his horse was He heard the clink of metal down the road And the splash of a horse's hoofs in the soft mud And he sank down behind a holly bush Again the light from the cabin flashed out on the snow That you Jim? Yep And then the child's voice Asu dat thumbtandi? Yep The cheery answer rang out almost at Buck's ear Jim past death waiting for him behind the bush Which is left foot brushed Shaking the snow from the red berries Down on the crouching figure beneath Once only far down the dark jungle way With the underlying streak of yellow That was leading him wither God only knew Once only Buck looked back There was the red light gleaming faintly Through the moonlit flakes of snow Once more he thought of the star And once more the chaplain's voice came back to him And the wind said the Lord Just how Buck could not see With himself in the snow And him back there for life with her and the child But some strange impulse made him bear his head Yorn said Buck grimly But nobody on Lonesome, not even Buck Knew that it was Christmas Eve End of Christmas Eve on Lonesome By John Fox Jr. Recording by Linda McDaniel Atlanta, Georgia December 2008 The Coventry Carol A 16th century Christmas Carol Orser and composer unknown This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rose Golding Christmas 2008 Lule, thou little tiny child Bye bye little tiny child Bye bye End of The Coventry Carol In the bleak midwinter is a Christmas Carol The Christmas poem was written by Christina Rossetti And later published in the 1906 English hymnal With a setting by Gustave Holst This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org This Carol will be sung in English And recorded by Carol Stripling Week midwinter by Rossetti and Holst Gospel according to St Luke Chapter 2 verses 1-20 In the translation made by William Tyndall First printed in 1526 In English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org And it chanced in those days That there went out a commandment From August to the Emperor That all the world should be taxed And this taxing was the first And executed when Cyrenius was left tenant in Syria En every man went under his own city to be taxed And Joseph also ascended from Galilee Out of a city called Nazareth into Jewry Under the city of David, which is called Bethlehem Because he was at the house and lineage of David To be taxed with Mary, his spoused wife Which was with child And it fortunate, while they were there Her time has come that she should be delivered En she brought forth her first begotten son And wrapped him in swaddling clothes And laid him in a manger Because there was no room for them within the inn And they were in the same region Jepards abiding in the field Watching their flock by night And lo, the angel of the Lord stood hard by there And the brightness of the Lord shone round about them And they were sore afraid But the angel said unto them Be not afraid For behold, I bring you tidings of great joy That shall come to all the people For unto you is born this day in the city of David A saviour which is Christ the Lord And take this for a sign You shall find the child swaddled And laid in a manger In straight way there was with the angel A multitude of heavenly soldiers Lording God and saying Glory to God on high And peace on the earth And it fortunate As soon as the angels were gone away from them Into heaven The shepherd said to one another Let us go even unto Bethlehem And see this thing that is happened Which the Lord hath showed unto us And they came with haste And found Mary and Joseph And the babe laid in a manger And when they had seen it They published abroad the saying Which was told them of that child And all that heard it Was things which were told of the shepherds But Mary kept all those sayings And pondered them in her heart And the shepherds returned praising And Lording God For all that they had heard and seen Even as it was told unto them End of the Gospel according to St. Luke Chapter 2, Verses 1-20 Poor Santa Claus By Jude Mortimer Lewis Read in English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org I've always had a notion I wished I was Santa Claus I have always had a notion I would like to be Because It would be such fun Going down the chimneys all around Tiptoeing into bedrooms Stopping at each little sound With my ears pricked up to listen For the little fellow's tread Peeking out between the curtains Peeking into each weebed Harking to the talk of daytimes Of each eager little tyke And then Christmas Fetching to them all the pretty things they like I have always had a notion I would like to get his mail And read every little letter Till the stars got dim and pale Every morning I imagine he gets just the quaintest pile Of wee notes that it's no wonder That he always wears a smile But I've also got a notion Just a sort of faint surmise I can see a little sorrow Way back in his laughing eyes And it's that there look or sorrow Gets me feeling glad because I'm only me And do not have to be Santa Claus I'm a fool For when the presents had been scattered everywhere And been clasped to breasts of babies With night's tangles in their hair When twas the day after Christmas The morn after Christmas morn With the glad girls with their dollies With the boys each with a horn With the sun shining brightly on With glorious New Year's Day Seeming to wait for us laughing Only just a week away I would turn from it a scion Put my empty knapsack by And wish I could take my smile off And go off somewhere and cry Cry for letters all unanswered Cry for stockings all unfilled For child voices raised in hoping Now in disappointment still I should want to go off somewhere By my lonesome just to grieve For the little bits of stockings Hanging empty Christmas eve That would hang empty and cheerless By the cold great in the morn When with joy the world was drinking And the Christmas day was born I would feel bad for the babies With their little cheeks tear wet Standing, grieving, Christmas mornin Thinking Santa could forget I am glad that I'm not Santa Glad that I don't have to be There won't be no little babies Christmas morning blame in me Cos their little baby stockings Were all empty in the light of the morning That were hung up filled with hoping Overnight I can feel bad And be grieving all of Christmas day Because of the disappointed babies Without being Santa Claus And if I was him I reckon I could never play the part For the thought of them I couldn't ever reach Would break my heart End of poor Santa Claus By Jude Mortimer Lewis Read by Joseph Finkberg Reginald on Christmas presents By H.H. Munroe Read in English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or for volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org I wish to be distinctly understood Said Reginald That I don't want a George Prince of Wales prayer book As a Christmas present The fact cannot be too widely known There ought, he continued To be technical education classes On the science of present giving No one seems to have the faintest notion Of what anyone else wants And the prevalent ideas on the subject Are not creditable to a civilised community There is, for instance The female relative in the country Who knows a tie is always useful And sends you some spotted horror That you could only wear in secret Or in Tottenham Court Road It might have been useful Had she kept it to tie up Current bushes with And it would have served the double purpose Of supporting the branches And frightening away the birds For it is an admitted fact That the ordinary tomtate of commerce Is in de average female relative In the country Then there are aunts They are always a difficult class To deal with in the matter of presence The trouble is that one never Catches them really young enough By the time one has educated them To an appreciation of the fact That one does not wear red woolen mittens In the West End They die or quarrel with the family Or do something equally inconsiderate That is why the supply of trained aunts Is always so precarious There is my aunt Agatha Parak sampler Who sent me a pair of gloves last Christmas And even got so far As to choose a kind that was being worn And had the correct number of buttons But they were nines I sent them to a boy whom I hated intimately He didn't wear them of course But he could have That was where the bitterness of death came in It was nearly as consoling As sending white flowers to his funeral Of course I wrote and told my aunt That they were the one thing That had been wanting To make existence blossom like a rose I'm afraid she thought to me frivolous She comes from the north Where they live in the fear of heaven In the Earl of Durham Original affects an exhaustive knowledge Of things political Which furnishes an excellent excuse For not discussing them Aunts with a dash of foreign extraction In them are the most satisfactory In the way of understanding these things But if you can't choose your aunt It is wisest in the long run To choose the present and send her the bill Even friends of one's own set Who might be expected to know better Have curious delusions on the subject I am not collecting copies Of the cheaper editions of Omar Kayam I gave the last four that I received To the Lyft Boy And I like to think of him reading them With Fitzgerald's notes to his aged mother Lyft boys always have aged mothers Show such nice feeling on their part I think Personally, I can't see Where the difficulty in choosing suitable presents lies No boy who has brought himself up properly Could fail to appreciate one of those Decorative bottles of liqueurs That are so reverently staged In Morel's window And it wouldn't in the least matter Of one did get duplicates And there would always be The supreme moment of dreadful uncertainty Whether it was Crem de Mont or Châtreur Like the expectant thrill On seeing your partner's hand turned up At the bridge People may say what they like About the decay of Christianity The religious system that produced Green Châtreur Can never really die And then of course There are liqueur glasses And crystallized fruits And tapestry curtains And heaps of other necessaries of life That make really sensible presents Not to speak of luxuries Such as having one's bills paid Or getting something quite sweet In the way of dual way Unlike the alleged good woman Of the Bible I'm not above rubies When found by the way she Must have been rather a problem At Christmas time Nothing short of a blank check Would have fitted the situation Perhaps it's as well that she's died out The great charm about me Concluded, Reginald Is that I am so easily pleased But I draw the line At a Prince of Wales prayer book End of Reginald on Christmas presents By H.H. Munro An extract from Sermon and the Nativity Preached upon Christmas Day 1622 By Lancelot Andrews Red in English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org It is not commended to stand Gazing up to heaven too long Not on Christ himself ascending Much less on his star For they sat not still Gazing on the star Their widimus begat whenimus Their seeing made them come Come a great journey Inimus is soon said But a short word But many a wide and weary step They made before they could come to say Or animus Lo, here, we are come Come and at our journey's end To look a little on it In this they're coming we consider first The distance of the place they came from It was not hard by As the shepherds But a step to Bethlehem over the fields In many a hundred miles And cost them many a day's journey Secondly, we consider the way that they came If it be pleasant or plain and easy For if it be, this is so much the better This was nothing pleasant For through deserts all the way Waste and desolate Nor secondly easy neither For over the rocks and crags Of both the rabias Especially Petra, their journey lay Yet if safe, but it was not Exceeding dangerous As lying through the minst of the black Tents of Qida A nation of thieves and cutthroats To pass over the heels of robbers Infamous then and infamous to this day No passing without great troop or convoy Last we consider the time of their coming The season of the year It was no summer progress Of cold coming they had of it At this time of the year Just the worst time of the year To take a journey Especially a long journey The way is deep The weather is sharp The day is short The sun farthest off In Solstitio Brumali The very dead of winter Whenimus, we are calm If that be one, whenimus We are now calm Come at this time That sure is another And these difficulties they ever came Of a wearisome, irksome, troublesome Dangerous and seasonable journey En for all this they came And came it cheerfully and quickly As appeared by the speed they made It was but whenimus, whenimus with them They saw and they came No sooner saw, but they set out presently So as upon the first appearing of the star As it might be last night Then yet was Balaam's star It called them away They made ready straight to begin their journey this morning A sign they were highly conceited of his birth Believed some great matter of it That they took all these pains Made on this haste That they might be there to worship him With all the possible speed they could Sorry for nothing so much as that They could not be there soon enough With the very first To do it even this day A day of his birth All considered there is more in whenimus And shows it the first sight It was not for nothing it was said In the first verse Eke Wennerunt The coming half an Eke on it It well deserves it End of extract from Sermon of the Nativity By Lancelot Andrews This recording is in the public domain The boy with the box By Mary Griggs Van Voorhees Read in English This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings Are in the public domain For more information Or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org It was an ideal Christmas day The sun shone brightly But the air was crisp and cold And snow and ice lay sparkling everywhere A light wind the night before Had swept the blue ice bound river clean Of scattering snow And by two o'clock in the afternoon The broad bend near Creighton's Mill Was fairly alive with skaters The girls in gay caps and scarves The boys in sweaters And machina's of every conceivable hue With here and there a plump matronly figure In a plush coat Or a tiny fellow in scarlet Made a picture of life And brilliancy worthy of an artist's finest skill Tom Reynolds moved in and out Among the happy throng With swift easy strokes His cap on the back of his curly head And his brown eyes shining with excitement Now and again He glanced down with pardonable pride At the brand new skates That twinkled beneath his feet Jolly ramblers Sure enough jolly ramblers they were Ever since Ralph Evans had remarked With a tantalizing toss of his handsome head That no game fellow would try to skate On anything but jolly ramblers Tom had yearned with an inexpressible longing For a pair of these wonderful skates And now they were his And the ice was fine And the Christmas sun was shining Tom was rounding the big bend For the 50th time When he saw skimming gracefully Toward him through the merry crowd A tall boy in a fur-trimmed coat Is handsome head proudly erect That's Ralph Evans now Said Tom to himself Just wait till you see these skates, old boy And maybe you won't feel so smart And with slow, cautious strokes He made his way through laughing boys and girls To a place just in front Of the tall skater coming toward him Down the broad, white way When Ralph was almost upon him Tom paused En in conspicuous silence Looked down at his shining skates Hello, said Ralph, good-naturedly Seizing Tom's arm and swinging around Then, taking in the situation With a careless glance, he added Get a new pair of skates for Christmas Jolly ramblers, said Tom impressively The best jolly ramblers on the market Ralph was a full half-head the taller But as Tom delivered himself Of this speech with his head held high He felt every inch as tall As the boy before him If Ralph was deeply impressed He failed to show it As he answered carelessly Ha, that's so Pretty good little skates they are The jolly ramblers You said no gamefellow Would use any other make Said Tom hotly Oh, bet that was nearly a year ago Said Ralph I got a new pair of skates for Christmas too He added, as if it had just occurred to him Clubhouse skates Something new in the market just this season Just look at the curve of that skate will you He added, lifting a foot for inspection And that clamp that you couldn't shake off If you had to They're guaranteed for a year, too And if anything gives out You get a new pair for nothing Three and a half they cost At Mr. Harrison's hardware store I gave my jolly ramblers to a kid About your size A mighty good little skate they are And with a long graceful stroke Ralph Evans skated away And it seemed to Tom Reynolds That all his Christmas joy Went skimming away behind him The sun still shone The ice still gleened The skaters laughed and sang But Tom moved slowly on With listless heavy strokes The jolly ramblers still twinkled beneath his feet But he looked down at them no more What was the use of jolly ramblers When Ralph Evans had a pair of clubhouse skates That cost a dollar more Had a graceful curve and a faultless clamp And were guaranteed for a year It was only four o'clock when Tom slipped his new skates Carelessly over his shoulder And started up the bank for home He was slouching down the main street Head down Hands thrust deep into his pockets When, on turning a corner He ran plump into a full moon I know it is rather unusual For full moons to be walking About the streets by daylight But that is the only adequate description Of the round freckled face that beamed At Tom from behind a great box Held by two sturdy arms That came pretty near being a collision Said the owner of the full moon Still beaming as he set down the box And leaned against a building To rest a moment Nobody heard I guess Said Tom Been down to the ice? Asked the boy eagerly I could see the skaters from Patton's store Oh, I see you got some new skates for Christmas Ain't they beauties now? And he beamed on the despise Jolly ramblers with his heart And his little blue eyes A pretty good little pair of skates Said Tom Good, well, I should guess, yes And Christmas ice just made a purpose In spite of his ill humor Tom could not help responding To the warm interest of the shabby boy At his side He knew him to be Harvey McGinnis The son of a poor Irish widow Who worked at Patton's department store Out of school hours Looking at the great box With an awakening interest He remarked kindly What you been doin' with yourself On Christmas day Want to know, sure enough Said Harvey mysteriously His round face beaming More brightly than ever Well, I've been doin' The Santa Claus Act down at Patton's store About a week ago He went on Leaning back easily Against the tall building And thrusting his hands Down deep into his well-worn pockets About a week ago As I was cleaning out the storeroom I came on three big boxes With broken dolls in them Beauties they were, I can tell you The Lady Jane in a blue silk dress The Lady Clara Bell in pink And the Lady Matilda in shimmer and white Nothin' wrong with them either Only broken rubbers That put their giants out a whack En set their heads a rollin' this way And that They could be fixed in no time I says to myself And what a prize they'd be For the kids to be sure For mom and me had racked Our brains considerable How we'd scrape together the money For Christmas things for the girls So I went to the boss And I asked him right out What he'd charge me for the three ladies Just as they was A dozen times, but he always Caused me Jimmy Jimmy he says If you'll come down on Christmas day And help me take down the fixings And fix up the store for regular trade I'll give you the dolls for nothin' He says So I explained to the kids That Sandy'd be late to our house this year With so many to see after It wouldn't be strange And went down to the store early this morning And finished me work But the ladies as good as new Would you like to be seein' em now? He added Turning to the great box with a look of pride Sure I'd like to see em, said Tom With careful almost reverent touch Harvey untied the string And opened the large box Disclosing three smaller boxes One above the other Opening the first box He revealed a really handsome doll In a blue silk dress With large dark eyes That opened and shut And dark curling locks of real hair This is the lady Jane He said Smoothing her gay frock With gentle fingers We're going to give her to Kitty Kitty's hair is pretty and curly But she hates it cause it's red And she thinks black hair Is the prettiest kind in the world Ain't it funny how all of us Will be wantin' what we don't have ourselves? Tom did not reply to this bit of philosophy But he laid a repentant hand On the jolly ramblers As if he knew he had wronged them in his heart That's as handsome a doll As ever I saw And no mistake he said Pleased with this praise Harvey opened the second box And disclosed the lady Matilda With fair golden curls And a dress of shimmer and white The lady Matilda Goes to Josephine said Harvey Josephine has black hair straight as a string And won't she laugh though To see them fetchin' yellow curls She surely ought to be glad Said Tom The lady Clarabel Was another fair haired lady In a gown of the brightest pink This here beauty's for the baby Said Harvey His eyes glowing She don't care if the hair's black or yellow But won't that stunnin' dress Make her eyes pop out They'll surely believe in Sandy When they see those beauties Said Tom That's just what I was saying To mom this morning Said Harvey Kitty's had some doubts She's almost nine But when she sees those fine ladies Mom and I didn't buy them If I had a sandy clawsuit I'd dress up and hand them out myself Tom's face lighted with a bright idea My brother Bob's got a Santa Claus suit That he used in a show last Christmas He said Say let me dress up and play Santa for you The girls would never guess who I was Wouldn't they stare though Said Harvey delightedly But do you think you'd want to take time? He asked apologetically And you with a new pair of skates And the ice like this Of course I want to if you'll let me Said Tom I'll skate down the river and meet you anywhere you say Out in our backyard then At seven o'clock said Harvey All right, I'll be there And with head up and skates clinking Tom hurried away It was a flushed excited boy Who burst into the Reynolds quiet sitting room A few minutes later With his skates still hanging on his shoulder And his cap in his hand Say mother, he cried Can I have Bob's Santa Claus suit this evening please? I'm going to play Santa Claus for Harvey McGinnis Play Santa Claus for Harvey McGinnis What do you mean child? You know Mrs. McGinnis mother That poor woman who lives in the little house by the river Her husband got killed on the railroad last winter, you know While Harvey, her boy Has fixed up some grand looking dolls for his sisters And he wants me to come out and play Santa tonight And Tom launched out into a long story About Harvey and his good fortune He must be a splendid boy Said Mrs. Reynolds heartily En I am sure I shall be glad to have you go And another thing mother said Tom Hesitating a little Do you think Grandma would care if I spent part of that five dollars She gave me for a pair of skates for Harvey He hasn't any skates at all And I know he just loved to have some It is generous of you to think of it Said his mother much pleased En you would still have two and a half For that little trip down to Grandma's But I'd like to get him some clubhouse skates Said Tom They're a new kind that cost three dollars and a half But I thought you said the Jolly Ramblers Were the best skates made Mrs. Reynolds looked somewhat hurt As she glanced from Tom to the skates on his shoulder And back to Tom again They are mother, they're just dandies Said Tom Blushing with shame that he could ever Have despised his mother's gift But these clubhouse skates are just the kind for Harvey You see Harvey's shoes are old and worn And these clubhouse skates have clamps That you can't shake loose if you have to Then if anything happens to them before the years up You get a new pair free Harvey you know wouldn't have any money to be fixing skates Well do as you like said Mrs. Reynolds Pleased with Tom's eagerness For such a spell of generosity Was something new in her selfish younger son But remember you will have to wait a while For your visit to Grandma All right and thank you mother said Tom You can buy the skates down at Harrison's And I'm going over and ask Mr. Harrison If he won't open up the store and get a pair for me For a special time like this I'm most sure he will And away he flew That evening at seven As the moon was rising over the eastern hills A short portly Santa Claus Stepped out of the dry reeds by the riverbank And walked with wonderfully nimble feet Right into the McGinnis' little backyard As he neared the small back porch A dark figure rose to greet him One hand held up in warning The other holding at arm's length A bulky grain sack full to the brim Here's your pack, Sandy He whispered gleefully They're all waiting in the front room yonder I'll slip in the back way while you go around And give a good thump at the front door And mama'll let you in Trembling with eagerness Tom tiptoed round the house Managing to slip an oblong package Into the capacious depths of the big sack As he did so Thump, thump How his knock re-echoed in the frosty air The door swung wide And Mrs. McGinnis' gaunt figure Stood before him Good evening, Sandy, come right in She said Tom had always thought The only woman Harvey's mother was When he happened to meet her at the grocery With her thin red hair Drawn severely back from her gaunt face And a black shawl over her head But as he looked up into her big kind face So full of Christmas sunshine He wondered he could ever have thought her Anything but lovely The room was small and bare But wonderfully gay with pine Bits of red and green crepe paper Saved from the fixins at the store And on a large bed in the corner Set the three little girls Kitty with her bright curls bobbing Josephine with her black braids sticking straight out And the baby with tiny blue eyes That twinkled and shone like Harvey's The fine speech that Tom had been saying Over to himself for the past two hours Seemed to vanish into thin air Before this excited little audience But in faltering stammering tones Which everyone was too excited to notice He managed to say something about Merry Christmas and good children And then proceeded to open the magic sack Miss Kitty McGinnis He called in deep gruff tones Kitty took the box he offered With shy embarrassment Slowly drew back the lid En gave a cry of amazement and delight A doll, oh the loveliest doll That ever was She cried Then turning to her brother She whispered as softly As excitement would permit Oh Harvey I'm afraid you paid too much Oh go on Said Harvey His face more like a full moon than ever Don't you know that Sandy Can do whatever he wants to The other dolls were received with raptures Josephine stroking the golden curls Of the Lady Matilda with wondering fingers And the baby dancing round and round Waving the pink-robed Lady Clarabelle Above her head Mr. Harvey McGinnis Kamed the gruff tones of Santa Claus And Harvey smiled over to his mother As he drew out a pair of stout cloth gloves Mrs. McGinnis En that good lady smiled back As she shook out a dainty white apron With a coarse embroidery ruffle I reckon Sandy wanted you to wear that Of a Sunday afternoon Said Harvey awkwardly And I'll be proud to do it Said his mother Little sacks of candy were next produced And everyone settled down to enjoy it Thinking that the bottom of the big sack Must be reached When Santa called out in tones That trembled beneath the gruffness Another package for Mr. Harvey McGinnis For me What, what Said Harvey Taking the heavy oblong bundle Then, as the sparkling clubhouse Skates met his view His face lit up with a glory That Tom never forgot The glory lasted but a moment Then he turned a troubled face Toward the bulky old saint You never ought to have done it He said These must have cost a lot Ah, go on Was the reply in a distinctly boyish tone Don't you know that Sandy can do whatever he wants to? And with a prodigious bow Old Santa was gone A few minutes later A slender boy with a bundle Under his arm was skating swiftly Down the shining river in the moonlight As he rounded the bend A tall figure in a fur-trimmed coat Came skimming slowly toward him And a voice called out In Ralph Evans condescending tones Well, how are the jolly ramblers doing tonight? But the answer this time Was clear and glad and triumphant The best in the world, said Tom And isn't this the glorious night for skating? End of The Boy with the Box By Mary Griggs Van Voorhees Red by J-