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CHRISTMAS CAROL.
S TRUE, IF NOT A3 PLEASANT, AS THE LATE CHARLES DICKENS'S.
IT was Christmas eve, and the busy town was one great blaze of light.
Comely looking matrons were inaking glad the hearts of the shopkeepers
with extensive orders. Smiling fathers hurried along the
Streets with the purchases of toys with which the good Santa Claus
was to delight the heartB of obedient children. Good humor shone
on all the faces, and seemed but the reflection of that kindly feeling
which, at Christmas time, is ever ready to promote "peaceon earth,
and goodwill amongst men."
Scrooge, the miser, alone felt not the genial influence of the
sacred time. Christmas could no more bring kindly feelings to his
heart, or smiles to his puckered lips, than it could give to his spare
and withered form the warm blood and lusty manliness of five-and-
twenty.
"Christmas I I hate the word," snarled Scrooge as he made his
way through the merry crowds in the street upon this Christmas
eve, "If I had my way, I'd pass a law to put down this Christmas
altogether. Wliatis itbut theexcusefor agiganticsystem of extortion.
Children want Christmas-boxes, servants want Christmas-boxes,
clerks want Christmas-boxes—even postmen expect Christmas-boxes.
Ugh! they may want so far as I'm concerned. I hate Christmas
and its boxes, and its customs—its friendly greetings, and its bilious
gluttony, Bah 1" .
As he went along, a poor boy begged a penny of lum, but Scrooge,
the miser, threatened to give him in charge of a policeman, and the
frightened child fled terrified from the stony-hearted miser.
Scrooge lived in a mean little room in a back street, although, to
tell the truth, he was a very wealthy man and owned a number of
houses. When lie reached • his wretched residence on this blesBed
Christmas eve, lie found a letter from one of his tenants waiting
for him.
" I have tried everywhere," recorded the note, "to borrow money
and to get work, and I cannot. After the holidays I am sure I will
be able to pay the rent, and if you will give me a week's grace you
will neither lose by it nor repent it. Oh, sir, I have a wife and
family, as you know, and I am willing to work for them. I am
going to a good job next week, and I will be able to pay you then.
Don't, for God's sake, don't turn me out until after Christmas. It
does seem so hard to have no place to lay one's head at this blessed
season. Give me a week and I will pay you alL"~ Your povertystricken
tenant, Joseph Goodman."
« Ugh V said old Scrooge, " the same old whimpering cry—wife
and family—Christmas season—as if those things were kinds of
Statutes of limitation, regular O'Loghlenisms, valid receipts without
stamps! What do I care about the blessed season? Whats his
wife and family to me?" ,, ,,
As he sat staring at the note, strange thoughts came upon old
Scrooge, the miser. He wondered whether, if he had been a married
man with a family, he would have looked forward to Christmas
time as a blessed occasion. , Then he fell to wondering what sort of
woman his wife would have been. And his children ? Would they
have cried for pap—or papa money ? Would they be content with
coral without gold trimmings? How much would a wedding-ring
have cost ? and what would the interest on the price of the weddingring
have amounted to in so many years ? and what—that is—
SUfle°8eemed to be in his own room, with strange little figures skippine
around him—jovial, smiling little imps, with mouths strangely
out of proportibn with their faces, and lips with an abnormal inclination
to seek their ears. They were the spirits of pleasantry and
8°At lasTone of the spirits who had been capering round old Scrooge
blew a little silver whistle to call the others together. They all
swarmed up on old Scrooge's breast and waited attentively for the
speech of their leader. The sprite who had whistled was evidently
their legislator, for he had more wives, more cheek, and less
cash than the rest. He mounted on old Scrooge s chm for a stump,
^Snmts^Tgood-fellowship of Christian charity, of kind-heartedness,
and of geniality: What shall we do with this semblance of man 1
Look at him? There is blood in his veins, but it is cold. There is
a heart in his breast, but it beats not, or if it does beat it is as the pendulum
of a clock to mark the time and nothing more A poor man,
S S heart as large as old Scrooge's greed of goM h^ begged of
him to let his rent stand over for a week. Will he doit? No.
What shall we do with him ?" . . ,
" Km him J kill him 1" cried all the good spirits, in a chorus that
was wonderfully harmonious for a performance without reh^rsal.
"Brlk him up intoChristmas boxes and distribute him round. ;
" No don't, please," cried old Scrooge, in an agony; " there ain t
much of me, and I wouldn't go far even m a small party.
The
But the
boBs
spirits
spirit
took
stuck
no
a
heed
knife
of
into
his
old
cneB.
Scrooge and began to cut
him up into little pieccs and began to distribute him round. The
other spirits, chuckling with their prize, rushed off in various directions.
The spirit that had old Scrooge's heart went straight off to
Goodman's house with it and divided it nmongst the children. How
the children ate it 1 They tore it in pieces and gobbled it as if it was
a Christmas pudding. It was a Christmas pudding to them, and disagreed
with them. As their little teeth chewed him up, old Scrooge
felt each bite at his heart and writhed in agony.
How they gnawed and gnawed ! They did like him. At last one
took the very core of his heart and bit it, and old Scrooge woke.
Well, we all know what he did then. He gave the chambermaid
a Christmas box, and he told Goodman that he needn't pay any more
rent, and that all his children should have a present, and all that.
But he was a perverse old beggar, and wouldn't do all the right
and proper things, that are right and proper according to novels. And
when he got up, he said big D the nightmare, and he put in an execution
on poor Goodman and sold off his furniture, and enjoyed the
holidays!
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