have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed. Halloo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out 5 of the copper. A smell like a 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's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered flushed, but smiling proudly with 10 the pudding, like a speckled cannon ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success 15 achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for 20 a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges 25 were put upon the table and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass - two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. 30 These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out 5 5 with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: "A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us !" Which all the family reëchoed. "God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. - A Christmas Carol. 1. A few days before Christmas you should read Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It is one of the best, if not the best, Christmas story ever written. How does Dickens make you feel while you read this selection? How many people are present at the Cratchits'? To whom does your sympathy go? 2. Select a list of words and phrases that suggest happiness. How does Dickens make you wish you were at the Cratchit feast? 3. Appoint a committee of three from your class to report fully on Dickens's life and writings. Take brief notes on their report. T THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT BY ÉMILE SOUVESTRE WELVE o'clock. A knock at my door; a poor girl comes in and greets me by name. At first I do not recall her, but she looks at me and smiles. Ah, it is Paulette! But it is nearly a year since I have seen her, and Paulette is no longer the same; the other day she was a child; to-day she is almost a young woman. Paulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad; but she has always the same open and straightforward look - the same mouth, smiling at every word as if to plead for sympathy 10- the same voice, timid yet caressing. Paulette is not pretty she is even thought plain; as for me, I think her charming. Perhaps that is not on her account but on my own. Paulette is a part of one of my happiest recollections. As I came in I met my rich neighbor's new equipage. She too had just returned from her evening party; and as she sprang from the carriage step with feverish impatience, I heard her murmur, "At last!” I, when I left Paulette's family, said, "So soon!" I. Is this a Christmas story? Give reasons for your answer. Is its title fitting? What in the story itself suggests the time of year? Where do the events take place? Contrast this story with "The Cratchits' Christmas," preceding, as to (a) kind of people; (b) place; (c) the chief actor; (d) the feast itself; (e) the manner of telling. 2. Describe Paulette's family. How did they make a living? How had the author become acquainted with Paulette? 3. Émile Souvestre (soo ves tr') was a French novelist and dramatist (1806-1854). His chief works deal with his native Brittany, but his last book has in it charming studies of Paris life. 5 CHRISTMAS IN THE PINES BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON Here is a Christmas story of the northland, in which cities give way to pine woods, and people to silences and snow. Get the picture each stanza portrays as you read through the poem, and make a mental comparison with snow scenes with which you are familiar. HE sky was clear all yesterday, THE From dawn until the sunset's flame; But when the red had grown to gray, At midnight by the dying fire, Watching the spruce boughs glow and pale, I heard outside a tumult dire, And the fierce roaring of the gale. 5 Now with the morning comes a lull; In vesture for the Christmas feast. Into the pathless waste I go, With muffled step among the pines Save for a lad's song, far and faint, There is no sound in all the wood; Here floats no chime of Christmas bell, 1. What does each of the first three stanzas portray? three stanzas describe sights and sounds perceived by whom? The last 2. Explain what pictures these phrases make for you: "sunset's flame"; "spruce boughs glow and pale"; "tumult dire"; "beautiful In vesture"; "muffled step"; "radiant shrines." Read lines II and 12, putting the thought in your own words. 3. Make a Christmas card, sketching one of the scenes suggested above as the corner or center decoration. 4. Meredith Nicholson (1866– ) is an American writer. He is the author of several popular novels, an essayist, and a writer of excellent verse. He lives in Indianapolis. ("Christmas in the Pines " is used by special courtesy of Mr. Nicholson.) THE NEW YEAR'S DINNER PARTY BY CHARLES LAMB The following essay is a humorous treatment of the days of the year, with emphasis on the holidays and special days in the English calendar. You should read it with a sharp lookout for the play on words. Each day supposedly acts in keeping with its character, and so the New Year's dinner party is kept in high mirth. But you cannot appreciate the humor until you understand what each day stands for. HE Old Year being dead, the New Year came of age, THE which he does by Calendar Law as soon as the breath is out of the old gentleman's body. Nothing would serve the youth but he must give a dinner upon the occasion, to which all the Days of the Year were invited. The Festivals, whom he appointed as his stewards, were mightily taken with the nction. They had been engaged time out of mind, they said, in providing mirth and cheer for mortals below; and it was time that they should have a taste of their bounty. All the Days came to dinner. Covers were provided for three hundred and sixty-five guests at the principal table, with an occasional knife and fork at the sideboard for the Twenty-ninth of February. 5 ΙΟ I should have told you that invitations had been sent out. 15 The carriers were the Hours twelve as merry little whirligig foot pages as you should desire to see. They went all around, and found out the persons invited well enough, with the exception of Easter Day, Shrove Tuesday, and a few such Movables, who had lately shifted their quarters. 20 |