Christmas Gold: The Greatest Holiday Novels, Tales & Poems (Illustrated Edition). Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
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said: "See that the children's stockings are hung up in readiness for my coming, and then I can fill them as quick as a wink."
And often, when parents were kind and good-natured, Santa Claus would simply fling down his package of gifts and leave the fathers and mothers to fill the stockings after he had darted away in his sledge.
"I will make all loving parents my deputies!" cried the jolly old fellow, "and they shall help me do my work. For in this way I shall save many precious minutes and few children need be neglected for lack of time to visit them."
Besides carrying around the big packs in his swift-flying sledge old Santa began to send great heaps of toys to the toy-shops, so that if parents wanted larger supplies for their children they could easily get them; and if any children were, by chance, missed by Santa Claus on his yearly rounds, they could go to the toy-shops and get enough to make them happy and contented. For the loving friend of the little ones decided that no child, if he could help it, should long for toys in vain. And the toy-shops also proved convenient whenever a child fell ill, and needed a new toy to amuse it; and sometimes, on birthdays, the fathers and mothers go to the toy-shops and get pretty gifts for their children in honor of the happy event.
Perhaps you will now understand how, in spite of the bigness of the world, Santa Claus is able to supply all the children with beautiful gifts. To be sure, the old gentleman is rarely seen in these days; but it is not because he tries to keep out of sight, I assure you. Santa Claus is the same loving friend of children that in the old days used to play and romp with them by the hour; and I know he would love to do the same now, if he had the time. But, you see, he is so busy all the year making toys, and so hurried on that one night when he visits our homes with his packs, that he comes and goes among us like a flash; and it is almost impossible to catch a glimpse of him.
And, although there are millions and millions more children in the world than there used to be, Santa Claus has never been known to complain of their increasing numbers.
"The more the merrier!" he cries, with his jolly laugh; and the only difference to him is the fact that his little workmen have to make their busy fingers fly faster every year to satisfy the demands of so many little ones.
"In all this world there is nothing so beautiful as a happy child," says good old Santa Claus; and if he had his way the children would all be beautiful, for all would be happy.
Christmas-Tree Land (Mary Louisa Molesworth)
CHAPTER III. THE MYSTERIOUS COTTAGE
CHAPTER IV. FAIRY HOUSEKEEPING
CHAPTER V. THE STORY OF A KING'S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER VI. THE STORY OF A KING'S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER VII. A WINDING STAIR AND A SCAMPER
CHAPTER VIII. THE SQUIRREL FAMILY
CHAPTER IX. A COMMITTEE OF BIRDS
CHAPTER XII. A VISION OF CHRISTMAS TREES
THE WHITE CASTLE
Rollo could not help noticing the pretty picture the two made.
CHAPTER I.
THE WHITE CASTLE.
'The way was long, long, long, like the
journey in a fairy tale.'
Miss Ferrier.
It was not their home. That was easy to be seen by the eager looks of curiosity and surprise on the two little faces inside the heavy travelling carriage. Yet the faces were grave, and there was a weary look in the eyes, for the journey had been long, and it was not for pleasure that it had been undertaken. The evening was drawing in, and the day had been a somewhat gloomy one, but as the light slowly faded, a soft pink radiance spread itself over the sky. They had been driving for some distance through a flat monotonous country; then, as the ground began to rise, the coachman relaxed his speed, and the children, without knowing it, fell into a half slumber.
It was when the chariot stopped to allow the horses breathing time that they started awake and looked around them. The prospect had entirely changed. They were now on higher ground, for the road had wound up and up between the hills, which all round encircled an open space—a sort of high up valley, in the centre of which gleamed something white. But this did not at first catch the children's view. It was the hills rising ever higher and higher, clothed from base to summit with fir-trees, innumerable as the stars on a clear frosty night, that struck them with surprise and admiration. The little girl caught her breath with a strange thrill of pleasure, mingled with awe.
'Rollo,' she said, catching her brother's sleeve, 'it is a land of Christmas trees!'
Rollo gazed out for a moment or two without speaking. Then he gave a sigh of sympathy.
'Yes, Maia,' he said; 'I never could have imagined it. Fancy, only fancy, if they were all lighted up!'
Maia smiled.
'I don't think even the fairies themselves could do that,' she answered.
But here their soft-voiced talking was interrupted. Two attendants, an elderly man and a young, rosy-faced woman, whose eyes, notwithstanding her healthy and hearty appearance, bore traces of tears, had got down from their seat behind the carriage.
'Master Rollo,'—'My little lady,' they said, speaking together; 'yonder is the castle. The coachman has just shown it to us. This is the first sight of it.'
'The white walls one sees gleaming through the trees,' said the girl, pointing as she spoke. 'Marc cannot see it as plainly as I.'
'My eyes are not what they were,' said the old servant apologetically.
'I see it,'—'and so do I,' exclaimed Rollo and Maia. 'Shall we soon be there?'
'Still an hour,' replied Marc; 'the road winds about, he says.'
'And already we have been so many, many hours,' said Nanni, the maid, in doleful accents.
'Let us hope for a bright fire and a welcome when we arrive,' said old Marc cheerfully. 'Provided only Master Rollo and Miss Maia are not too tired, we should not complain,' he added reprovingly, in a