A Christmas Witness
Stories similar to this that you might like too.
When a boy of five years and his mother had come from the city to stay with an aunt for a short time in a little village on the border of the forest, he was frightened by some noises in the night, and when it became light he went to look at the tree on which hung such large fruits, that they were bound to be good.
But the tree seemed dead, and the fruits were not ripe at all, although it was now only the beginning of December.
The boy came back to his aunt’s house and told her that she must go and ask the wise man of the forest to get those fruits ripe again, for if not the boy would no longer believe in Christmas or Santa Claus; but he forgot to add that if he did not get them ripe he himself would no longer believe in anything.
The aunt asked him why he did not wish to keep the faith? but he answered: “I want to know how it can be right to take things from one who has not given them to anyone, and I do not like that fruit which tastes so bad.”
Then he made her promise not to go to the wise man until Christmas Day, and to tell him then what the boy wanted. But she promised, because she felt sorry for him, and wished to spare him all evil.
It is difficult to say exactly where this little village lies in the woods; but it is called Finchelt in the Dutch language, and if you go there you will see a wooden cross above a gateway in the forest, with a signpost at the end of the forest, pointing out that there are thirty-two villages in the district, with thirty-one church spires, and one village without a spire.
The distance from that post to the little church on the hillside is about half a mile, but the road through the forest is very thickly grown up by underwood.
When Christmas Day came, the aunt sent the boy out early into the wood, to look at the fruits and ask what was to be done; but when he looked at them he became so sad and disappointed that he could not speak, and went home, where his mother comforted him as best she could.
As soon as it was light she told him that she must go to the wise man, but not to tell him anything till he had come back and seen what could be done. He promised to keep her secret, and off she went, taking some bread and wine with her for the wise man; and he gave her no answer at all, but only stared at her so sad that she felt afraid to ask him any questions.
After she had gone he sat down on the doorstep and thought a long time, and then he began to write on a piece of paper: “The wise man must get the fruit ripe again; it cannot be done otherwise,” and he signed it with his mark. Then he folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
He looked at the fruits for a long time after his wife had left him, and he thought he saw something moving among them. He took out the paper and unfolded it; and he began to tremble with fear, because there were marks on it, such as might have been made by a finger dipped in blood, and then he saw that some of the words were in letters which had not been written before.
He went away very slowly, for he was so frightened that he dared not think what he did.
The boy, meanwhile, waited anxiously for his mother’s return; but she did not come till evening. The aunt tried to comfort him, saying that she would send his mother back soon; but he said no more, and sat still and silent in his room all day.
She could not make out what he meant, for he never spoke to her of what he had seen in the wood. But the next day when she came back, the fruit was ripe enough, and the boy thanked God for this mercy; for it seemed as though God had sent his mother back to him, only to take her away again.
The wise man knew nothing about it, but he was not sorry that the fruit had ripened. The boy’s father had left the village sometime before, and now it was more than three years since he had heard anything about him or known where to find him.
But at last one day, the wise man received a letter from him, saying that he was living in the town called Bruges, which is the most important place in Flanders, and that he had come into a great fortune, and was rich enough now to buy himself a house in Bruges if he wished to live there.
And the next letter said that he intended to come back to the country; and after a while, the boy’s father came back.
“And now I can tell you what I wanted to know,” said the aunt, when she saw his father again. “What made you do that to my son? What did he want?”
But the father only looked at her sadly and said nothing.
At this, the aunt began to cry very bitterly, and then she told her husband what the boy had been saying about wanting to know how it could be right to take things from one who had not given them to anyone, and she told him the whole story.
So now, though it is the custom of the land to say “God bless you!” when they are going out of the church, yet, as the father was now a rich man, and had got all he wished for, God would surely send him into eternal misery if he said so. The boy and his mother never said it anymore.
A Christmas Witness
The children were all very happy when they had brought their Christmas presents home: and as soon as they got out into the courtyard, the youngest began to make the others guess what was inside them; but the eldest and the prettiest tried first, and they both guessed right.
There was a new doll for the oldest and a book with pictures for the youngest; and as for the pretty, she was given a box that looked like a small cake-tin.
It seemed to be rather large because it was made of brass; so she looked up its price in the catalog, and it was seven shillings. So she thought she might have it; and when the mother opened the box and took out the little things, the pretty was quite astonished, for they were very costly.
“What are these?” she asked; “and how many can I get in a pound?”
Her sisters told her she must not ask such questions, for it was unseemly of a lady to talk of money. But she replied: “Oh, please let me know; it will amuse me.”
The oldest took out a large pearl, but she said nothing about the price and put it back again.
Then she took out a gold ring, and the two middle sisters each took out a necklace of pearls, and all the rest were necklaces or bracelets of silver.
When the eldest saw this she was so vexed that she said: “I will tell you who has been getting up this joke—that naughty girl, my little sister, the one who never does any work.”
At that moment she heard a noise at the door, and then another, and all at once there was a knock. It was their father, and he was going to see what his wife had brought him.
So she said, quickly: “Let us hide everything before he comes into the room, and we shall have some fun than when he sees what is inside.”
The three elder children did so, and they pulled the cover off the box, and they made their father guess.
“Why it looks like a cake-tin,” said he. “What is in it? Tell me first; I wish to be merry with you all.”
So the pretty began to take out the little things. “They are only a little pile of bits of metal,” said the father. And then he took the cover from the box and looked at the little heap of silver and gold. “These are very nice,” said he. “Where do you get them?”
“My little sister brought them home in a brass box, which she bought out of her savings for her birthday.”
“She ought to have taken them to the shopkeeper,” said the father. “It was not good for a child of hers to carry such a heavy box so far alone. You must never make your little sister do any work again; if you want money to buy anything you can take it out of your own savings.”
The pretty was quite vexed, but she did not say so. She said she thought her father might like to look at the books, and he turned over one of the covers, and saw the words “Naughty or Nice?” upon it; and he asked: “What is this?”
“That is a little story I got at church,” said the eldest. “But please, Father, may I read it to you? You will like it.”
Then they all went up to their rooms, and the youngest read the story as she had heard it, and the father said it was very good. The pretty came in last. She was going to bring in the new doll, which she held between her knees.
So she had to lift the lid of the box; and when she did so, the pretty noticed that a large pear had dropped on the floor. “Oh, here we are!” cried the pretty; and she picked it up, and put it in the box again.
When they were all sitting around the fire together, after dinner, the father said to his wife: “I suppose you think that joke was well played upon me, for taking my little girl out of school. Well, let me tell you how it happened. We went to the fair last week, and I was very disappointed.
I expected to see a lot of beautiful things, and all I could see were old women selling such rubbish as I had seen at other fairs before. So when I saw that the only people who came there were children, and the poor little things were in such a bad way, I felt that we ought not to let our children go to a fair at all.
Of course, the boys had gotten quite tired of having no holiday, and I told them I would take them into the town if they liked. They said they were tired of going to the shops with their mother, so they decided to spend their holidays at the fair instead of going to church.
I didn’t think much about it, because I don’t like the town; but I thought they might be useful there, and give money to the poor. So I took my little girl along with us. It was her birthday, and so I bought her a book of pretty stories, and a toy to keep herself amused with.”
The pretty asked: “Did your daughter buy anything?”
“Yes,” answered the father, “she got three or four necklaces of gold and several bracelets of silver. I don’t think she could have found a better bargain than those, considering how much there was to choose from. But the price is too great if they are not real gold.”
Then the eldest began to talk about how rich her sister was, and the pretty went on crying because of the loss of her pear. The father asked what had become of the pear, and when he heard of its being dropped among the rubbish, he thought it was a very good joke indeed, for the money was all in one lump.
He went home early, and his wife began to laugh at him when he told her what had happened.
“Oh, what does it matter?” said she; “it will soon be Christmas, and we shall get over it then. You can tell them if you like, but I don’t want any more jokes like this.”,
A Christmas Witness
A little girl and her mother were sitting on a chair, looking out of an open window. The child had a large apple which she held between her knees, and the apples were quite ripe, and the juice ran out as they sat thus upon the seat.
After a while, the child looked up and said: “Mother, can you guess who I am?”
“Who, dear?” answered the mother.
“I am little Miss Apple-Tongue,” said the child.
“You are not that, my child,” said the mother; “you are Little Miss Apple-Sauce, I am sure. How do you do, miss?”
“Yes, I’m Little Miss Apple Sauce,” replied the child.
The apple, however, had got a little dirty on the knees of the little girl, and so she took it out of her mouth and began to wipe it carefully with her handkerchief. She was a pretty child, and as she did so, she kept thinking how good the juice was to her taste.
Presently the mother remarked: “That’s an old trick of yours, my dear. When you think that your food is good, you pretend to eat it.”
“It’s true,” said the little girl; “but I don’t mean to do it every day. And yet the juice is very nice.”
“What is that noise?” asked the child; and she put her ear against the window-pane. “Is that noise the wind?” said the child.
“No,” replied the mother, “that is the rattle of the carts. The wind is quite quiet today.”
“But it doesn’t make that noise, and I know it isn’t the wind,” said the child.
“Well, what can it be then?” asked the mother.
“Listen,” answered the child.
“What is it? What is it?” asked the mother.
“I’ll tell you in a moment; only first tell me if the apple is ripe or not. If it’s not, you won’t like the juice that much.”
“You’re quite right,” said the mother; “the apple is not ripe, and I don’t like the taste of it.”
Then the little girl said: “Now, then, I’m going to ask the apple again. What am I?”
The apple replied: “Little Miss Apple-Sauce.”
“You’re not right,” said the child. “That was just because my hand got dirty.”
The apple had nothing more to say, but the child continued to stare at it until it grew dark. She sat by the window with her head bent down, and she didn’t notice when the sun went down. Her mother, however, looked out of the window and said: “Good gracious, how long that child has been there! What time is it?”
“It’s nearly ten o’clock,” said the girl’s sister.
“Well, then, let her go home,” said the mother, who wanted the child to get into bed as soon as possible.
She sent for her sister, and they helped the little girl into a thick woolen cloak, and then the mother said to the child: “I hope you’ve enjoyed your walk in the garden this evening.”
“I certainly have, mother,” answered the girl; “and the fruit is so nice.”
“That’s all very well,” said the mother, “but you must always remember that fruit doesn’t come from trees.”
A Christmas Witness
A farmer had a daughter that was called Little Miss Pea-Picker. She never did any work at all. Every day she would sit in the hayfield and pick up every pea, shell, and all, and put them into a basket, and she would do it over and over again.
Her father said he wished she could get work somewhere else, for her sister worked hard all day long and was often obliged to stay up half the night to finish her tasks. He went to the market one morning, and while he was gone his daughter sat on the edge of a box, and she picked up pea beans as fast as she could pick them.
She gathered such a lot of peas that the box fell over, and there was nothing to be done but to pick up the box and put it in a corner. But just then the farmer’s wife came back from the market, and when she saw the empty box lying on its side she cried out: “Why I thought you were going to take a load of peas to the market! Little Miss Pea-Picker must have taken them all!”
The man ran into the house and told his wife what had happened, and they both agreed that Little Miss Pea-Picker would have to go to her room.
While she was sitting in her room, however, she heard a loud voice calling from the other end of the village. “Little Miss Pea-Picker! Little Miss Pea-Picker!”
She listened, and it sounded as if there were quite a number of people there. Then the voice came closer, and she heard it say: “Little Miss Pea-Picker! Come down this road as fast as you can, for there is some mischief here which calls for your help.”
Little Miss Pea-Picker did not like to go out into the road in her thin nightdress; but when she heard what the voices wanted her to do, she decided to make up her mind to it. She put on her best coat, a little hat with red ribbons, and then she ran as fast as she could. In front of the door, the voices shouted:
“Wait a bit! Little Miss Pea-Picker!” and she stopped. Then they said: “If you will only do us a favor we shall forgive you for taking so much pea-bean, and you shall be rewarded. But if you don’t come, you will get worse than that for it.”
“Well,” said Little Miss Pea-Picker, “I suppose I might do one thing, but what can that be?”
Then a voice came from behind her, and it said: “A penny for you, Little Miss Pea-Picker. Take this penny and turn right at the first corner.”
“How should I get such a great number of pennies? Besides, they are too heavy for me to carry.”
“Well, you can’t take any with you. Turn right where we told you to, and go straight ahead until you find yourself on a little bridge.”
Little Miss Pea-Picker did not like to disobey orders, and she did as she was told. After she had turned right, she met the farmer’s daughter coming home. She saw Little Miss Pea-Picker and stopped to talk with her. They walked on together, and they got quite far before Little Miss Pea-Picker asked: “Why don’t you carry money in your pockets?”
The other girl answered: “You see I’m going to market this afternoon, and I’ve always kept my money in a box on my table so it wouldn’t get lost or spoiled. Now you have some money, you could carry it in your pocket instead. You’re a girl, too, and ought to know how to manage it.”
“That’s just what I’ve been trying to tell my mother,” replied Little Miss Pea-Picker. “I don’t understand the value of money at all.”
When she had reached home, she took the basket containing the pea beans from the corner and set about making up her mind as to what to do. When she had done this she remembered the voices on the road; so she said to herself: “Oh, dear! I’ll never be able to give back those pennies now!” She decided to give them to her father to keep until the day she could find them again.
That night the girl was lying awake in her room thinking. She wondered whether she would ever meet that little girl in the village again, and if she did, would she remember her. Little Miss Pea-Picker dreamed that she was standing on a great big bridge, with only one rail and no footpath, and that she was looking into a little wooden boat, which lay under the bridge.
When she looked in through the windows, there was the same little girl inside, crying. Little Miss Pea-Picker sat down on the bridge and put her hand on the little girl’s shoulder, but she was asleep before she could speak to her.
The next morning she told her father what the voice had said to her the night before. He said: “Let me make you a bargain. If you will go into the garden and cut two dozen of the largest roses that grow there, I shall give you half a sovereign for each. I have been waiting a long time for a chance to buy a fine rose bush.”
When Little Miss Pea-Picker came home from cutting the roses, the man gave her sixpence, which she divided into four pieces; three to the landlord who had given them the rose garden, and one to her mother to keep until she had found out how to repay the other penny.
Then she went on to school as usual. At lunchtime, she went to see if the voice really did mean to reward her. She knocked at the door, and the little girl opened it.
“Have you found your way yet?” she asked. “I’ve got some money for you, and it isn’t quite such a great number as before, but I can find my way again if you like to come with me.”
Little Miss Pea-Picker followed the little girl all the way into the woods. They found the little house that stood in the middle of a meadow. When they got in, the little girl showed her where she kept the money box.
There was just one penny left inside, but the voice said that there were many pennies waiting for her. Little Miss Pea-Picker was very tired when she got home that afternoon, so she lay down on the bed, but before she went to sleep she promised herself she would never go out again without taking her father’s advice.
⁂
A MAN AND A WOMAN.
There lived in a village a man and a woman. One day they decided to get married and went off together to live in the village. But soon after they got married, the woman began to think that she would be happier if her husband was a different man and wished they could both go back to their own home.
So she began to complain to him about his manner and made a nuisance of herself in every way she could think of. The man grew very angry, and one evening he went out in a rage. He said to his wife:
”Go now into the kitchen and bring me the knife. I am going to kill you with this knife.”
The woman replied:
”Do not touch me! Do not hit me again; I have heard enough from you already, and I cannot bear it anymore. Go out of this house, and never come back here again.”
So he went out. His wife was left alone. She locked the door, put the key under the bed, and lay down on the couch.
She was very happy to be rid of him, for she felt certain that no one would ever marry her again, now that she had lost her reputation by giving him a beating.
Just at that moment, she heard a knock on the front door, and her servant came in with two bags.
“What’s all this?” she asked. “Two bags of flour? Where did you get them? And what are you going to do with them? How many people will they feed?”
The servant replied:
”These are gifts from the man who gave us this house. He said we should take these back to him whenever we wanted to go away, or if he himself were obliged to leave here.”
She looked in one of the bags, and found inside a purse full of money, so she counted it and found that there were just as many pennies as there had been before. The other bag contained a wonderful dinner set—cutlery, plates, and cups; everything she could possibly want.
She thanked her servant for her good fortune, and then put everything she had in the best possible order. At that moment the man returned, with the help of his servant, and said to his wife:
”You must promise never to come home again. You have broken my heart by beating me; it is no longer worth living without you.”
The woman replied:
”If you wish to live, go into that bag and take out the knife. I have left you forever, and will not take any part in your life.”
So the man went out. When he got outside, he threw himself under a tree and began to weep bitterly. The next day the woman took the two bags, put them on the table, and went to see a friend who lived some way off.
When they told her about it, her answer was:
”No, don’t do it, you silly creature! What will people think of us, if we both go away at the same time? It would be just too dreadful to try to find a new home!”
Then she decided to remain where she was. She told her husband to go away and look for another home if he wanted to.
The End