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Christmas every day. The little girl
came into her papa's study as she always

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did Saturday morning before breakfast, and
asked for a story. He tried to

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beg off that morning, for he
was very busy, but she would not

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let him, so he began,
Well, once there was a little pig.

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She put her hand over his mouth
and stopped him at the word.

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She said she had heard little pigs
stories till she was perfectly sick of them.

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Well, what kind of story shall
I tell then about Christmas? It's

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getting to be the season. It's
past Thanksgiving already, it seems to me.

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Her papa argued that I've told as
often about Christmas as I have about

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little pigs. No difference. Christmas
is more interesting. Well, her papa

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roused himself from his writing by a
great effort. Well, then I'll tell

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you about the little girl that wanted
it Christmas every day in the year.

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How would you like that? First
rate, said the little girl, and

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she nestled into comfortable shape in his
lap, ready for listening. Very well,

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then, this little pig, Oh, what are you pounding me for?

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Because you said little pig instead of
little girl. I should like to

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know what's the difference between a little
pig and a little girl that wanted it

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Christmas every day. Papa said the
little girl, warningly, if you don't

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go on, I'll give it to
you, And at this her Papa darted

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off like lightning and began to tell
the story as fast as he could.

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Once there was a little girl who
liked Christmas so much that she wanted it

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to be Christmas every day in the
year, and as soon as Thanksgiving was

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over, she began to send postal
cards to the old Christmas Fairy to ask

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if she mightn't have it, But
the old fairy never entered any of the

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postals, and after a while the
little girl found out that the fairy was

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pretty particular and wouldn't notice anything but
letters, not even correspondence cards and envelopes,

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but real letters on sheets of paper
and sealed outside with a monogram or

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your initial anyway. So then she
began to send her letters, and in

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about three weeks, or just the
day before Christmas it was, she got

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a letter from the fairy saying she
might have it Christmas every day for a

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year and then they would see about
having it longer. The little girl was

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a good deal excited, already preparing
for the old fashioned once a year Christmas

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that was coming the next day,
and perhaps the fairy's promise didn't make such

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an impression on her as it would
have made at some other time. She

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just resolved to keep it to herself
and surprise everybody with it as it kept

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coming true, and then it slipped
out of her mind. Altogether she had

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a splendid Christmas. She went to
bed early so as to let Santa Claus

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have a chance at the stockings,
and in the morning she was up the

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first of anybody, and went and
felt them, and found hers all lumpy

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with packages of candy and oranges and
grapes and pocket books and rubber balls and

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all kinds of small presents, and
her big brothers with nothing but tongs in

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them, and her young lady sisters
with a new silk umbrella, and her

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papas and mamas with potatoes and pieces
of coal wrapped up in tissue paper,

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just as they always had every Christmas. Then she waited around till the rest

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of the family were up, and
she was the first to burst into the

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library when the doors were opened,
and look at the large presents laid out

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on the library table books and portfolios, and boxes of stationery and breastpins and

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dolls and little stoves, and dozens
of handkerchiefs and inkstands and skates and snowshovels

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and photograph frames and little easels,
and boxes of watercolors and Turkish paste and

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nougat and candy, cherries and dolls, houses and waterproofs, and the big

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chrisp tree lighted and standing in a
waste basket in the middle. She had

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a splendid Christmas. All day.
She ate so much candy that she did

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not want any breakfast, and the
whole forenoon the presents kept pouring in that

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the expressman had not had time to
deliver the night before, and she went

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round giving the presents she had got
for other people, and came home and

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ate turkey and cranberry for dinner,
and plum pudding and nuts and raisins and

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oranges and more candy, and then
went out and coasted and came in with

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a stomach ache, crying, and
her papa said he would see if his

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house was turning into that sort of
fool's paradise another year. And then they

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had a light supper, and pretty
early everybody went to bed Cross. Here,

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the little girl pounded her papa on
the back again. Well, what

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now, did I say, pigs? You made them act like pigs?

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Well didn't they? No matter,
you oughtn't put it into a story.

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Very well, then I'll take it
all out. Her father went on.

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The little girl slept very heavily,
and she slept very late. But she

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was awakened at last by the other
children dancing round her bed with their stockings

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full of presents in their hands.
What is it, said the little girl,

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and she rubbed her eyes and tried
to rise up in bed. Christmas,

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Christmas, Christmas. They all shouted
and waved their stockings. Nonsense,

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It was Christmas yesterday. Her brothers
and sisters just laughed. We don't know

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about that. It's Christmas today.
Anyway. You come into the library and

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see. Then, all at once
it flashed on the little girl that the

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fairy was keeping her promise, and
her year of Christmases was beginning. She

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was dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang
up like a lark, a lark that

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had overeaten itself, and gone to
bed Cross and darted into the library.

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There it was again, books and
poor folios and boxes of stationery and breastpins.

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You needn't go over it all,
Papa. I guess I can remember

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just what was there, said the
little girl. Well, and there was

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the Christmas tree blazing away in the
family, picking out their presence but looking

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pretty sleepy, and her father perfectly
puzzled, and her mother ready to cry.

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I'm sure I don't see how I'm
to dispose of all these things,

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said her mother, And her father
said it seemed to him they had had

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something just like it the day before, but he supposed he must have dreamt

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it. This struck the little girl
as the best kind of a joke,

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so she ate so much candy she
didn't want any breakfast, and went round

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carrying presents, and had turkey and
cranberry for dinner, and then went out

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and coasted and came in with a
hapah wow, what now, what did

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you promise you forget the thing?
Oh? Oh? Yes, Well the

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next day it was just the same
thing over again, but everybody getting cross.

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And at the end of a week's
time, so many people had lost

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their tempers that you could pick up
lost tempers anywhere. They perfectly strewed the

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ground. Even when people tried to
recover their tempers, they usually got somebody

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else's, and it made the most
dreadful mix. The little girl began to

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get frightened, keeping the secret all
to herself. She wanted to tell her

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mother, but she didn't dare to, and she was ashamed to ask the

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fairy to take back her gift.
It seemed ungrateful and ill bred, and

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she thought she would try to stand
it, but she hardly knew how she

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could. For a whole year.
So it went on and on, and

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it was Christmas on Saint Valentine's Day
and Washington's Birthday, just the same as

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any day, and it didn't skip
even the first of April, though.

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Everything was counterfeit that day, and
that was some little relief. After a

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while, coal and potatoes began to
be awfully scarce, so many had been

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wrapped up in tissue paper to fool
papas and mamas with turkeys got to be

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about one thousand dollars apiece, Papa, Well, what you're beginning to fib

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well two thousand then, and they
got to passing off almost everything for turkeys,

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half grown hummingbirds, and even rocks
out of the Arabian nights. The

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real turkeys were so scarce, and
cranberries well, they asked a diamond a

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piece for cranberries. All the woods
and orchards were cut down for Christmas trees,

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and where the woods and orchards used
to be it looked just like a

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stubble field with the stumps. After
a while they had to make Christmas trees

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out of rags and stuff them with
bran, like old fashioned dolls. But

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there were plenty of rags because people
got so poor buying presents for one another

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that they couldn't get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones

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to tatters. They got so poor
that everybody had to go to the poorhouse,

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except the confectioners and the fancy storekeepers, and the picture booksellers and the

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expressmen. And they all got so
rich and proud they would hardly wait upon

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a person when he came to buy. It was perfectly shameful. Well after

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it had gone on about three or
four months, the little girl, whenever

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she came into the room in the
morning and saw those great, ugly,

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lumpy stockings dangling at the fireplace and
the disgusting presents around everywhere, used to

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just sit down and burst out crying. In six months, he was perfectly

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exhausted. She couldn't even cry any
more. She just lay on the lounge

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and rolled her eyes and panted.
About the beginning of October, she took

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to sitting down on dolls whenever she
found them. French dolls are any kind.

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She hated the sight of them so
and by Thanksgiving she was crazy and

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just slammed her presence across the room. By that time, people didn't carry

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presents around nicely anymore. They flung
them over the fence or through the window

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or anything. And instead of running
their tongues out and taking great pains to

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write for dear Papa or Mama or
brother or sister or Susie or Sammy or

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Billy or Bobby or Jimmy or Jenny
or whoever it was, and troubling to

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get the spelling right, and then
signing their names and ex miss eighteen whatever

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they used to write in the gift
books, Take it, you horrid old

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thing, and then go and bang
it against the front door. Nearly everybody

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had built barns to hold their presents, but pretty soon the barns overflowed,

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and then they used to let them
lie out in the rain or anywhere.

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Sometimes the police used to come and
tell them to shovel their presence off the

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sidewalk or they would arrest them.
I thought you said everybody had gone to

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the poorhouse, interrupted the little girl. They did go at first, said

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her papa. But after a while
the poor house got so full that they

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had to send the people back to
their own houses. They tried to cry

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when they got back, but they
couldn't make the least sound. Why couldn't

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they because they had lost their voices
saying Merry Christmas so much? Did I

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tell you how it was on the
fourth of July? No, how was

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it? And the little girl nestled
closer in expectation of something uncommon. Well,

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the night before, the boys stayed
up to celebrate as they always do,

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and fell asleep before twelve o'clock as
usual, expecting to be wakened by

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the bells and cannon. But it
was nearly eight o'clock when the first boy

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in the United States woke up,
and then he found out what the trouble

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was. As soon as he could
get his clothes on, he ran out

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of the house and smashed a big
cannon torpedo down on the pavement, but

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it didn't make any more noise than
a damp wad of paper. And after

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he tried about twenty or thirty more, he began to pick them up and

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look at them. Every single torpedo
was a big raisin. Then he just

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streaked it upstairs and examined his firecrackers
and toy pistol and two dollars collection of

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fireworks and found that they were nothing
but sugar and candy painted up to look

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like fireworks. Before ten o'clock,
every boy in the United States found out

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that his Fourth of July things had
turned into Christmas things. And then they

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just sat down and cried. They
were so mad. There are about twenty

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million boys in the United States,
and so you can imagine what a noise

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they made. Some men got together
before night with a little powder that hadn't

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turned into purple sugar yet, and
they said they would fire off one cannon

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anyway. But the cannon burst into
a thousand pieces, for it was nothing

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but rock candy, and some of
the men nearly got killed. The Fourth

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of July orations all turned into Christmas
carols. And when anybody tried to read

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the declaration instead of saying when in
the course of human events, it becomes

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necessary. He was sure to sing, God rest you Mary, gentlemen.

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It was perfectly awful. The little
girl drew a deep sigh of satisfaction.

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And how was it a Thanksgiving?
Her papa hesitated. Well, I'm almost

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afraid to tell you. I'm afraid
you'll think it's wicked. Well tell anyway,

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said the little girl. Well,
before it came Thanksgiving, it had

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leaked out who had caused all these
Christmases. The little girl had suffered so

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much that she had talked about it
in her sleep, and after that,

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hardly anybody would play with her.
People just perfectly despised her, because if

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it had not been for her greediness, it wouldn't have happened. And now

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when it came to Thanksgiving and she
wanted them to go to church and have

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squash pie in turkey and show their
gratitude, they said that all the turkeys

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had been eaten up for her old
Christmas dinners, and if she would stop

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the Christmases, they would see about
the gratitude. Wasn't it dreadful? And

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the very next day the little girl
began to send letters to the Christmas Fairy,

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and then telegrams to stop it,
but it didn't do any good.

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And then she got to calling at
the fairy's house, but the girl that

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came to the door always said not
at home, or engaged, or at

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dinner, or something like that.
And so it went on till it came

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to the old once a year Christmas
eve. The little girl fell asleep,

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and when she woke up in the
morning, she found it was all nothing

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but a dream, suggested the little
girl. No, indeed, said her

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00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:50,960
papa, it was all every bit
true. Well what did she find out

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then, Why that it wasn't Christmas
at last, and wasn't ever going to

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be anymore. Now it's time for
breakfast. The little girl held her papa

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fast around the neck. You shan't
go if you're going to leave it,

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00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:11,639
So why do you want it left? Christmas? Once a year? All

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right, said her papa, and
he went on again. Well, there

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was the greatest rejoicing all over the
country, and it extended clear up into

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Canada. The people met together everywhere
and kissed and cried for joy. The

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city carts went around and gathered up
all the candy and raisins and nuts and

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dumped them into the river. And
it made the fish perfectly sick, and

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the whole United States, as far
out as Alaska, was one blaze of

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bonfires, where children were burning up
their gift books and presents of all kinds.

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They had the greatest time. The
little girl went to thank the old

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fairy because she had stopped its being
Christmas, and she said she hoped she

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would keep her promise and see that
Christmas never never came again. Then the

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fairy frowned and asked her if she
was sure she knew what she meant,

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And the little girl asked her why
not, And the old fairy said that

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now she was behaving just as greedily
as ever, and she'd better look out.

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This made the little girl think it
all over carefully again, and she

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said she would be willing to have
it Christmas about once in a thousand years,

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And then she said a hundred,
and then she said ten, and

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at last she got down to one. Then the fairy said that was the

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good old way that had pleased people
ever since Christmas began, and she was

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agreed. Then the little girl said, what are your shoes made of?

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And the fairy said leather, and
the little girl said, bargain's done forever

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and skipped off and hippity hopped the
whole way home. She was so glad.

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How will that do? Asked the
pop up. First rate, said

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the little girl, But she hated
to have the story stop and was rather

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sober. However, her mama put
her head in at the door and asked

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her, Papa, are you never
coming to breakfast? What have you been

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telling that child? Oh, just
a moral tale. The little girl caught

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him around the neck again. We
know, don't you tell what, Papa?

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Don't you tell what? And of
Christmas every day by W. D. Howells