Christmas every day. The little girl came into her papa's study as she always
did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to
beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not
let him, so he began, Well, once there was a little pig.
She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him at the word.
She said she had heard little pigs stories till she was perfectly sick of them.
Well, what kind of story shall I tell then about Christmas? It's
getting to be the season. It's past Thanksgiving already, it seems to me.
Her papa argued that I've told as often about Christmas as I have about
little pigs. No difference. Christmas is more interesting. Well, her papa
roused himself from his writing by a great effort. Well, then I'll tell
you about the little girl that wanted it Christmas every day in the year.
How would you like that? First rate, said the little girl, and
she nestled into comfortable shape in his lap, ready for listening. Very well,
then, this little pig, Oh, what are you pounding me for?
Because you said little pig instead of little girl. I should like to
know what's the difference between a little pig and a little girl that wanted it
Christmas every day. Papa said the little girl, warningly, if you don't
go on, I'll give it to you, And at this her Papa darted
off like lightning and began to tell the story as fast as he could.
Once there was a little girl who liked Christmas so much that she wanted it
to be Christmas every day in the year, and as soon as Thanksgiving was
over, she began to send postal cards to the old Christmas Fairy to ask
if she mightn't have it, But the old fairy never entered any of the
postals, and after a while the little girl found out that the fairy was
pretty particular and wouldn't notice anything but letters, not even correspondence cards and envelopes,
but real letters on sheets of paper and sealed outside with a monogram or
your initial anyway. So then she began to send her letters, and in
about three weeks, or just the day before Christmas it was, she got
a letter from the fairy saying she might have it Christmas every day for a
year and then they would see about having it longer. The little girl was
a good deal excited, already preparing for the old fashioned once a year Christmas
that was coming the next day, and perhaps the fairy's promise didn't make such
an impression on her as it would have made at some other time. She
just resolved to keep it to herself and surprise everybody with it as it kept
coming true, and then it slipped out of her mind. Altogether she had
a splendid Christmas. She went to bed early so as to let Santa Claus
have a chance at the stockings, and in the morning she was up the
first of anybody, and went and felt them, and found hers all lumpy
with packages of candy and oranges and grapes and pocket books and rubber balls and
all kinds of small presents, and her big brothers with nothing but tongs in
them, and her young lady sisters with a new silk umbrella, and her
papas and mamas with potatoes and pieces of coal wrapped up in tissue paper,
just as they always had every Christmas. Then she waited around till the rest
of the family were up, and she was the first to burst into the
library when the doors were opened, and look at the large presents laid out
on the library table books and portfolios, and boxes of stationery and breastpins and
dolls and little stoves, and dozens of handkerchiefs and inkstands and skates and snowshovels
and photograph frames and little easels, and boxes of watercolors and Turkish paste and
nougat and candy, cherries and dolls, houses and waterproofs, and the big
chrisp tree lighted and standing in a waste basket in the middle. She had
a splendid Christmas. All day. She ate so much candy that she did
not want any breakfast, and the whole forenoon the presents kept pouring in that
the expressman had not had time to deliver the night before, and she went
round giving the presents she had got for other people, and came home and
ate turkey and cranberry for dinner, and plum pudding and nuts and raisins and
oranges and more candy, and then went out and coasted and came in with
a stomach ache, crying, and her papa said he would see if his
house was turning into that sort of fool's paradise another year. And then they
had a light supper, and pretty early everybody went to bed Cross. Here,
the little girl pounded her papa on the back again. Well, what
now, did I say, pigs? You made them act like pigs?
Well didn't they? No matter, you oughtn't put it into a story.
Very well, then I'll take it all out. Her father went on.
The little girl slept very heavily, and she slept very late. But she
was awakened at last by the other children dancing round her bed with their stockings
full of presents in their hands. What is it, said the little girl,
and she rubbed her eyes and tried to rise up in bed. Christmas,
Christmas, Christmas. They all shouted and waved their stockings. Nonsense,
It was Christmas yesterday. Her brothers and sisters just laughed. We don't know
about that. It's Christmas today. Anyway. You come into the library and
see. Then, all at once it flashed on the little girl that the
fairy was keeping her promise, and her year of Christmases was beginning. She
was dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang up like a lark, a lark that
had overeaten itself, and gone to bed Cross and darted into the library.
There it was again, books and poor folios and boxes of stationery and breastpins.
You needn't go over it all, Papa. I guess I can remember
just what was there, said the little girl. Well, and there was
the Christmas tree blazing away in the family, picking out their presence but looking
pretty sleepy, and her father perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry.
I'm sure I don't see how I'm to dispose of all these things,
said her mother, And her father said it seemed to him they had had
something just like it the day before, but he supposed he must have dreamt
it. This struck the little girl as the best kind of a joke,
so she ate so much candy she didn't want any breakfast, and went round
carrying presents, and had turkey and cranberry for dinner, and then went out
and coasted and came in with a hapah wow, what now, what did
you promise you forget the thing? Oh? Oh? Yes, Well the
next day it was just the same thing over again, but everybody getting cross.
And at the end of a week's time, so many people had lost
their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers anywhere. They perfectly strewed the
ground. Even when people tried to recover their tempers, they usually got somebody
else's, and it made the most dreadful mix. The little girl began to
get frightened, keeping the secret all to herself. She wanted to tell her
mother, but she didn't dare to, and she was ashamed to ask the
fairy to take back her gift. It seemed ungrateful and ill bred, and
she thought she would try to stand it, but she hardly knew how she
could. For a whole year. So it went on and on, and
it was Christmas on Saint Valentine's Day and Washington's Birthday, just the same as
any day, and it didn't skip even the first of April, though.
Everything was counterfeit that day, and that was some little relief. After a
while, coal and potatoes began to be awfully scarce, so many had been
wrapped up in tissue paper to fool papas and mamas with turkeys got to be
about one thousand dollars apiece, Papa, Well, what you're beginning to fib
well two thousand then, and they got to passing off almost everything for turkeys,
half grown hummingbirds, and even rocks out of the Arabian nights. The
real turkeys were so scarce, and cranberries well, they asked a diamond a
piece for cranberries. All the woods and orchards were cut down for Christmas trees,
and where the woods and orchards used to be it looked just like a
stubble field with the stumps. After a while they had to make Christmas trees
out of rags and stuff them with bran, like old fashioned dolls. But
there were plenty of rags because people got so poor buying presents for one another
that they couldn't get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones
to tatters. They got so poor that everybody had to go to the poorhouse,
except the confectioners and the fancy storekeepers, and the picture booksellers and the
expressmen. And they all got so rich and proud they would hardly wait upon
a person when he came to buy. It was perfectly shameful. Well after
it had gone on about three or four months, the little girl, whenever
she came into the room in the morning and saw those great, ugly,
lumpy stockings dangling at the fireplace and the disgusting presents around everywhere, used to
just sit down and burst out crying. In six months, he was perfectly
exhausted. She couldn't even cry any more. She just lay on the lounge
and rolled her eyes and panted. About the beginning of October, she took
to sitting down on dolls whenever she found them. French dolls are any kind.
She hated the sight of them so and by Thanksgiving she was crazy and
just slammed her presence across the room. By that time, people didn't carry
presents around nicely anymore. They flung them over the fence or through the window
or anything. And instead of running their tongues out and taking great pains to
write for dear Papa or Mama or brother or sister or Susie or Sammy or
Billy or Bobby or Jimmy or Jenny or whoever it was, and troubling to
get the spelling right, and then signing their names and ex miss eighteen whatever
they used to write in the gift books, Take it, you horrid old
thing, and then go and bang it against the front door. Nearly everybody
had built barns to hold their presents, but pretty soon the barns overflowed,
and then they used to let them lie out in the rain or anywhere.
Sometimes the police used to come and tell them to shovel their presence off the
sidewalk or they would arrest them. I thought you said everybody had gone to
the poorhouse, interrupted the little girl. They did go at first, said
her papa. But after a while the poor house got so full that they
had to send the people back to their own houses. They tried to cry
when they got back, but they couldn't make the least sound. Why couldn't
they because they had lost their voices saying Merry Christmas so much? Did I
tell you how it was on the fourth of July? No, how was
it? And the little girl nestled closer in expectation of something uncommon. Well,
the night before, the boys stayed up to celebrate as they always do,
and fell asleep before twelve o'clock as usual, expecting to be wakened by
the bells and cannon. But it was nearly eight o'clock when the first boy
in the United States woke up, and then he found out what the trouble
was. As soon as he could get his clothes on, he ran out
of the house and smashed a big cannon torpedo down on the pavement, but
it didn't make any more noise than a damp wad of paper. And after
he tried about twenty or thirty more, he began to pick them up and
look at them. Every single torpedo was a big raisin. Then he just
streaked it upstairs and examined his firecrackers and toy pistol and two dollars collection of
fireworks and found that they were nothing but sugar and candy painted up to look
like fireworks. Before ten o'clock, every boy in the United States found out
that his Fourth of July things had turned into Christmas things. And then they
just sat down and cried. They were so mad. There are about twenty
million boys in the United States, and so you can imagine what a noise
they made. Some men got together before night with a little powder that hadn't
turned into purple sugar yet, and they said they would fire off one cannon
anyway. But the cannon burst into a thousand pieces, for it was nothing
but rock candy, and some of the men nearly got killed. The Fourth
of July orations all turned into Christmas carols. And when anybody tried to read
the declaration instead of saying when in the course of human events, it becomes
necessary. He was sure to sing, God rest you Mary, gentlemen.
It was perfectly awful. The little girl drew a deep sigh of satisfaction.
And how was it a Thanksgiving? Her papa hesitated. Well, I'm almost
afraid to tell you. I'm afraid you'll think it's wicked. Well tell anyway,
said the little girl. Well, before it came Thanksgiving, it had
leaked out who had caused all these Christmases. The little girl had suffered so
much that she had talked about it in her sleep, and after that,
hardly anybody would play with her. People just perfectly despised her, because if
it had not been for her greediness, it wouldn't have happened. And now
when it came to Thanksgiving and she wanted them to go to church and have
squash pie in turkey and show their gratitude, they said that all the turkeys
had been eaten up for her old Christmas dinners, and if she would stop
the Christmases, they would see about the gratitude. Wasn't it dreadful? And
the very next day the little girl began to send letters to the Christmas Fairy,
and then telegrams to stop it, but it didn't do any good.
And then she got to calling at the fairy's house, but the girl that
came to the door always said not at home, or engaged, or at
dinner, or something like that. And so it went on till it came
to the old once a year Christmas eve. The little girl fell asleep,
and when she woke up in the morning, she found it was all nothing
but a dream, suggested the little girl. No, indeed, said her
papa, it was all every bit true. Well what did she find out
then, Why that it wasn't Christmas at last, and wasn't ever going to
be anymore. Now it's time for breakfast. The little girl held her papa
fast around the neck. You shan't go if you're going to leave it,
So why do you want it left? Christmas? Once a year? All
right, said her papa, and he went on again. Well, there
was the greatest rejoicing all over the country, and it extended clear up into
Canada. The people met together everywhere and kissed and cried for joy. The
city carts went around and gathered up all the candy and raisins and nuts and
dumped them into the river. And it made the fish perfectly sick, and
the whole United States, as far out as Alaska, was one blaze of
bonfires, where children were burning up their gift books and presents of all kinds.
They had the greatest time. The little girl went to thank the old
fairy because she had stopped its being Christmas, and she said she hoped she
would keep her promise and see that Christmas never never came again. Then the
fairy frowned and asked her if she was sure she knew what she meant,
And the little girl asked her why not, And the old fairy said that
now she was behaving just as greedily as ever, and she'd better look out.
This made the little girl think it all over carefully again, and she
said she would be willing to have it Christmas about once in a thousand years,
And then she said a hundred, and then she said ten, and
at last she got down to one. Then the fairy said that was the
good old way that had pleased people ever since Christmas began, and she was
agreed. Then the little girl said, what are your shoes made of?
And the fairy said leather, and the little girl said, bargain's done forever
and skipped off and hippity hopped the whole way home. She was so glad.
How will that do? Asked the pop up. First rate, said
the little girl, But she hated to have the story stop and was rather
sober. However, her mama put her head in at the door and asked
her, Papa, are you never coming to breakfast? What have you been
telling that child? Oh, just a moral tale. The little girl caught
him around the neck again. We know, don't you tell what, Papa?
Don't you tell what? And of Christmas every day by W. D. Howells