University of Virginia Library

Christmas, or the Good Fairy.

“Oh, dear! Christmas is coming in a fortnight,
and I have got to think up presents for everybody!”
said young Ellen Stuart, as she leaned
languidly back in her chair. “Dear me! it's so
tedious! Everybody has got everything that can
be thought of.”

“Oh, no!” said her confidential adviser, Miss
Lester, in a soothing tone. “You have means of
buying everything you can fancy, and when
every shop and store is glittering with all manner
of splendors, you cannot surely be at a loss.”

“Well, now, just listen. To begin with, there's
mamma! what can I get for her? I have thought
of ever so many things. She has three card-cases,
four gold thimbles, two or three gold chains, two
writing desks of different patterns; and then, as
to rings, brooches, boxes, and all other things, I
should think she might be sick of the sight of
them. I am sure I am,” said she, languidly gazing
on her white and jewelled fingers.

This view of the case seemed rather puzzling to
the adviser, and there was silence for a few moments,
when Eleanor, yawning, resumed—

“And then there's cousins Ellen and Mary—I
suppose they will be coming down on me with a
whole load of presents; and Mrs. B. will send me
something—she did last year; and then there's
cousins William and Tom—I must get them
something, and I would like to do it well enough,
if I only knew what to get!

“Well,” said Eleanor's aunt, who had been
sitting quietly rattling her knitting needles during
this speech, “it's a pity that you had not such a
subject to practice on as I was when I was a girl
—presents did not fly about in those days as they
do now. I remember when I was ten years old,
my father gave sister Mary and me a most marvellously
ugly sugar dog for a Christmas gift, and
we were perfectly delighted with it—the very idea
of a present was so new to us.”

“Dear aunt, how delighted I should be if I had
any such fresh unsophisticated body to get presents
for! but to get and get for people that have
more than they know what to do with now—to add
pictures, books, and gilding, when the centre-tables

are loaded with them now—and rings and
jewels, when they are a perfect drug! I wish
myself that I were not sick, and sated, and tired
with having everything in the world given me!”

“Well, Eleanor,” said her aunt, “if you really
do want unsophisticated subjects to practise on, I
can put you in the way of it. I can show you
more than one family to whom you might seem to
be a very good fairy, and where such gifts as you
could give with all ease would seem like a magic
dream.”

“Why, that would really be worth while, aunt.”

“Look right across the way,” said her aunt.
“You see that building.”

“That miserable combination of shanties?
Yes!”

“Well, I have several acquaintances there who
have never been tired of Christmas gifts, or gifts
of any other kind. I assure you, you could make
quite a sensation over there.”

“Well, who is there? Let us know!'

“Do you remember Owen, that used to make
your shoes?”

“Yes, I remember something about him.”

“Well, he has fallen into a consumption, and

cannot work any more, and he and his wife and
three little children live in one of the rooms over
there.”

“How do they get along?”

“His wife takes in sewing sometimes, and sometimes
goes out washing. Poor Owen! I was over
there yesterday; he looks thin and wistful, and
his wife was saying that he was parched with constant
fever, and had very little appetite. She had,
with great self-denial, and by restricting herself
almost of necessary food, got him two or three
oranges, and the poor fellow seemed so eager after
them.”

“Poor fellow!” said Eleanor, involuntarily.

“Now, said her aunt, “suppose Owen's wife
should get up on Christmas morning, and find at
the door a couple of dozen of oranges, and some of
those nice white grapes, such as you had at your
party last week, don't you think it would make a
sensation?”

“Why, yes, I think very likely it might; but
who else, aunt? You spoke of a great many.”

“Well, on the lower floor there is a neat little
room, that is always kept perfectly trim and tidy;
it belongs to a young couple who have nothing

beyond the husband's day wages to live on. They
are, nevertheless, as cheerful and chipper as a
couple of wrens, and she is up and down half a
dozen times a day, to help poor Mrs. Owen. She
has a baby of her own about five months old, and
of course does all the cooking, washing, and ironing
for herself and husband; and yet, when Mrs.
Owen goes out to wash, she takes her baby and
keeps it whole days for her.”

“I'm sure she deserves that the good fairies
should smile on her,” said Eleanor; “one baby
exhausts my stock of virtue very rapidly.”

“But you ought to see her baby,” said aunt
E., “so plump, so rosy, and good-natured, and always
clean as a lily. This baby is a sort of household
shrine; nothing is too sacred and too good
for it; and I believe the little, thrifty woman feels
only one temptation to be extravagant, and that
is to get some ornaments to adorn this little divinity.”

“Why, did she ever tell you so?'

“No; but one day when I was coming down
stairs, the door of their room was partly open, and
I saw a pedlar there with open box. John, the
husband, was standing with a little purple cap on

his hand, which he was regarding with mystified,
admiring air, as if he did'nt quite comprehend it,
and trim little Mary gazing at it with longing
eyes.”

“I think we might get it,” said John.

“Oh, no,” said she, regretfully; “yet I wish
we could, it's so pretty!”

“Say no more, aunt. I see the good fairy must
pop a cap into the window on Christmas morning.
Indeed, it shall be done. How they will wonder
where it came from, and talk about it for months
to come!”

“Well, then,” continued her aunt, “in the
next street to ours there is a miserable building,
that looks as if it were just going to topple over;
and away up in the third story, in a little room
just under the eaves, live two poor, lonely old
women. They are both nearly on to ninety. I
was in there day before yesterday. One of them
is constantly confined to her bed with rheumatism,
the other, weak and feeble, with failing sight and
trembling hands, totters about her only helper;
and they are entirely dependent on charity.”

“Can't they do anything? Can't they knit?”
said Eleanor.

“You are young and strong, Eleanor, and have
quick eyes and nimble fingers; how long would it
take you to knit a pair of stockings?”

“I!” said Eleanor. “What an idea! I never
tried, but I think I could get a pair done in a
week, perhaps!”

“And if somebody gave you twenty-five cents
for them, and out of this you had to get food, and
pay room rent, and buy coal for your fire, and oil
for your lamp”—

“Stop, aunt, for pity's sake!”

“Well, I will stop, but they can't; they must
pay so much every month for that miserable shell
they live in, or be turned into the street. The
meal and flour that some kind person sends goes
off for them just as it does for others, and they
must get more or starve, and coal is now scarce
and high priced.”

“Oh, aunt, I'm quite convinced, I'm sure;
don't run me down and annihilate me with all
these terrible realities. What shall I do to play
a good fairy to these poor old women?”

“If you will give me full power, Eleanor, I will
put up a basket to be sent to them, that will give
them something to remember all winter.”

“Oh, certainly I will. Let me see if I can't
think of something myself.”

“Well, Eleanor, suppose, then, some fifty, or
sixty years hence, if you were old, and your
father, and mother, and aunts, and uncles, now so
thick around you, laid cold and silent in so many
graves—you have somehow got away off to a
strange city, where you were never known—you
live in a miserable garret, where snow blows at
night through the cracks, and the fire is very
apt to go out in the old cracked stove; you sit
crouching over the dying embers the evening before
Christmas—nobody to speak to you, nobody
to care for you, except another poor old soul who
lies moaning in the bed—now, what would you
like to have sent you?”

“Oh, aunt, what a dismal picture!”

“And yet, Ella, all poor, forsaken old women
are made of young girls, who expected it in their
youth as little as you do, perhaps!”

“Say no more, aunt. I'll buy—let me see—a
comfortable warm shawl for each of these poor
women; and I'll send them—let me see—oh! some
tea—nothing goes down with old women like tea;
and I'll make John wheel some coal over to them;

and, aunt, it would not be a very bad thought to
send them a new stove. I remember the other day,
when mamma was pricing stoves, I saw some, such
nice ones,for two or three dollars.”

“For a new hand, Ella, you work up the idea
very well,” said her aunt.

“But how much ought I to give, for any one
case, to these women, say?”

“How much did you give last year for any single
Christmas present?”

“Why, six or seven dollars, for some; those
elegant souvenirs were seven dollars; that ring I
gave Mrs. B— was ten.”

“And do you suppose Mrs. B— was any
happier for it?”

“No, really, I don't think she cared much
about it; but I had to give her something, because
she had sent me something the year before, and I
did not want to send a paltry present to any one
in her circumstances.”

“Then, Ella, give ten to any poor, distressed,
suffering creature who really needs it, and see in
how many forms of good such a sum will appear.
That one hard, cold, glittering diamond ring, that
now cheers nobody, and means nothing, that you

give because you must, and she takes because she
must, might, if broken up into smaller sums, send
real warm and heart-felt gladness through many
a cold and cheerless dwelling, and through many
an aching heart.”

“You are getting to be an orator, aunt; but
don't you approve of Christmas presents among
friends and equals?”

“Yes, indeed,” said her aunt, fondly stroking
her head. “I have had some Christmas presents
that did me a world of good—a little book mark,
for instance, that a certain niece of mine worked
for me with wonderful secrecy, three years ago,
when she was not a young lady with a purse full
of money—that book mark was a true Christmas
present; and my young couple across the way are
plotting a profound surprise to each other on
Christmas morning. John has contrived, by an
hour of extra work every night, to lay by enough
to get Mary a new calico dress; and she, poor
soul, has bargained away the only thing in the
jewelry line she ever possessed, to be laid out on
a new hat for him.”

“I know, too, a washerwoman who has a poor
lame boy—a patient, gentle little fellow—who has

lain quietly for weeks and months in his little
crib, and his mother is going to give him a splendid
Christmas present.”

“What is it, pray?”

“A whole orange! Don't laugh. She will pay
ten whole cents for it; for it shall be none of your
common oranges, but a picked one of the very best
going! She has put by the money, a cent at a
time, for a whole month; and nobody knows which
will be happiest in it, Willie or his mother. These
are such Christmas presents as I like to think of—
gifts coming from love, and tending to produce
love; these are the appropriate gifts of the day.

“But don't you think that it's right for those
who have money, to give expensive presents, supposing
always as you say, they are given from real
affection?”

“Sometimes, undoubtedly. The Saviour did
not condemn her who broke an alabaster-box of
ointment—very precious—simply as a proof of
love, even although the suggestion was made,
`this might have been sold for three hundred
pence, and given to the poor.' I have thought he
would regard with sympathy the fond efforts which
human love sometimes makes to express itself by

gifts, the rarest and most costly. How I rejoiced
with all my heart, when Charles Elton gave his
poor mother that splendid Chinese shawl and gold
watch—because I knew they came from the very
fullness of his heart to a mother that he could not
do too much for—a mother that has done and suffered
everything for him. In some such cases,
when resources are ample, a costly gift seems to
have a graceful appropriateness; but I cannot approve
of it, if it exhausts all the means of doing
for the poor; it is better, then, to give a simple
offering, and to do something for those who really
need it.”

Eleanor looked thoughtful; her aunt laid down
her knitting, and said, in a tone of gentle seriousness:

“Whose birth does Christmas commemorate,
Ella?”

“Our Saviour's, certainly, aunt.”

“Yes,” said her aunt. “And when and how
was he born? in a stable! laid in a manger; thus
born, that in all ages he might be known as the
brother and friend of the poor. And surely it
seems but appropriate to commemorate His birthday
by an especial remembrance of the lowly,

the poor, the outcast, and distressed; and if Christ
should come back to our city on a Christmas day,
where should we think it most appropriate to his
character to find him? Would he be carrying
splendid gifts to splendid dwellings, or would he
be gliding about in the cheerless haunts of the desolate,
the poor, the forsaken, and the sorrowful?”

And here the conversation ended.

“What sort of Christmas presents is Ella buying?”
said cousin Tom, as the waiter handed in a
portentous-looking package, which had been just
rung in at the door.

“Let's open it,” said saucy Will. “Upon my
word, two great gray blanket shawls! These
must be for you and me, Tom! And what's this?
A great bolt of cotton flannel and gray yarn stockings!”

The door bell rang again, and the waiter brought
in another bulky parcel, and deposited it on the
marble-topped centre table.

“What's here?” said Will, cutting the cord!
“Whew! a perfect nest of packages! oolong tea!
oranges! grapes! white sugar! Bless me, Ella
must be going to housekeeping!”

“Or going crazy!” said Tom: “and on my
word,” said he, looking out of the window, “there's
a drayman ringing at our door, with a stove, with
a tea-kettle set in the top of it!”

“Ella's cook stove, of course,” said Will; and
just at this moment the young lady entered, with
her purse hanging gracefully over her hand.

“Now, boys, you are too bad!” she exclaimed,
as each of the mischievous youngsters were gravely
marching up and down, attired in a gray shawl.

“Did'nt you get them for us? We thought
you did,” said both.

“Ella, I want some of that cotton flannel, to
make me a pair of pantaloons,” said Tom.

“I say, Ella,” said Will, “when are you going
to housekeeping? Your cooking stove is standing
down in the street; 'pon my word, John is
loading some coal on the dray with it.”

“Ella, isn't that going to be sent to my office?”
said Tom; “do you know I do so languish for a
new stove with a tea-kettle in the top, to heat a
fellow's shaving water!”

Just then, another ring at the door, and the
grinning waiter handed in a small brown paper
parcel for Miss Ella. Tom made a dive at it, and

staving off the brown paper, developed a jaunty
little purple velvet cap, with silver tassels.

“My smoking cap! as I live,” said he, “only I
shall have to wear it on my thumb, instead of my
head—too small entirely,” said he, shaking his
head gravely.

“Come, you saucy boys,” said aunt E—, entering
briskly, “what are you teasing Ella for?”

“Why, do see this lot of things, aunt? What
in the world is Ella going to do with them?”

“Oh! I know!”

“You know; then I can guess, aunt, it is some
of your charitable works. You are going to make
a juvenile Lady Bountiful of El, eh?”

Ella, who had colored to the roots of her hair
at the expose of her very unfashionable Christmas
preparations, now took heart, and bestowed a
very gentle and salutary little cuff on the saucy
head that still wore the purple cap, and then
hastened to gather up her various purchases.

“Laugh away,” said she, gaily; “and a good
many others will laugh, too, over these things. I
got them to make people laugh—people that are
not in the habit of laughing!”

“Well, well, I see into it,” said Will; “and I

tell you I think right well of the idea, too. There
are worlds of money wasted at this time of the
year, in getting things that nobody wants, and
nobody cares for after they are got; and I am
glad, for my part, that you are going to get up a
variety in this line; in fact, I should like to give
you one of these stray leaves to help on,” said he,
dropping a $10 note into her paper. I like to encourage
girls to think of something besides breastpins
and sugar candy.”

But our story spins on too long. If anybody
wants to see the results of Ella's first attempts at
good fairyism, they can call at the doors of two or
three old buildings on Christmas morning, and
they shall hear all about it.