Juliana Horatia Ewing

“ They are not excited by secret and mysterious preparations in the back drawing-room; they hardly confess to the thrill—which. I feel to this day—when the folding-doors are thrown open, and amid the blaze of tapers, Mamma, like a Fate, advances with her scissors to give every one what falls to his lot.
“Well, young people, when I was eight years old I had not seen a Christmas-tree, and the first picture of one I ever saw was the picture of that held by Old Father Christmas in my godmother’s picture-book. ”

“ Christmas week came, Christmas Eve came. My father and mother were mysteriously and unaccountably busy in the parlour (we had only one parlour) , and Patty and I were not allowed to go in. We went into the kitchen, but even here was no place of rest for us. Kitty was ‘all over the place,’ as she phrased it, and cakes, mince-pies, and puddings were with her. As she justly observed, ‘There was no place there for children and books to sit with their toes in the fire, when a body wanted to be at the oven all along. The cat was enough for her temper,’ she added. ”

“ The raisins are eaten, the brandy is burnt out—”
“No, it’s not,” said Harry.
“Well, almost. It would be better if it were quite out. Now come. It’s dangerous for a boy like you to be alone with the Snap-Dragons to-night.”
“Fiddle-sticks!” said Harry.
“Go your own way, then!” said the hot-tempered gentleman; and he bounced out of the room, and Harry was left alone.
He crept up to the table, where one little pale blue flame flickered in the snap-dragon dish.
“What a pity it should go out!” said Harry. At this moment the brandy bottle on the side-board caught his eye. ”

“ The children shouted as the fiery sweetmeats burnt away the mawkish taste of the furmety. Mr Skratdj cried that they were spoiling the carpet; Mrs Skratdj complained that he had spilled some brandy on her dress. ”

“ I thought the latter, and suggested to Patty that perhaps he had some place underground, like Aladdin’s cave, where he got the candles, and all the pretty things for the tree. This idea pleased us both, and we amused ourselves by wondering what Old Father Christmas would choose for us from his stores in that wonderful hole where he dressed his Christmas-trees.
”‘I wonder, Patty,’ said I, ‘why there’s no picture of Father Christmas’s dog in the book.’ For at the old man’s heels in the lane there crept a little brown and white spaniel, looking very dirty in the snow. ”

“ Kitty was as strong as a man; and they carried Father Christmas between them into the kitchen. There he quickly revived.
“I must do Kitty the justice to say that she did not utter a word of complaint at this disturbance of her labours; and that she drew the old man’s chair close up to the oven with her own hand. She was so much affected by the behaviour of his dog, that she admitted him even to the hearth; on which puss, being acute enough to see how matters stood, lay down with her back so close to the spaniel’s that Kitty could not expel one without kicking both. ”

“ If the visitor made a stand, he would bound away sideways on his four little legs; but the moment the visitor went on his way again, Snap was at his heels—“Yap! yap! yap!” He barked at the milkman, the butcher’s boy, and the baker, though he saw them every day. He never got used to the washerwoman, and she never got used to him. She said he “put her in mind of that there black dog in the Pilgrim’s Progress.” ”

“ For Polly and her brother had reached an age when it was convenient, if possible, to throw the blame of all nursery differences on Polly. In families where domestic discipline is rather fractious than firm, there comes a stage when the girls almost invariably go to the wall, because they will stand snubbing, and the boys will not. Domestic authority, like some other powers, is apt to be magnified on the weaker class.
But Mr Skratdj would not always listen even to Harry. ”

“ Those who were near wished themselves anywhere else, especially when appealed to. Those who were at a distance did not mind so much. A domestic squabble at a certain distance is interesting, like an engagement viewed from a point beyond the range of guns. ”

“ The custom of Christmas-trees came from Germany. I can remember when they were first introduced into England, and what wonderful things we thought them. Now, every village school has its tree, and the scholars openly discuss whether the presents have been ‘good,’ or ‘mean,’ as compared with other trees of former years.
“The first one that I ever saw I believed to have come from good Father Christmas himself; but little boys have grown too wise now to be taken in for their own amusement. ”

“ There are times when the squabbling becomes too great, and Mother Mountain won’t stand it, and spits us all out, and throws cinders after us. But this is only at times. We had a charming meeting last year. So many human beings, and how they can snap! ”

“ Harry and Polly snubbed “the little ones” when they snapped, and utterly discountenanced snapping in the nursery. The example and admonitions of elder children are a powerful instrument of nursery discipline, and before long there was not a “sharp tongue” amongst all the little Skratdjs.
But I doubt if the parents ever were cured. I don’t know if they heard the story. Besides, bad habits are not easily cured when one is old.
I fear Mr and Mrs Skratdj have yet got to dance with the Dragons.
Chapter Two. Old Father Christmas. ”

“ Also that it is a kindness, and almost a duty, to let people think and say and do things in their own way occasionally.
But even if Mr and Mrs Skratdj had ever thought of teaching all this to their children, it must be confessed that the lesson would not have come with a good grace from either of them, since they snapped and snarled between themselves as much or more than their children in the nursery.
The two eldest were the leaders in the nursery squabbles. Between these, a boy and a girl, a ceaseless war of words was waged from morning to night. ”

“ Children are like dogs, they are very good judges of their real friends. Harry did not like the hot-tempered gentleman a bit the less because he was obliged to respect and obey him; and all the children welcomed him boisterously when he arrived that Christmas which we have spoken of in connection with his attack on Snap.
It was on the morning of Christmas Eve that the china punch bowl was broken. Mr Skratdj had a warm dispute with Mrs Skratdj as to whether it had been kept in a safe place ”

“ Christmas Eve. In the course of a few hours Mr and Mrs Skratdj recovered their equanimity. The punch was brewed in a jug, and tasted quite as good as usual. The evening was very lively. There were a Christmas-tree, Yule cakes, log, and candles, furmety, and snap-dragon after supper. When the company was tired of the tree, and had gained an appetite by the hard exercise of stretching to high branches, blowing out “dangerous” tapers, and cutting ribbon and pack-thread in all directions, supper came, with its welcome cakes and furmety and punch. ”

“ Now as I say, my relations and friends thought twice before they pulled out five shillings in a toy-shop, but they didn’t forget me, all the same.
“On my eighth birthday my mother gave me a bright blue comforter of her own knitting.
“My little sister gave me a ball. My mother had cut out the divisions from various bits in the rag bag, and my sister had done some of the seaming. It was stuffed with bran, and had a cork inside which had broken from old age, and could no longer fit the pickle jar it belonged to. ”

“ The Skratdj’s Dog and the Hot-Tempered Gentleman. It is wonderful how the state of mind of a whole household is influenced by the heads of it. Mr Skratdj was a very kind master, and Mrs Skratdj was a very kind mistress, and yet their servants lived in a perpetual fever of irritability that just fell short of discontent. ”

“ He never but once had the chance of barking at burglars; and then, though he barked long and loud, nobody got up, for they said, “It’s only Snap’s way.” The Skratdjs lost a silver teapot, a Stilton cheese, and two electro christening mugs, on this occasion; and Mr and Mrs Skratdj dispute who it was who discouraged reliance on Snap’s warning to the present day.
One Christmas-time, a certain hot-tempered gentleman came to visit the Skratdjs. A tall, sandy, energetic young man, who carried his own bag from the railway. The bag had been crammed rather than packed, after the wont of bachelors ”

“ From this it came about that I always had to bear a good many jokes about being burnt as a Guy Fawkes; but, on the other hand, I was allowed to make a small bonfire of my own, and to have eight potatoes to roast therein, and eight-pennyworth of crackers to let off in the evening. A potato and a pennyworth of crackers for every year of my life.
“On this eighth birthday, having got all the above named gifts, I cried, in the fulness of my heart, ‘There never was such a day!’ And yet there was more to come, for the evening coach brought me a parcel, and the parcel was my godmother’s picture-book. ”

“ I was watching the robin, when Patty, who had been peering out of her corner of Kitty’s shawl, gave a great jump that dragged the shawl from our heads, and cried,—
”‘Look!’”
Chapter Four.
“I looked. An old man was coming along the lane. His hair and beard were as white as cotton-wool. He had a face like the sort of apple that keeps well in winter; his coat was old and brown. There was snow about him in patches, and he carried a small fir-tree. ”

“ But I had, and she sent me presents on my birthdays too. And young people did not get presents when I was a child as they get them now. Grumph! We had not half so many toys as you have, but we kept them twice as long. I think we were fonder of them too, though they were neither so handsome, nor so expensive as these new-fangled affairs you are always breaking about the house. Grumph!
“You see, middle-class folk were more saving then. My mother turned and dyed her dresses, and when she had done with them, the servant was very glad to have them ”