Old Scrooge was a rich and grasping business man;
Bob Cratchit was his underpaid and overworked
clerk. On Christmas Eve three spirits in succession
appeared to Scrooge: Christmas Past, Christmas
Present, and Christmas Yet-to-Come. The second
showed him, with other visions, this Christmas
feast in Cratchit's home. The lessons the spirits
taught him so influenced Scrooge that he set out
early next morning to spend a real Christmas; and
he was a changed man ever after.
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed
out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave
in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for
sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda
Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; 5
while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan
of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous
shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his
son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced
to find himself so gallantly attired and yearned to show his 10
linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller
Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that
outside the baker's they had smelt the goose and known it
for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage
and onion these young Cratchits danced about the table 15
and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he
(not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew
the fire until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly
at the saucepan lid to be let out and peeled.
"What has ever got your precious father, then?" said
Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And
Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an
hour!"
"Here's Martha, mother," said a girl, appearing as she 5
spoke.
"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young
Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"
"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you
are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times and 10
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.
"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied
the girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"
"Well! never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs.
Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have 15
a warm, Lord bless ye!"
"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha,
hide!"
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, 20
with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe,
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes
darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim
upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little
crutch and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! 25
"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking
round.
"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.
"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in
his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the 30
way from church and had come home rampant. "Not
coming upon Christmas Day!"
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were
only a joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the
closet door and ran into his arms, while the two young
Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim and bore him off into the
washhouse, that he might hear the pudding singing in the 5
copper.
"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit,
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had
hugged his daughter to his heart's content.
"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he 10
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks
the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming
home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church,
because he was a cripple and it might be pleasant to them
to remember, upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars 15
walk and blind men see."
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing
strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor and 20
back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken,
escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the
fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor
fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby--compounded
some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons 25
and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to
simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young
Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon
returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a 30
goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to
which a black swan was a matter of course--and in truth
it was something very like it, in that house. Mrs. Cratchit
made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan)
hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible
vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce;
Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside 5
him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits
set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and
mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into
their mouths lest they should shriek for goose before their
turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on 10
and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless
pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving
knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she
did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued
forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, 15
and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits,
beat on the table with the handle of his knife and feebly
cried, "Hurrah!"
There never was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness
and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal 20
admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes,
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family;
indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying
one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't eaten
it all at last! Yet everyone had had enough, and the 25
youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and
onion to the eyebrows! But now the plates being changed
by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too
nervous to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up, and
bring it in. 30
Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it
should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should
have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it, while
they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which
the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors
were supposed.
Halloo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out 5
of the copper. A smell like a washing day! That was the
cloth. A smell like an eating house and a pastry cook's
next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to
that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs.
Cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with 10
the pudding, like a speckled cannon ball, so hard and
firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy
and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and
calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success 15
achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs.
Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she
would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity
of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but
nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for 20
a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so.
Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the
jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges 25
were put upon the table and a shovelful of chestnuts on the
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth
in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one;
and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of
glass--two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. 30
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out
with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered
and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"
Which all the family reëchoed.
"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. 5
--_A Christmas Carol._
1. A few days before Christmas you should read
Dickens's _A Christmas Carol_. It is one of the
best, if not the best, Christmas story ever
written. How does Dickens make you feel while you
read this selection? How many people are present at
the Cratchits'? To whom does your sympathy go?
2. Select a list of words and phrases that suggest
happiness. How does Dickens make you wish you were
at the Cratchit feast?
3. Appoint a committee of three from your class to
report fully on Dickens's life and writings. Take
brief notes on their report.