"LONDON, Nov. 28th, 188-.
Wish you merry Christmas, you dearest birdlings in America! Preen your
feathers, and stretch the Birds' nest a little, if you please, and let
Uncle Jack in for the holidays. I am coming with such a trunk full of
treasures that you'll have to borrow the stockings of Barnum's Giant
and Giantess; I am coming to squeeze a certain little lady-bird until
she cries for mercy; I am coming to see if I can find a boy to take
care of a little black pony I bought lately. It's the strangest thing
I ever knew; I've hunted all over Europe, and can't find a boy to suit
me! I'll tell you why. I've set my heart on finding one with a dimple
in his chin, because this pony particularly likes dimples! ['Hurrah!'
cried Hugh; 'bless my dear dimple; I'll never be ashamed of it again.']
Please drop a note to the clerk of the weather, and have a good,
rousing snow-storm--say on the twenty-second. None of your meek,
gentle, nonsensical, shilly-shallying snow-storms; not the sort where
the flakes float lazily down from the sky as if they didn't care
whether they ever got here or not, and then melt away as soon as they
touch the earth, but a regular business-like whizzing, whirring,
blurring, cutting snow-storm, warranted to freeze and stay on!
I should like rather a LARGE Christmas tree, if it's convenient--not
one of those 'sprigs,' five or six feet high, that you used to have
three or four years ago, when the birdlings were not fairly feathered
out, but a tree of some size. Set it up in the garret, if necessary,
and then we can cut a hole in the roof if the tree chances to be too
high for the room.
Tell Bridget to begin to fatten a turkey. Tell her by the twentieth of
December that turkey must not be able to stand on its legs for fat, and
then on the next three days she must allow it to recline easily on its
side, and stuff it to bursting. (One ounce of stuffing beforehand is
worth a pound afterwards.)
The pudding must be unusually huge, and darkly, deeply, lugubriously
black in color. It must be stuck so full of plums that the pudding
itself will ooze out into the pan and not be brought on to the table at
all. I expect to be there by the twentieth, to manage these little
things--remembering it is the early Bird that catches the worm--but
give you the instructions in case I should be delayed.
And Carol must decide on the size of the tree--she knows best, she was
a Christmas child; and she must plead for the snow-storm--the 'clerk of
the weather' may pay some attention to her; and she must look up the
boy with the dimple for me--she's likelier to find him than I am, this
minute. She must advise about the turkey, and Bridget must bring the
pudding to her bedside and let her drop every separate plum into it and
stir it once for luck, or I'll not eat a single slice--for Carol is the
dearest part of Christmas to Uncle Jack, and he'll have none of it
without her. She is better than all the turkeys and puddings and
apples and spare-ribs and wreaths and garlands and mistletoe and
stockings and chimneys and sleigh-bells in Christendom. She is the
very sweetest Christmas Carol that was ever written, said, sung or
chanted, and I am coming, as fast as ships and railway trains can carry
me, to tell her so."
Carol's joy knew no bounds. Mr. and Mrs. Bird laughed like children
and kissed each other for sheer delight, and when the boys heard it
they simply whooped like wild Indians, until the Ruggles family, whose
back yard joined their garden, gathered at the door and wondered what
was "up" in the big house.