The 2020 CHRISTMAS ANNUAL for Children and Young People - 15 FREE Christmas Stories E-Book

Various

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

In this most unusual Christmas Season of 2020, a time when the world has been ravaged by the Corona Virus and people have been, at best, furloughed, or at worst, lost their jobs, here are 15 FREE Christmas stories from the 19th & 20Th C. which will hopefully be a pick-me-up at the end of this most difficult year.

In this FREE eBook are 15 Christmas stories from greats like Dickens and Louisa May Alcott (Little Women) as well as stories translated French, Spanish and other European Christmas tales.

The ebook is also littered with Christmas images by the late, great Arthur Rackham whose attention to detail as an illustrator continues to astound the world, even today.

The Stories in this bumper Christmas annual are:
Christmas  At The Big House
The  First  Christmas Tree
The Man In The Moon
The Poor Relation’s Story  [1852]
A Fortune  In An Empty Wallet
The Child’s Story  [1852]
The Christmas Cuckoo
The Schoolboy’s Story  [1853]
A Christmas  In The Forest
Nobody’s Story
The Princess  And The Ragamuffin
A Christmas Turkey, And How It Came.
Solange,  The Wolf-Girl
A Christmas Dream, And How It Came True
A Bird In The Snow

As this is a FREE ebook please do give it away to friends and family who have children, or are expecting children. Also give it to teachers, those who like reading and those who like children’s stories.

For more free folklore, fairytale and children’s stories from times past, please visit https://www.facebook.com/FolkloreAndFairyTales and page back, right to the beginning as there are literally hundreds to choose from.
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Keywords/Tags: Free eBook, Folklore, fairytales, myths, legends, fables, children’s stories, mothers with children, expectant mothers, Parents with young children, Christmas Stories, Christmas  At The Big House, First  Christmas Tree, Man In The Moon, Poor Relation’s Story, Fortune, Empty Wallet, Child’s Story,  Christmas Cuckoo, Schoolboy’s Story, Christmas  In The Forest, Nobody’s Story, Princess, Ragamuffin, Christmas Turkey, Solange,  Wolf Girl, Christmas Dream, Come True,  Bird In The Snow, Pass it on, give it away,

Leseprobe

The 2020 Christmas Annual for Children and Young People

Compiled By

John Halsted

15 Children’s Christmas Stories from a Variety of Authors

With Illustrations By Many Artists

Stories Originally Published Between

[1881 and 1920]

Published ByAbela Publishing, London

[2020]

THE 2020 CHRISTMAS ANNUAL

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2020

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

[2020]

ISBN-13: 978-8-XXXXXX-XX-X

email

[email protected]

website

http://bit.ly/2HekG4n

Contents

Christmas At The Big House

The First Christmas Tree

The Man In The Moon

The Poor Relation’s Story [1852]

A Fortune In An Empty Wallet

The Child’s Story [1852]

The Christmas Cuckoo

The Schoolboy’s Story [1853]

A Christmas In The Forest

Nobody’s Story

The Princess And The Ragamuffin

A Christmas Turkey, And How It Came.

Solange, The Wolf-Girl

A Christmas Dream, And How It Came True

A Bird In The Snow

The House Built for MaimeArthur Rackham, 1906

Christmas at the Big House

A Polly Pepper Story

“You must know, children,” said Polly, most impressively, “that there was to be a Christmas at the Big House.”

“Christmas!” Each of the three younger Peppers, “the children,” as Polly and Ben called them, set up a shout at the magic word. Ben set his teeth together hard, and listened. No one of them had ever seen a Christmas, or knew in the least what it was like, only from what Jasper had told them. And now Polly was to draw from her imagination, and give them a story-Christmas. No wonder at the babel that ensued.

“The Big House,” began Polly, “had ever and ever so many windows and doors to it, and it set back from the street; and there was a road up for the carriages, and another for folks to walk up—oh, and there were lots of children that belonged to the house, as many as we are,” and Polly glanced around on the bunch of little Peppers. “Well, you know the Big House had always had a Christmas every year whenever it came around; they had hung up their stockings and had trees, just like what Jasper told us of; and all sorts of nice things they’d tried time and again, so what to do this Christmas, why, none of them could think. At last Jenny, she was the biggest girl, proposed that each child should write out what he or she wanted to do most of all, and not let anyone else see what was written, but fold the paper, and tuck it into Grandpapa’s white hat in the hall. Grandpapa always wore a tall white hat whenever he went out, and when he was at home the hat stood on its head on the hall-table. And no one was ever allowed to touch that hat. So the children knew it would be a perfectly safe place to drop the papers in; and then, when all were in, even the baby’s, because Jenny would write hers for Mehitable, that was the baby’s name, why Grandpapa would take the hat, and turn out all the papers and read them, and decide what they better do in order to keep Christmas. Well, every single child in the Big House had written on his paper, and put it carefully into Grandpapa’s big white hat, and Grandpapa had taken out all the papers; the children had seen him as they peeked out of the door into the hall, and then he went away into another room and shut himself in.

“‘Children,’ he said, as at last, after what seemed to them a perfect age, he opened his door and came out, ‘we will have a tree this Christmas’; then he laughed, and held up seven papers—for you must know that besides the five children who always and every day lived at the Big House, there were two cousins, a girl and a boy, who were visiting there.

Grandpapa had taken out all the papers.

‘Every single paper,’ declared Grandpapa, as soon as he could speak, ‘had “Tree” written across it.’

“Well, you see by that, the children were not tired of Christmas trees, and as soon as Grandpapa told them that they were to have one, they were quite satisfied; although Jenny did say that if she had known everyone else had chosen it, she would have written some other thing on her paper. But that didn’t make any difference now, and what they all had to do was to get ready; and the next day found the whole Big House in—oh, such a bustle! You would think they never had gotten a tree ready for Christmas in all their lives, there was such a fuss made. In the first place, Grandpapa had to go out and speak to a man to send up into the country and get him a big spruce-tree of good shape, not long and spindling, but stout and with a pointed tip; for the Big House was in the city, and of course no city trees could be cut down without folks being put into jail for it. And then everybody had to sit down and count up the money they had to spend; and if that wasn’t enough, they had to go to the bank and draw out some more; that is, the big folks did. And as the children were emptying their banks to see how much they had, Grandpapa came up behind them, and dropped a gold dollar into each one’s pile.”

It was impossible for the Five Little Peppers to keep still at that; but after they were quiet once more, Polly occasioned a fresh outburst by saying, “And then Grandmamma came up behind them, and she dropped a gold dollar on each pile too.”

“Polly,” cried little Davie, quite overcome, “did they have the tree too?”

“Yes, child,” said Polly; “and dear me, lots of other things too—a big Christmas dinner for one thing.”

“O Polly!” cried Joel, “turkey and pudding?”

“O my, yes—and candy, and raisins, and everything,” declared Polly; “with flowers in the middle of the table.”

“And roast beef and fixings?” Ben for the life of him could not help asking this.

“Yes—yes,” answered Polly. “You can’t think of anything that those children didn’t have at that Christmas dinner. But I must tell you about the tree. Well, you must see it took a great while to get everything ready; besides the things that Jenny and her cousin Mary, and Jenny’s brother Tom, and his cousin Edward were making, there were ever so many presents to buy; and to get these, all the children had to go to the shops with Grandmamma and Grandpapa and with each other, and then they had to hide them in all the out-of-the-way places they could, so that no one would find them until they were hanging on the Christmas tree. Oh, there was just everything to do; and the day before Christmas they all went to the shops for the last things that had been forgotten till then. It had snowed the night before; but it was sunny and cheery on this afternoon, and the walks had a little bit of snow, too hard to clear off nicely, and just enough to slide on, when the procession came out of the Big House, and turned down the street where the shops were. Everybody was out buying things. They had little bags of money dangling by their sides, only some held their purses in their hands, and kept looking at them to be sure they were there—but oh, the shops!”

“Tell about them,” begged all the other Peppers together. “Tell every single thing that was in them,” said Joel.

“Oh! I can’t begin to tell half that was in those shops,” laughed Polly merrily. “Mercy me, Joey, there was just everything there,—drums and tin soldiers, and little boxes that had music shut up in ’em, and dolls and jews-harps, and mittens and comforters, and trains of cars, and candy and flowers, and birds in cages, and oh, boots and shoes and books and oh—just everything!” Polly brought up suddenly with a gasp, being quite tired out.

“Go on,” urged Joel breathlessly.

“She can’t—there’s too many things,” said Ben. “Never mind going over them; just tell what the folks did, Polly.”

“Well, you see, the children each wanted Grandmamma and Grandpapa to help them choose things that all the others were not to see,” said Polly; “and Grandmamma and Grandpapa couldn’t go in seven places at once; so at last one of them, it was Tom, thought of a plan. It was to rush off himself and choose something, and then come running back down the shop-length; and when the others all saw him coming, they were to hurry away from Grandmamma and Grandpapa, and let him whisper what it was into their ears so nobody else heard, and ‘Would you?’ and then if Grandmamma and Grandpapa said ‘Yes,’ away Tom would rush and buy it, whatever it was. So all the other children tried the very same plan; and don’t you believe when they asked ‘Would you?’ Grandmamma and Grandpapa always said ‘Yes, my dear.’ They did every single time.

“Well, and finally they came out of the last shop, and the lamps in the street were being lighted, and the snow under their feet shone and creaked as they stepped, and every one of the children would have slidden, if their arms had not been full of bundles clear up to their chins. And Grandpapa laughed, and said they ought to have brought an express wagon; and Grandmamma said, ‘Oh, no! she wouldn’t have them sent home if she could, it was so nice to carry bundles.’ And everybody they met had big and little white paper parcels; and people knocked into each other, the streets were so crowded and the bundles stuck out so; and so finally they got home, and all the bundles were put in one big room where the tree was; and the door was locked, and Grandmamma put the key in her black silk pocket.

“Well, in the middle of the night when that big house was still as could be, all the children were asleep in their beds, something came softly over the roof, and stopped right by the chimney. There was just a little tinkle-tinkle, like the noise Mrs. Henderson’s cow makes when she shakes her bell; and then a paw-paw, just like one of Mr. Tisbett’s horses when he puts his foot down quietly, the gray one, I mean; and somebody said, ‘Hush, there, you’ll wake up the folks;’ and before anybody could think, up springs something, with a big pack on his back, and down he goes right through the chimney.”

“I know, I know!” screamed Joel and David together; “it’s Santy Claus!”

“It’s Santy!” hummed Phronsie dreadfully excited. “Oh! I want to see him, Polly, I do.”

“Perhaps you will sometime, Phronsie, if you are a good girl,” Polly made haste to answer. “But never mind now, Pet, I must go on with the story.”

“Well, it was Santa Claus who hopped down the chimney with his pack on his back, and Mrs. Santa Claus sat in the sleigh and held the reins. And he went into every room, and looked at each sleeping child; and he could tell by its face whether he had been good or bad.”

“And had they?” cried Joel eagerly. “Say, Polly, oh, make them be good! And did Santa Claus give them a lot of presents?”

“Most of the children had been good,” said Polly; “but there was one, and he had been bad, very bad indeed. He had eaten up his brother’s piece of cake; and then he had cried and screamed for more, and made everybody unhappy. And Santa Claus stood over his bed and said, ‘Poor child.’”

“And didn’t he get any presents from Santa Claus?” cried Joel. “Do let him have a little bit of a present, Polly;” and he stuck his fingers in his eyes, trying not to cry.

“Why, how could he?” cried Polly, “when he had been bad, Joey?”

“P’raps he—he won’t—won’t eat up his brother’s cake anymore?” mumbled Joel, in great distress. Then he broke down, and laid his head in Polly’s lap, and burst out crying.

“Joel—Joel!” cried Polly, shaking his arm, “it’s only a story. Stop, Joey, you’ll make Phronsie cry.”

“But I want—want that boy to get a present from Santa Claus,” sobbed Joel, unable to be comforted.

“Do fix it some way,” whispered Ben over Polly’s shoulder. “Phronsie is beginning now.” And so she was. She had gravely insisted on getting into Polly’s lap; and now she hid her face on Polly’s arm, while soft little sobs shook her figure.

“Dear me!” cried Polly aghast, “was there ever such a time! Children, now stop, both of you. I’ll tell you what Santa Claus did. He looked at Teddy sleeping there; and he said to himself, ‘Now, I’ll give this boy something to make him good, even if he is bad now. And then, if he keeps on being bad, why, he must give it back to me next Christmas; and besides, I’ll have a rod for him.’ So he slipped a toy in Teddy’s stocking and”—

“And was he good?” cried Joel, thrusting his head up quickly, and wiping his wet face on Polly’s gown.

Joel laid his head in Polly’s lap and burst out crying.

“Yes; oh, you can’t think how good Teddy was all through that year!” said Polly happily. “His mother called him ‘Little Comfort,’ and his father said he was a little man.”

“That’s nice,” said Joel, smiling through his tears.

Phronsie, when she saw that Joel was all right, and that no one else was crying, lifted up her head from Polly’s arm, and laughed gleefully. So on Polly ran with the story.

“Well, and after Santa Claus had gone, for you know he had so many other children to go to see, and it was pink all over the sky, and the children were out of bed; why, it was the hardest thing to keep them out of that room where the tree was. And that day, oh, it was the very longest in all the days of the year! But at last it was night; and then the candles on the tree were all lighted, oh! I guess there were two hundred of them; and they gleamed out such a sparkling brightness, just like little stars, and”—

“Two hundred candles, Polly!” cried every one.

“Yes,” said Polly; “I surely believe there were two hundred candles, all lighted and winking away on that beautiful tree; and somebody, the children’s mother I believe, played on the piano, and everybody marched in line, and the big door was thrown open, and there, with its tip almost to the top of the room, was the most beautiful tree; and every branch was crowded with presents, and everybody got what was most wanted, and there were flowers everywhere. Oh! And a little bird sang—they’d put the cage at the bottom of the tree, because it was too heavy for the branches; and there sat Dicky-bird, his black eyes as big as could be, and he was stretching his throat and singing at the top of his voice. And then everybody took hold of hands, and danced around and around that most beautiful tree a whole hour I guess, and Santa Claus all the while was peeking in at the window. You see, he goes around the next night as soon as it gets dark, to see how the children like his presents. O children,” and Polly glanced out of the window, “if here doesn’t come Mrs. Beebe!”

From: The Stories Polly Pepper Told at the Brown HouseISBN: 9788835828907Link: https://bit.ly/36HDOTz

The Night Before Christmas Arthur Rackham, 1931The Winter Wind Blew ColdArthur Rackham

The First Christmas Tree

I The Call of the Woodsman

IT WAS the day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722AD.Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river Moselle; pallid hill-sides blooming with mystic roses where the glow of the setting sun still lingered upon them; an arch of clearest, faintest azure bending overhead; in the center of the aerial landscape of the massive walls of the cloister of Pfalzel, gray to the east, purple to the west; silence over all,—a gentle, eager, conscious stillness, diffused through the air like perfume, as if earth and sky were hushing themselves to hear the voice of the river faintly murmuring down the valley.

In the cloister, too, there was silence at the sunset hour. All day long there had been a strange and joyful stir among the nuns. A breeze of curiosity and excitement had swept along the corridors and through every quiet cell.

The elder sisters,—the provost, the deaconess, the stewardess, the portress with her huge bunch of keys jingling at her girdle,—had been hurrying to and fro, busied with household cares. In the huge kitchen there was a bustle of hospitable preparation. The little bandy-legged dogs that kept the spits turning before the fires had been trotting steadily for many an hour, until their tongues hung out for want of breath. The big black pots swinging from the cranes had bubbled and gurgled and shaken and sent out puffs of appetizing steam.

St. Martha was in her element. It was a field-day for her virtues.

The younger sisters, the pupils of the convent, had forsaken their Latin books and their embroidery-frames, their manuscripts and their miniatures, and fluttered through the halls in little flocks like merry snow-birds, all in black and white, chattering and whispering together. This was no day for tedious task-work, no day for grammar or arithmetic, no day for picking out illuminated letters in red and gold on stiff parchment, or patiently chasing intricate patterns over thick cloth with the slow needle. It was a holiday. A famous visitor had come to the convent.

It was Winfried of England, whose name in the Roman tongue was Boniface, and whom men called the Apostle of Germany. A great preacher; a wonderful scholar; he had written a Latin grammar himself,—think of it,—and he could hardly sleep without a book under his pillow; but, more than all, a great and daring traveller, a venturesome pilgrim, a high-priest of romance.

He had left his home and his fair estate in Wessex; he would not stay in the rich monastery of Nutescelle, even though they had chosen him as the abbot; he had refused a bishopric at the court of King Karl. Nothing would content him but to go out into the wild woods and preach to the heathen.

Up and down through the forests of Hesse and Thuringia, and along the borders of Saxony, he had wandered for years, with a handful of companions, sleeping under the trees, crossing mountains and marshes, now here, now there, never satisfied with ease and comfort, always in love with hardship and danger.

What a man he was! Fair and slight, but straight as a spear and strong as an oaken staff. His face was still young; the smooth skin was bronzed by wing and sun. His gray eyes, clear and kind, flashed like fire when he spoke of his adventures, and of the evil deeds of the false priests with whom he had contended.

What tales he had told that day! Not of miracles wrought by sacred relics; nor of courts and councils and splendid cathedrals; though he knew much of these things, and had been at Rome and received the Pope’s blessing. But to-day he had spoken of long journeyings by sea and land; of perils by fire and flood; of wolves and bears and fierce snowstorms and black nights in the lonely forest; of dark altars of heaven gods, and weird, bloody sacrifices, and narrow escapes from wandering savages.

The little novices had gathered around him, and their faces had grown pale and their eyes bright as they listened with parted lips, entranced in admiration, twining their arms about one another’s shoulders and holding closely together, half in fear, half in delight. The older nuns had turned from their tasks and paused, in passing by, to hear the pilgrim’s story. Too well they knew the truth of what he spoke. Many a one among them had seen the smoke rising from the ruins of her father’s roof. Many a one had a brother far away in the wild country to whom her heart went out night and day, wondering if he were still among the living.

But now the excitements of that wonderful day were over; the hours of the evening meal had come; the inmates of the cloister were assembled in the refectory.

On the dais sat the stately Abbess Addula, daughter of King Dagobert, looking a princess indeed, in her violet tunic, with the hood and cuffs of her long white robe trimmed with fur, and a snowy veil resting like a crown on her snowy hair. At her right hand was the honoured guest, and at her left hand her grandson, the young Prince Gregor, a big, manly boy, just returned from school.

The long, shadowy hall, with its dark-brown raters and beams; the double rows of nuns, with their pure veils and fair faces; the ruddy flow of the slanting sunbeams striking upwards through the tops of the windows and painting a pink glow high up on the walls,—it was all as beautiful as a picture, and as silent. For this was the rule of the cloister, that at the table all should sit in stillness for a little while, and then one should read aloud, while the rest listened.

“It is the turn of my grandson to read to-day,” said the abbess to Winfried; “we shall see how much he has learned in the school. Read, Gregor; the place in the book is marked.”

The tall lad rose from his seat and turned the pages of the manuscript. It was a copy of Jerome’s version of the Scriptures in Latin, and the marked place was in the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians,—the passage where he describes the preparation of the Christian as the arming of a warrior for glorious battle. The young voice rang out clearly, rolling the sonorous words, without slip or stumbling, to the end of the chapter.

Winfried listened, smiling. “My son,” said he, as the reader paused, “that was bravely read. Understandest thou what thou readest?”

“Surely, father,” answered the boy; “it was taught me by the masters at Treves; and we have read this epistle clear through, from beginning to end, so that I almost know it by heart.”

Then he began again to repeat the passage, turning away from the page as if to show his skill.

But Winfried stopped him with a friendly lifting of the hand.

“No so, my son; that was not my meaning. When we pray, we speak to God; when we read, it is God who speaks to us. I ask whether thou hast heard what He has said to thee, in thine own words, in the common speech. Come, give us again the message of the warrior and his armour and his battle, in the mother-tongue, so that all can understand it.”

The boy hesitated, blushed, stammered; then he came around to Winfried’s seat, bringing the book. “Take the book, my father,” he cried, “and read it for me. I cannot see the meaning plain, though I love the sound of the words. Religion I know, and the doctrines of our faith, and the life of priests and nuns in the cloister, for which my grandmother designs me, though it likes me little. And fighting I know, and the life of warriors and heroes, for I have read of it in Virgil and the ancients, and heard a bit from the soldiers at Treves; and I would fain taste more of it, for it likes me much. But how the two lives fit together, or what need there is of armour for a clerk in holy orders, I can never see. Tell me the meaning, for if there is a man in all the world that knows it, I am sure it is none other than thou.”

So Winfried took the book and closed it, clasping the boy’s hand with his own.

“Let us first dismiss the others to their vespers,” said he, “lest they should be weary.”

A sign from the abbess; a chanted benediction; a murmuring of sweet voices and a soft rustling of many feet over the rushes on the floor; the gentle tide of noise flowed out through the doors and ebbed away down the corridors; the three at the head of the table were left alone in the darkening room.

Then Winfried began to translate the parable of the soldier into the realities of life.