Christmas Every Day | Page 2

it as it kept coming true; and
then it slipped out of her mind altogether.
She had a splendid Christmas. She went to bed early, so as to let Santa
Claus have a chance at the stockings, and in the morning she was up
the first of anybody and went and felt them, and found hers all lumpy
with packages of candy, and oranges and grapes, and pocket-books and
rubber balls, and all kinds of small presents, and her big brother's with
nothing but the tongs in them, and her young lady sister's with a new
silk umbrella, and her papa's and mamma's with potatoes and pieces of
coal wrapped up in tissue-paper, just as they always had every
Christmas. Then she waited around till the rest of the family were up,
and she was the first to burst into the library, when the doors were
opened, and look at the large presents laid out on the
library-table--books, and portfolios, and boxes of stationery, and
breastpins, and dolls, and little stoves, and dozens of handkerchiefs,
and ink-stands, and skates, and snow-shovels, and photograph-frames,
and little easels, and boxes of water-colors, and Turkish paste, and
nougat, and candied cherries, and dolls' houses, and waterproofs--and
the big Christmas-tree, lighted and standing in a waste-basket in the
middle.
She had a splendid Christmas all day. She ate so much candy that she
did not want any breakfast; and the whole forenoon the presents kept
pouring in that the expressman had not had time to deliver the night
before; and she went round giving the presents she had got for other
people, and came home and ate turkey and cranberry for dinner, and
plum-pudding and nuts and raisins and oranges and more candy, and
then went out and coasted, and came in with a stomach-ache, crying;
and her papa said he would see if his house was turned into that sort of

fool's paradise another year; and they had a light supper, and pretty
early everybody went to bed cross.
Here the little girl pounded her papa in the back, again.
"Well, what now? Did I say pigs?"
"You made them act like pigs."
"Well, didn't they?"
"No matter; you oughtn't to put it into a story."
"Very well, then, I'll take it all out."
Her father went on:
The little girl slept very heavily, and she slept very late, but she was
wakened at last by the other children dancing round her bed with their
stockings full of presents in their hands.
"What is it?" said the little girl, and she rubbed her eyes and tried to
rise up in bed.
"Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!" they all shouted, and waved their
stockings.
"Nonsense! It was Christmas yesterday."
Her brothers and sisters just laughed. "We don't know about that. It's
Christmas to-day, anyway. You come into the library and see."
Then all at once it flashed on the little girl that the Fairy was keeping
her promise, and her year of Christmases was beginning. She was
dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang up like a lark--a lark that had
overeaten itself and gone to bed cross--and darted into the library.
There it was again! Books, and portfolios, and boxes of stationery, and
breastpins--

"You needn't go over it all, papa; I guess I can remember just what was
there," said the little girl.
Well, and there was the Christmas-tree blazing away, and the family
picking out their presents, but looking pretty sleepy, and her father
perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry. "I'm sure I don't see
how I'm to dispose of all these things," said her mother, and her father
said it seemed to him they had had something just like it the day before,
but he supposed he must have dreamed it. This struck the little girl as
the best kind of a joke; and so she ate so much candy she didn't want
any breakfast, and went round carrying presents, and had turkey and
cranberry for dinner, and then went out and coasted, and came in with
a--
"Papa!"
"Well, what now?"
"What did you promise, you forgetful thing?"
"Oh! oh yes!"
Well, the next day, it was just the same thing over again, but everybody
getting crosser; and at the end of a week's time so many people had lost
their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers anywhere; they
perfectly strewed the ground. Even when people tried to recover their
tempers they usually got somebody else's, and it made the most
dreadful mix.
The little girl began to get frightened, keeping the secret all to herself;
she wanted to tell her mother, but she didn't dare to; and she was
ashamed to ask the Fairy to take back her gift, it seemed ungrateful and
ill-bred, and she thought she would try