Christmas Every Day | Page 8

would let her go, that people should never
eat turkeys any more. And the moon began to shine brighter and
brighter through the turkeys, and pretty soon it was the sun, and then it
was not the turkeys, but the window-curtains--it was one of those old
farm-houses where they don't have blinds--and the other little girl--
"Woke up!" shouted the little girl. "There now, papa, what did I tell you?
I knew it was a dream all along."
"No, she didn't," said the papa; "and it wasn't a dream."
"What was it, then?"
"It was a--trance."
The little girl turned round, and knelt in her papa's lap, so as to take
him by the shoulders and give him a good shaking. That made him
promise to be good, pretty quick, and, "Very well, then," says the little
girl; "if it wasn't a dream, you've got to prove it."
"But how can I prove it?" says the papa.
"By going on with the story," says the little girl, and she cuddled down
again.
"Oh, well, that's easy enough."
As soon as it was light in the room, the other little girl could see that
the place was full of people, crammed and jammed, and they were all
awfully excited, and kept yelling, "Down with the traitress!" "Away

with the renegade!" "Shame on the little sneak!" till it was worse than
the turkeys, ten times.
She knew that they meant her, and she tried to explain that she just had
to promise, and that if they had been in her place they would have
promised too; and of course they could do as they pleased about
keeping her word, but she was going to keep it, anyway, and never,
never, never eat another piece of turkey either at Thanksgiving or at
Christmas.
"Very well, then," says an old lady, who looked like her grandmother,
and then began to have a crown on, and to turn into Queen Victoria,
"what can we have?"
"Well," says the other little girl, "you can have oyster soup."
"What else?"
"And you can have cranberry sauce."
"What else?"
"You can have mashed potatoes, and Hubbard squash, and celery, and
turnip, and cauliflower."
"What else?"
"You can have mince-pie, and pandowdy, and plum-pudding."
"And not a thing on the list," says the Queen, "that doesn't go with
turkey! Now you see."
The papa stopped.
"Go on," said the little girl.
"There isn't any more."
The little girl turned round, got up on her knees, took him by the

shoulders, and shook him fearfully. "Now, then," she said, while the
papa let his head wag, after the shaking, like a Chinese mandarin's, and
it was a good thing he did not let his tongue stick out. "Now, will you
go on? What did the people eat in place of turkey?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know, you awful papa! Well, then, what did the little girl
eat?"
"She?" The papa freed himself, and made his preparation to escape.
"Why she--oh, she ate goose. Goose is tenderer than turkey, anyway,
and more digestible; and there isn't so much of it, and you can't overeat
yourself, and have bad--"
"Dreams!" cried the little girl.
"Trances," said the papa, and she began to chase him all round the
room.

THE PONY ENGINE AND THE PACIFIC EXPRESS.
Christmas Eve, after the children had hung up their stockings and got
all ready for St. Nic, they climbed up on the papa's lap to kiss him
good-night, and when they both got their arms round his neck, they said
they were not going to bed till he told them a Christmas story. Then he
saw that he would have to mind, for they were awfully severe with him,
and always made him do exactly what they told him; it was the way
they had brought him up. He tried his best to get out of it for a while;
but after they had shaken him first this side, and then that side, and
pulled him backward and forward till he did not know where he was, he
began to think perhaps he had better begin. The first thing he said, after
he opened his eyes, and made believe he had been asleep, or something,
was, "Well, what did I leave off at?" and that made them just perfectly
boiling, for they understood his tricks, and they knew he was trying to
pretend that he had told part of the story already; and they said he had
not left off anywhere because he had not commenced, and he saw it

was no use. So he commenced.
"Once there was a little Pony Engine that used to play round the
Fitchburg Depot on the side tracks, and sleep in among the big
locomotives in the car-house--"
The little girl