The Childrens Book of Christmas Stories

The Children's Book of Christmas Stories

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Title: The Children's Book of Christmas Stories
Author: Edited by Asa Don Dickinson and Ada M. Skinner
Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5061] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 12, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BOOK OF CHRISTMAS STORIES ***

Etext prepared by Dianne Bean, Prescott Valley, Arizona.

THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF CHRISTMAS STORIES
Edited by Asa Don Dickinson and Ada M. Skinner

THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF CHRISTMAS STORIES
PREFACE
Many librarians have felt the need and expressed the desire for a select collection of children's Christmas stories in one volume. This books claims to be just that and nothing more.
Each of the stories has already won the approval of thousands of children, and each is fraught with the true Christmas spirit.
It is hoped that the collection will prove equally acceptable to parents, teachers, and librarians.
Asa Don Dickinson.
CONTENTS (Note.--The stories marked with a star (*) will be most enjoyed by younger children; those marked with a two stars (**) are better suited to older children.)
Christmas at Fezziwig's Warehouse. By Charles Dickens * The Fir-Tree. By Hans Christian Andersen The Christmas Masquerade. By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman * The Shepherds and the Angels. Adapted from the Bills ** The Telltale Tile. By Olive Thorne Miller * Little Girl's Christmas. By Winnifred E. Lincoln ** A Christmas Matinee. By M.A.L. Lane * Toinette and the Elves. By Susan Coolidge The Voyage of the Wee Red Cap. By Ruth Sawyer Durand * A Story of the Christ-Child (a German Legend for Christmas Eve). As told by Elizabeth Harrison * Jimmy Scarecrow's Christmas. By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Why the Chimes Rang. By Raymond McAlden The Birds'Christmas (founded on fact). By F.E. Mann ** The Little Sister's Vacation. By Winifred M. Kirkland * Little Wolff's Wooden Shoes. By Francois Coppee, adapted and translated by Alma J. Foster ** Christmas in the Alley. By Olive Thorne Miller * A Christmas Star. By Katherine Pyle ** The Queerest Christmas. By Grace Margaret Gallaher Old Father Christmas. By J.H. Ewing A Christmas Carol. By Charles Dickens How Christmas Came to the Santa Maria Flats. By Elia W. Peattie The Legend of Babouscka. From the Russian Folk Tale * Christmas in the Barn. By F. Arnstein The Philanthropist's Christmas. By James Weber Linn * The First Christmas-Tree. By Lucy Wheelock The First New England Christmas. By G.L. Stone and M.G. Fickett The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner. By Charles Dickens Christmas in Seventeen Seventy-Six. By Anne Hollingsworth Wharton * Christmas Under the Snow. By Olive Thorne Miller Mr. Bluff's Experience of Holidays. By Oliver Bell Bunce ** Master Sandy's Snapdragon. By Elbridge S. Brooks A Christmas Fairy. By John Strange Winter The Greatest of These. By Joseph Mills Hanson * Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe. By Elizabeth Harrison ** Big Rattle. By Theodore Goodridge Roberts

I. CHRISTMAS AT FEZZIWIG'S WAREHOUSE
CHARLES DICKENS
"Yo Ho! my boys," said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night! Christmas Eve, Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up!" cried old Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson. . . ."
"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Cheer-up, Ebenezer!"
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ballroom as you would desire to see on a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music book, and went up to the lofty