Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Claus' Reading List

by A. A. Milne

  * * *

  It was only a few lines, but it made her hurry to throw on her dressing-gown and hasten to the nursery.

  * * *

  "How is Leigh?" were her first words to Nurse.

  * * *

  "He's got a little cold in his head, ma'am, but nothing much," was the cheerful reply, and Mamma saw by the child's face that there were no signs of anything worse.

  * * *

  "But, Miss Helena," Nurse went on, "has had a bad night, and her head is aching, so I thought it better to keep her in bed to breakfast."

  * * *

  Poor Nelly! she had not much appetite for breakfast, and the first thing she did when Mamma's dear face appeared at the door was to burst into tears.

  * * *

  But such tears do good, and still more relief was the telling the whole story, ending up with—

  * * *

  "Oh, Mamma, dear Mamma, I couldn't bear to think I had told you what was not quite true. And Willie feels just the same."

  * * *

  For Willie had crept in too, looking very grave, and winking his eyes hard to keep from crying.

  * * *

  It was all put right, of course; there was really no need for their Mother to show them where they had been wrong. They knew it so well. And Leigh did not get ill, after all.

  * * *

  Freda Kingley had had a lesson too, I am glad to say.

  * * *

  That very afternoon she and Hugh walked over to Halling Park, to "find out" if Leigh was all right.

  * * *

  And this gave Mrs. Frere a good opportunity of showing the kind-hearted but thoughtless children the risk they had run of getting themselves and their little friends into real trouble—above all, by concealing their foolish play, and causing Nelly and her little brothers for the first time in their lives to act at all deceitfully.

  * * *

  "You will be afraid to let them play with us any more," said Freda very sadly, "and I'm sure I don't wonder."

  * * *

  "No, dear," said her new friend. "On the contrary, I shall now feel sure that I may trust you and Hugh and Maggie."

  * * *

  Freda grew red with pleasure.

  * * *

  "You may indeed," she said; "I promise you we won't lead them into mischief and—and if ever we do, we'll tell you all about it at once."

  * * *

  Mrs. Frere laughed at this quaint way of putting it.

  * * *

  "I don't think my children will be any the worse for a little more 'running wild' than they have had," she said.

  * * *

  "And we won't be any the worse for having to think a little before we rush off on some fun," said Freda. "I really never did see before how very easy it would be to get into telling regular stories, if you don't take care."

  The Christmas Princess

  Mary Louisa Molesworth

  The Christmas Princess

  In the olden times there lived a king who was worthy of the name. He loved his people, and his people loved him in return. His kingdom must have been large; at least it appears to be beyond doubt that it extended a good way in different directions, for it was called the Kingdom of the Four Orts, which, of course, as everybody knows, means that he had possessions north, south, east, and west.

  * * *

  It was not so large, however, but that he was able to manage it well for himself—that is to say, with certain help which I will tell you of. A year never passed without his visiting every part of his dominions and inquiring for himself into the affairs of his subjects. Perhaps—who can say?—the world was not so big in those days; doubtless, however that may have been, there were not so many folk living on it.

  * * *

  Many things were different in those times: many things existed which nowadays would be thought strange and incredible. Human beings knew much more than they do now about the other dwellers on the earth. For instance, it was no uncommon case to find learned men who were able to converse with animals quite as well as with each other. Fairies, of course, were often visible to mortal eyes, and it was considered quite natural that they should interfere for good—sometimes, perhaps, for evil; as to that I cannot say—in human affairs. And good King Brave-Heart was especially favored in this way. For the help which, as I said, was his in governing his people was that of four very wise counselors indeed—the four fairies of the North and the South, the East and the West.

  * * *

  These sisters were very beautiful as well as very wise. Though older than the world itself, they always looked young. They were very much attached to each other, though they seldom met, and it must be confessed that sometimes on such occasions there were stormy scenes, though they made it up afterward. And the advice they gave was always to be relied upon.

  * * *

  Now, King Brave-Heart was married. His wife was young and charming, and devotedly fond of him. But she was of a rather jealous and exacting disposition, and she had been much spoilt in her youth at her own home. She was sweet and loving, however, which makes up for a good deal, and always ready to take part in any scheme for the good of their people, provided it did not separate her from her husband.

  * * *

  They had no children, though they had been married for some years; but at last there came the hope of an heir, and the Queen's delight was unbounded—nor was the King's joy less than hers.

  * * *

  It was late autumn, or almost winter, when a great trouble befell the pretty Queen. The weather had grown suddenly cold, and a few snowflakes even had fallen before their time. But Queen Claribel only clapped her hands at the sight, for with the winter she hoped the baby would come, and she welcomed the signs of its approach on this account. The King, however, looked grave, and when the next morning the ground was all white, the trees and the bushes covered with silvery foliage, he looked graver still.

  * * *

  "Something is amiss," he said. "The Fairy of the North must be on her way, and it is not yet time for her visit."

  * * *

  And that very afternoon the snow fell again, more heavily than before, and the frost-wind whistled down the chimneys and burst open the doors and windows, and all the palace servants went hurrying and scurrying about to make great fires and hang up thick curtains and get everything in order for the cold season, which they had not expected so soon.

  * * *

  "It will not last," said the King, quietly. "In a few days there will be milder weather again." But, nevertheless, he still looked grave.

  * * *

  And early the next morning, as he was sitting with the Queen, who was beginning to feel a little frightened at the continuance of the storm, the double doors of her boudoir suddenly flew open, an icy blast filled the room, and a tall, white-shrouded figure stood before them.

  * * *

  "I have come to fetch you, Brave-Heart," she said abruptly. "You are wanted, sorely wanted, in my part of the world. The people are starving: the season has been a poor one, and there has been bad faith. Some few powerful men have bought up the grain, which was already scarce, and refuse to let the poor folk have it. Nothing will save their lives or prevent sad suffering but your own immediate presence. Are you ready? You must have seen I was coming."

  * * *

  She threw off her mantle as she spoke and sank on to a couch. Strong as she was, she seemed tired with the rate at which she had traveled, and the warm air of the room was oppressive to her. Her clear, beautiful features looked harassed; her gray eyes full of anxiety. For the moment she took no notice of the Queen.

  * * *

  "Are you ready?" she repeated.

  * * *

  "Yes, I am ready!" said Brave-Heart, as he rose to his feet.

  * * *

  But the Queen threw herself upon him, with bitter crying and reproaches. Would he leave her, and at such a time, a prey to all kinds of terrible anxiety? Then she turned to the fairy and upbraided
her in unmeasured language. But the spirit of the North glanced at her with calm pity.

  * * *

  "Poor child!" she said, "I had almost forgotten you. The sights I have seen of late have been so terrible that they absorb me. Take courage, Claribel! Show yourself a queen. Think of the suffering mothers and their little ones whom your husband hastens to aid. All will be well with you, believe me. But you, too, must be brave and unselfish."

  * * *

  It was no use. All she said but made the Queen more indignant. She would scarcely bid her husband farewell: she turned her back to the fairy with undignified petulance.

  * * *

  "Foolish child," said the Northern spirit. "She will learn better some day."

  * * *

  Then she gave all her attention to the matter she had come about, explaining to the King as they journeyed exactly the measures he must take and the difficulties to be overcome. But though the King had the greatest faith in her advice, and never doubted that it was his duty to obey, his heart was sore, as you can understand.

  * * *

  Things turned out as he had said. The severe weather disappeared again as if by magic, and some weeks of unusually mild days followed. And when the winter did set in for good at last, it was with no great rigor. From time to time news reached the palace of the King's welfare. The tidings were cheering. His presence was effecting all that the fairy had hoped.

  * * *

  So Queen Claribel ought to have been happy. But she was determined not to be. She did nothing but cry and abuse the fairy, declaring that she would never see her dear Brave-Heart again, and that if ever her baby came she was sure it would not live, or that there would be something dreadful the matter with it.

  * * *

  "It is not fair," she kept saying, "it is a shame that I should suffer so."

  * * *

  And even when on Christmas Eve a beautiful little girl was born, as pretty and lively and healthy as could be wished, and even though the next day brought the announcement of the King's immediate return, Claribel still nursed her resentment, though in the end it came to be directed entirely against the fairy. For when she saw Brave-Heart again, his tender affection and his delight in his little daughter made it impossible for her not to "forgive him," as she expressed it, though she could not take any interest in his accounts of his visit to the north and all he had been able to do there.

  * * *

  A great feast was arranged in honor of the christening of the little Princess. All the grand people of the neighborhood were bidden to it, nor, you may be sure, did the good King forget the poorer folk. The four fairies were invited, for it was a matter of course that they should be the baby's godmothers. And though the Queen would gladly have excluded the Northern fairy, she dared not even hint at such a thing.

  * * *

  But she resolved in her own mind to do all in her power to show that she was not the welcome fairy.

  * * *

  On such occasions, when human beings were honored by the presence of fairy visitors, these distinguished guests were naturally given precedence of all others, otherwise very certainly they would never have come again. Even among fairies themselves there are ranks and formalities, and the Queen well knew that the first place was due to the Northern spirit. But she gave instructions that this rule should be departed from, and the Snow fairy, as she was sometimes called, found herself placed at the King's left hand, separated from him by her sister of the West, instead of next to him on the right, which seat, on the contrary, was occupied by the fairy of the South. She glanced round her calmly, but took no notice; and the King, imagining that by her own choice perhaps, she had chosen the unusual position, made no remark. And the feast progressed with the accustomed splendor and rejoicing.

  * * *

  But at the end, when the moment arrived at which the four godmothers were expected to state their gifts to the baby, the Queen's spite could be no longer concealed.

  * * *

  "I request," she exclaimed, "that for reasons well known to herself, to the King, and to myself, the Northern fairy's gift may be the last in order instead of the first."

  * * *

  The King started and grew pale. The beautiful, soft-voiced fairy of the South, in her glowing golden draperies, would fain have held back, for her affection for her sterner sister was largely mingled with awe. But the Snow fairy signed to her imperiously to speak.

  * * *

  "I bestow upon the Princess Sweet-Heart," she said, half tremblingly, "the gift of great beauty."

  * * *

  "And I," said the spirit of the East, who came next, her red robes falling majestically around her, her dark hair lying smoothly in its thick masses on her broad, low forehead, "I give her great powers of intellect and intelligence."

  * * *

  "And I," said the Western fairy, with a bright, breezy flutter of her sea-green garments, "health—perfect health and strength of body, as my gift to the pretty child."

  * * *

  "And you," said the Queen bitterly, "you, cold-hearted fairy, who have done your best to kill me with misery, who came between my husband and me, making him neglect me as he never would have done but for your influence—what will you give my child? Will you do something to make amends for the suffering you caused? I would rather my pretty baby were dead than that she lived to endure what I have of late endured."

  * * *

  "Life and death are not mine to bestow or to withhold," said the Northern spirit calmly, as she drew her white garments more closely round her with a majestic air. "So your rash words, foolish woman, fortunately for you all, cannot touch the child. But something—much—I can do, and I will. She shall not know the suffering you dread for her with so cowardly a fear. She shall be what you choose to fancy I am. And instead of the name you have given her, she shall be known for what she is—Princess Ice-Heart."

  * * *

  She turned to go, but the King on one hand, her three sisters on the other, started forward to detain her.

  * * *

  "Have pity!" exclaimed the former.

  * * *

  "Sister, bethink you," said the latter; the Western fairy adding beseechingly, the tears springing in her blue eyes, which so quickly changed from bright to sad, "Say something to soften this hard fate. Undo it you cannot, I know. Or, at least, allow me to mitigate it if I can."

  * * *

  The Snow fairy stopped; in truth, she was far from hard-hearted or remorseless, and already she was beginning to feel half sorry for what she had done.

  * * *

  "What would you propose?" she said coldly.

  * * *

  The fairy of the West threw back her auburn hair with a gesture of impatience.

  * * *

  "I would I knew!" she said. "'Tis a hard knot you have tied, my sister. For that which would mend the evil wrought seems to me impossible while the evil exists—the cure and the cessation of the disease are one. How could the heart of ice be melted till tender feelings warm it, and how can tender feelings find entrance into a feelingless heart? Alas! alas! I can but predict what sounds like a mockery of your trouble," she went on, turning to the King, though indeed by this time she might have included the Queen in her sympathy, for Claribel stood, horrified at the result of her mad resentment, as pale as Brave-Heart himself. "Hearken!" and her expressive face, over which sunshine and showers were wont to chase each other as on an April day—for such, as all know, is the nature of the changeful, lovable spirit of the West—for once grew still and statue-like, while her blue eyes pierced far into the distance. "The day on which the Princess of the Icy Heart shall shed a tear, that heart shall melt—but then only."

  * * *

  The Northern fairy murmured something under her breath, but what the words were no one heard, for it was not many that dared stand near to her, so terribly cold was her presence. The graceful spirit of the South fluttered her golden locks, and with a little sigh drew her radiant mantl
e round her, and kissed her hand in farewell, while the thoughtful-eyed, mysterious Eastern fairy linked her arm in that of her Western sister, and whispered that the solution of the problem should have her most earnest study. And the green-robed spirit tried to smile through her tears in farewell as she suffered herself to be led away.

  * * *