Christmas Every Day - William Dean Howells

Listen Ad Free https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Christmas every day. The little girl came into her papa's
study as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and
asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning,
for he was very busy, but she would not let him,
so he began, Well, once there was a little pig.

(00:21):
She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him
at the word. She said she had heard little pigs
stories till she was perfectly sick of them. Well, what
kind of story shall I tell then about Christmas? It's
getting to be the season. It's past Thanksgiving already, it
seems to me. Her papa argued that I've told as

(00:44):
often about Christmas as I have about little pigs. No difference.
Christmas is more interesting. Well, her papa roused himself from
his writing by a great effort. Well, then I'll tell
you about the little girl that wanted it Christmas every
day in the year. How would you like that? First rate,
said the little girl, and she nestled into comfortable shape

(01:07):
in his lap, ready for listening. Very well, then, this
little pig, Oh, what are you pounding me for? Because
you said little pig instead of little girl. I should
like to know what's the difference between a little pig
and a little girl that wanted it Christmas every day.
Papa said the little girl, warningly, if you don't go on,

(01:30):
I'll give it to you, And at this her Papa
darted off like lightning and began to tell the story
as fast as he could. Once there was a little
girl who liked Christmas so much that she wanted it
to be Christmas every day in the year, and as
soon as Thanksgiving was over, she began to send postal
cards to the old Christmas Fairy to ask if she

(01:51):
mightn't have it, But the old fairy never entered any
of the postals, and after a while the little girl
found out that the fairy was pretty particular and wouldn't
notice anything but letters, not even correspondence cards and envelopes,
but real letters on sheets of paper and sealed outside
with a monogram or your initial anyway. So then she

(02:13):
began to send her letters, and in about three weeks,
or just the day before Christmas it was, she got
a letter from the fairy saying she might have it
Christmas every day for a year and then they would
see about having it longer. The little girl was a
good deal excited, already preparing for the old fashioned once
a year Christmas that was coming the next day, and

(02:35):
perhaps the fairy's promise didn't make such an impression on
her as it would have made at some other time.
She just resolved to keep it to herself and surprise
everybody with 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

(02:56):
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 brothers with nothing but tongs in them,
and her young lady sisters with a new silk umbrella,

(03:19):
and her papas and mamas 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

(03:41):
breastpins and dolls and little stoves, and dozens of handkerchiefs
and inkstands and skates and snowshovels and photograph frames and
little easels, and boxes of watercolors and Turkish paste and
nougat and candy, cherries and dolls, houses and waterproofs, and
the big chrisp tree lighted and standing in a waste

(04:02):
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

(04:23):
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 turning into that sort of fool's paradise another year.
And then they had a light supper, and pretty early
everybody went to bed Cross. Here, the little girl pounded

(04:47):
her papa on 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 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 awakened at last by

(05:11):
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.

(05:34):
It's Christmas today. 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.

(05:56):
There it was again, books and poor folios 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 in the family, picking out their presence but
looking pretty sleepy, and her father perfectly puzzled, and her

(06:19):
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 dreamt it. This struck the little
girl as the best kind of a joke, so she
ate so much candy she didn't want any breakfast, and

(06:40):
went round carrying presents, and had turkey and cranberry for dinner,
and then went out and coasted and came in with
a hapah wow, what now, what did you promise you
forget the thing? Oh? Oh? Yes, Well the next day
it was just the same thing over again, but everybody
getting cross. And at the end of a week's time,

(07:02):
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

(07:23):
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 to
stand it, but she hardly knew how she could. For
a whole year. So it went on and on, and
it was Christmas on Saint Valentine's Day and Washington's Birthday,

(07:44):
just the same as any day, and it didn't skip
even the first of April, though. Everything was counterfeit that day,
and that was some little relief. After a while, coal
and potatoes began to be awfully scarce, so many had
been wrapped up in tissue paper to fool papas and
mamas with turkeys got to be about one thousand dollars apiece, Papa, Well,

(08:07):
what you're beginning to fib well two thousand then, and
they got to passing off almost everything for turkeys, half
grown hummingbirds, and even rocks out of the Arabian nights.
The real turkeys were so scarce, and cranberries well, they
asked a diamond a piece for cranberries. All the woods

(08:31):
and orchards were cut down for Christmas trees, and where
the woods and orchards used to be it looked just
like a stubble field with the stumps. After a while
they had to make Christmas trees out of rags and
stuff them with bran, like old fashioned dolls. But there
were plenty of rags because people got so poor buying
presents for one another that they couldn't get any new clothes,

(08:53):
and they just wore their old ones to tatters. They
got so poor that everybody had to go to the poorhouse,
except the confectioners and the fancy storekeepers, and the picture
booksellers and the expressmen. And they all got so rich
and proud they would hardly wait upon a person when
he came to buy. It was perfectly shameful. Well after

(09:15):
it had gone on about three or four months, the
little girl, whenever she came into the room in the
morning and saw those great, ugly, lumpy stockings dangling at
the fireplace and the disgusting presents around everywhere, used to
just sit down and burst out crying. In six months,
he was perfectly exhausted. She couldn't even cry any more.

(09:39):
She just lay on the lounge and rolled her eyes
and panted. About the beginning of October, she took to
sitting down on dolls whenever she found them. French dolls
are any kind. She hated the sight of them so
and by Thanksgiving she was crazy and just slammed her
presence across the room. By that time, people didn't carry

(10:01):
presents around nicely anymore. They flung them over the fence
or through the window or anything. And instead of running
their tongues out and taking great pains to write for
dear Papa or Mama or brother or sister or Susie
or Sammy or Billy or Bobby or Jimmy or Jenny
or whoever it was, and troubling to get the spelling right,

(10:22):
and then signing their names and ex miss eighteen whatever
they used to write in the gift books, Take it,
you horrid old thing, and then go and bang it
against the front door. Nearly everybody had built barns to
hold their presents, but pretty soon the barns overflowed, and
then they used to let them lie out in the

(10:42):
rain or anywhere. Sometimes the police used to come and
tell them to shovel their presence off the sidewalk or
they would arrest them. I thought you said everybody had
gone to the poorhouse, interrupted the little girl. They did
go at first, said her papa. But after a while
the poor house got so full that they had to
send the people back to their own houses. They tried

(11:05):
to cry when they got back, but they couldn't make
the least sound. Why couldn't they because they had lost
their voices saying Merry Christmas so much? Did I tell
you how it was on the fourth of July? No,
how was it? And the little girl nestled closer in
expectation of something uncommon. Well, the night before, the boys

(11:28):
stayed up to celebrate as they always do, and fell
asleep before twelve o'clock as usual, expecting to be wakened
by the bells and cannon. But it was nearly eight
o'clock when the first boy in the United States woke up,
and then he found out what the trouble was. As
soon as he could get his clothes on, he ran
out of the house and smashed a big cannon torpedo

(11:50):
down on the pavement, but it didn't make any more
noise than a damp wad of paper. And after he
tried about twenty or thirty more, he began to pick
them up and look at them. Every single torpedo was
a big raisin. Then he just streaked it upstairs and
examined his firecrackers and toy pistol and two dollars collection

(12:10):
of fireworks and found that they were nothing but sugar
and candy painted up to look like fireworks. Before ten o'clock,
every boy in the United States found out that his
Fourth of July things had turned into Christmas things. And
then they just sat down and cried. They were so mad.
There are about twenty million boys in the United States,

(12:32):
and so you can imagine what a noise they made.
Some men got together before night with a little powder
that hadn't turned into purple sugar yet, and they said
they would fire off one cannon anyway. But the cannon
burst into a thousand pieces, for it was nothing but
rock candy, and some of the men nearly got killed.

(12:52):
The Fourth of July orations all turned into Christmas carols.
And when anybody tried to read the declaration instead of
saying when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary.
He was sure to sing, God rest you Mary, gentlemen.
It was perfectly awful. The little girl drew a deep

(13:12):
sigh of satisfaction. And how was it a Thanksgiving? Her
papa hesitated. Well, I'm almost afraid to tell you. I'm
afraid you'll think it's wicked. Well tell anyway, said the
little girl. Well, before it came Thanksgiving, it had leaked

(13:32):
out who had caused all these Christmases. The little girl
had suffered so much that she had talked about it
in her sleep, and after that, hardly anybody would play
with her. People just perfectly despised her, because if it
had not been for her greediness, it wouldn't have happened.
And now when it came to Thanksgiving and she wanted

(13:52):
them to go to church and have squash pie in
turkey and show their gratitude, they said that all the
turkeys had been eaten up for her old Christmas dinners,
and if she would stop the Christmases, they would see
about the gratitude. Wasn't it dreadful? And the very next
day the little girl began to send letters to the

(14:13):
Christmas Fairy, and then telegrams to stop it, but it
didn't do any good. And then she got to calling
at the fairy's house, but the girl that came to
the door always said not at home, or engaged, or
at dinner, or something like that. And so it went
on till it came to the old once a year

(14:35):
Christmas eve. The little girl fell asleep, and when she
woke up in the morning, she found it was all
nothing but a dream, suggested the little girl. No, indeed,
said her papa, it was all every bit true. Well
what did she find out then, Why that it wasn't
Christmas at last, and wasn't ever going to be anymore.

(14:58):
Now it's time for breakfast. The little girl held her
papa fast around the neck. You shan't go if you're
going to leave it, So why do you want it left? Christmas?
Once a year? All right, said her papa, and he
went on again. Well, there was the greatest rejoicing all

(15:18):
over the country, and it extended clear up into Canada.
The people met together everywhere and kissed and cried for joy.
The city carts went around and gathered up all the
candy and raisins and nuts and dumped them into the river.
And it made the fish perfectly sick, and the whole
United States, as far out as Alaska, was one blaze

(15:40):
of bonfires, where children were burning up their gift books
and presents of all kinds. They had the greatest time.
The little girl went to thank the old fairy because
she had stopped its being Christmas, and she said she
hoped she would keep her promise and see that Christmas
never never came again. Then the fairy frowned and asked

(16:02):
her if she was sure she knew what she meant,
And the little girl asked her why not, And the
old fairy said that now she was behaving just as
greedily as ever, and she'd better look out. This made
the little girl think it all over carefully again, and
she said she would be willing to have it Christmas
about once in a thousand years, And then she said

(16:26):
a hundred, and then she said ten, and at last
she got down to one. Then the fairy said that
was the good old way that had pleased people ever
since Christmas began, and she was agreed. Then the little
girl said, what are your shoes made of? And the
fairy said leather, and the little girl said, bargain's done

(16:47):
forever and skipped off and hippity hopped the whole way home.
She was so glad. How will that do? Asked the
pop up. First rate, said the little girl, But she
hated to have the story stop and was rather sober. However,
her mama put her head in at the door and
asked her, Papa, are you never coming to breakfast? What

(17:08):
have you been telling that child? Oh, just a moral tale.
The little girl caught him around the neck again. We know,
don't you tell what, Papa? Don't you tell what? And
of Christmas every day by W. D. Howells