Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing
strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor and 20
back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken,
escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the
fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs—as if, poor
fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby—compounded
some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons 25
and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to
simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young
Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon
returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a 30
goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to
which a black swan was a matter of course—and in truth
it was something very like it, in that house. Mrs. Cratchit
made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan)
hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible
vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce;
Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside 5
him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits
set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and
mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into
their mouths lest they should shriek for goose before their
turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on 10
and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless
pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving
knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she
did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued
forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, 15
and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits,
beat on the table with the handle of his knife and feebly
cried, "Hurrah!"
There never was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness
and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal 20
admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes,
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family;
indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying
one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't eaten
it all at last! Yet everyone had had enough, and the 25
youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and
onion to the eyebrows! But now the plates being changed
by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too
nervous to bear witnesses—to take the pudding up, and
bring it in. 30
Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it
should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should
have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it, while
they were merry with the goose—a supposition at which
the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors
were supposed.
Halloo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out 5
of the copper. A smell like a washing day! That was the
cloth. A smell like an eating house and a pastry cook's
next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to
that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs.
Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with 10
the pudding, like a speckled cannon ball, so hard and
firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy
and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and
calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success 15
achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs.
Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she
would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity
of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but
nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for 20
a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so.
Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the
jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges 25
were put upon the table and a shovelful of chestnuts on the
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth
in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one;
and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of
glass—two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. 30
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out
with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered
and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"