Like other parents the king and queen found delight in preparing pleasant surprises for their little ones. While engaged in choosing presents for them, on one occasion they entered a top-shop where a citizen’s wife was busy making purchases, but recognizing the new-comers she bowed respectfully and retired. The queen addressed her in her peculiarly winning way and sweet voice. “Stop, dear lady, what will the stall-keeper say if we drive away his customers?” She then inquired if the lady had come to buy toys for her children, and asked how many little ones she had. Hearing there was a son about the age of the Crown Prince, the queen bought some toys and gave them to the mother, saying, “Take them, dear lady, and give them to your crown prince in the name of mine.”
But I must tell you a yet prettier story, showing the queen’s fondness for making children happy.
There lived in Berlin a father and mother, who from some cause were so poor, and low-spirited besides, that when the holiday came which all children love best, they quietly resigned themselves to having nothing to give their little ones. What can be more sad than a house which no Kriss Kringle visits? Just think of it! They told their children that there was to be no Christmas tree for them this year. The little boy and his sister had been led to believe that the Christ-kind or Christ-child provides the tree and the gifts which are placed on tables round it; only ornaments, sweets and tapers are hung upon the branches. Under this disappointment the children, in the innocent simplicity of their faith, sought the aid of the good Christ-kind in their own way.
Christmas Eve came, and the poor troubled parents looked on with wonder as they beheld their children hopping and skipping about with joy, although they were to be the only children for whom no Christmas tree would be lighted, nor pretty gifts provided. Still in high spirits they watched at the window, and clapped their hands when the door-bell rang, exclaiming: “Here it comes!” The door was opened and a man-servant appeared, laden with a gay tree and several packets, each addressed to some member of the family.
“There must be some mistake!” said the mother.
“No, no!” cried the boy, “it is all right. I wrote to the good Christ-kind, and told him what we wanted, and that you could not buy anything this year.”
The parents enjoyed the evening with their children and afterwards unravelled the mystery. The postmaster, astonished by a letter evidently written by a very young scribe and addressed to the Christ-kind, had sent it to the palace with a respectful inquiry as to what should be done with a letter so strangely directed. Queen Louisa read it and, as a handmaid of the Christ-kind, she answered his little children.[1]
[1] Mrs. Hudson’s Life of Queen Louisa.
Louisa’s sympathies were ever ready to flow for the sorrows of childhood, which so many grown people will not stoop to even notice.
One day as the king and queen were entering a town, a band of young girls came forward to strew flowers and to present a nosegay. Her majesty inquired how many little girls there were. “Nineteen,” replied the artless child; “there would have been twenty of us but one was sent back home because she was too ugly.”