Christmas in modern story

by Unknown

Teacher Jensen emptied his purse on the desk. It had once been black, but it had long since turned brown, and was full of cracks. “That belonged to the man who spent seventeen years in prison,” he announced. “He had it there with him. He kept it there for seventeen long years.”

No one asked who the man was, but the money had to be counted over many times, for the children’s eyes were moist and they had to keep wiping the tears away.

On the Sunday before Christmas the children went with Teacher Jensen to the local store and bought a lot of tobacco and chocolate, almonds and raisins, playing cards and brightly colored handkerchiefs, and writing paper. And they got a lot of old Christmas books too, which were given to them free because they were at the bottom of the pile and were out of date.

The parents of the children had to contribute whether they wanted to or not, and bags full of cookies and nuts, playing cards and books, came out of each house.

Lauritz’s father had spoken in all secrecy to the prison chaplain, who went as a representative to the inspector. But the inspector hemmed and hawed saying: “That goes against all regulations. It’s impossible. It can’t be allowed on any ground whatever.” The chaplain was to have told this to Lauritz’s father, and Lauritz was to have brought the news to the children that the plan had to be abandoned. But the chaplain said nothing to Lauritz’s father, and the children did not know that it was impossible and could never be allowed.

All the parents, no matter how much they had to do, made a point of going into the schoolhouse the day before Christmas and seeing the three hundred little sparkling Christmas trees, each laden with joy, each with its star on the top, each with its white and red roses, white and red flags, and white and red candles, each decorated with tinsel and hung with gifts. To every tree a little letter was fastened, written by a boy or a girl. What was in this letter only the writer and perhaps Teacher Jensen knew—for Teacher Jensen had to help the little ones who only knew how to print numbers and capital letters.

The church bells rang over the town and called the faithful to God’s worship. The prison bells rang out over the prison and called the prisoners to the prison church. Before the school was drawn up a row of wagons which had been laden with the little Christmas trees. Each child then took his tree under his arm and set out, following the wagons, singing as he went. It was a Christmas party without snow, but a Christmas party just the same.

Stopping before the prison, they rang the bell, and asked to speak to the inspector. He came out, and the moment he appeared Teacher Jensen and all the children began to sing: “O du fröhliche, o, du selige, gnaden-bringende Weihnachtszeit....”

The inspector shook his head sadly and raised his hands in the air. It was impossible, absolutely impossible—he had said so. But the children kept right on singing, and seemed not to hear him. As the inspector afterward said, when the director of all the prisons in that district demanded an explanation: “A man is only human, and had you been in my place, Mr. Director, you would have done as I did, even if it had cost you your position.”

Thus it came to pass that this one time Christmas was celebrated in each cell of the big prison—a good, happy, cheerful Christmas. When the prisoners came back from the worship of God with their black masks on their faces they found a Christmas tree in every cell, and the cell doors stood open until the candles had burned out, and the prisoners received permission to go freely from cell to cell all through the corridor to look at each other’s Christmas trees and gifts—to look at them and to compare them. But each prisoner thought that his little tree and his present were the most beautiful and the best of all.