BESSIE MAYNARD TO HER DOLL.
Berlin, March, 1881.
It will be long after Christmas before you get this letter, dearest Clytie, but, for all that, I'm sure you will like to hear about my German holidays. If my letter seems mixed up and secure, you must excuse it, for my mind is in a perfect whirligig. One of their festivals, or "Fest-tag," as they say here, is so different from any we have at home, that I must tell you about it, although it happened so many weeks ago. It is "Nicholas-day," and comes on the 6th of December. My new cousins Ilsie and Lisbet told me that St. Nicholas always comes himself, and leaves presents at every house for the good children, and a bunch of rods for the naughty ones. He lives ever so far away, and is a kind of relation of Santa Claus—second cousins or step-fathers, maybe. Some people say he was once a real man, and lived in Asiaminer, wherever that may be; that he was a great Bishop there, and was so good to little children that they called him "dear Father Nicholas," and when he died they called him "Saint," and kept his birthday by giving presents to everybody. Well, that evening we had quite a party in mamma's parlor: all our cousins, besides Minna and Karl, Randolph and Helen, Cousin Carrie and two or three of mamma's friends. Cousin Frank didn't come till after St. Nicholas had gone—wasn't it too bad?
Well, we were talking and playing together, when all at once we heard a great shouting and stamping of feet, ringing of bells and blowing of horns; the door was thrown open, and in stalked St. Nicholas himself! He was as tall as a real giant; his beard came down below his knees; he wore great goggles, and carried a switch in his hand. He cried out in a terrible voice, "Where are the bad children?"
Then papa said, "Dear St. Nicholas, we have no bad children here; they are all as good as good can be."
At that St. Nicholas laughed, and he kept laughing louder and louder. He hid the switch under his cloak, and said: "Somehow I can't find any naughty children anywhere. What a beautiful world it is, to be sure—a world full of good boys and girls!"
Then he opened a bag and shook out nuts, raisins, apples, and oranges, and while we were scrambling for them, he hurried away, before we could say, "Thank you."
Next came Christmas, which I can't write about now, and then Twelfth-night, when we had a splendid supper, with a great plum-cake in the middle of the table, covered all over with queer little sugar things, cats and dogs and rabbits, chocolate shoes and mice and goats, and cunning little candy babies.
Do you wonder that I have had no time for writing you lately, and that my mind should be in a whirligig, and my thoughts go higgledy-piggledy? for besides all this, we went to Leipsic to the New-Year's fair. The fair is held out-doors, and people come from all parts of the world, bringing curious things to sell. They have their booths in the public squares, and it is merry and noisy from morning till night. There are Spaniards and French and Swiss and Italians, and just such people as I've read you about in my Stories of all Nations, and they look exactly like the pictures I've shown you so often. The fair lasts a fortnight, and at the end of it is Carnival. Then there are bands of music everywhere, and processions march through all the streets, and oh, dear me, Clytie! I can't give you a nidea of the funny times we had.