A STORY TO TELL BY THE CHRISTMAS TREE[[1]]
[1]. From How To Tell Stories To Children, by Sara Cone Bryant. Copyright 1905. Printed by special permission of the publishers, Houghton Mifflin Company.
I AM going to tell you a story about something wonderful that happened to a Christmas tree like this, ever and ever so long ago, when it was once upon a time.
It was before Christmas, and the tree was all trimmed with pop-corn and silver nuts and [name the trimmings of the tree before you], and stood safely out of sight in a room where the doors were locked, so that the children should not see it before it was time. But ever so many other little house-people had seen it. The big black pussy saw it with her great green eyes; the little gray kitty saw it with her little blue eyes; the kind house-dog saw it with his steady brown eyes; the yellow canary saw it with his wise, bright eyes. Even the wee, wee mice that were so afraid of the cat had peeped one peep when no one was by.
But there was some one who hadn’t seen the Christmas tree. It was the little gray spider!
You see, the spiders lived in the corners,—the warm corners of the sunny attic and the dark corners of the nice cellar. And they were expecting to see the Christmas Tree as much as anybody. But just before Christmas a great cleaning-up began in the house. The house-mother came sweeping and dusting and wiping and scrubbing, to make everything grand and clean for the Christ-child’s birthday. Her broom went into all the corners, poke, poke,—and of course the spiders had to run. Dear, dear, how the spiders had to run! Not one could stay in the house while the Christmas cleanness lasted. So, you see, they couldn’t see the Christmas Tree.
Spiders like to know all about everything, and all there is to see, and they were very sad. So at last they went to the Christ-child and told him all about it.
“All the others see the Christmas Tree, dear Christ-child,” they said; “but we, who are so domestic and so fond of beautiful things, we are cleaned up! We cannot see it, at all.”
The Christ-child was sorry for the little spiders when he heard this, and he said they should see the Christmas Tree.
The day before Christmas, when no body was noticing, he let them all go in, to look as long as ever they liked.