On Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion presented a beautiful
appearance. There were rows of different colored wax
candles burning
in every window, and beyond them one could see the
chandeliers of gold
and crystal blazing with light. The fiddles were squeaking merrily, and
lovely little forms flew past the windows in time to
the music.
There were gorgeous carpets laid from the door to
the street, and
carriages were constantly arriving and fresh guests
tripping over them.
They were all children. The Mayor was giving a
Christmas Masquerade
tonight to all the children in the city, the poor as
well as the rich.
The preparation for this ball had been making an
immense sensation for
the last three months. Placards had been up in the
most conspicuous
points in the city, and all the daily newspapers had
at least a column
devoted to it, headed with "THE MAYOR'S CHRISTMAS
MASQUERADE," in very large letters.
The Mayor had promised to defray the expenses of all
the poor children
whose parents were unable to do so, and the bills
for their costumes
were directed to be sent in to him.
Of course there was great excitement among the
regular costumers of the city, and they all resolved
to vie with one another in being the most
popular, and the best patronized on this gala
occasion. But the
placards and the notices had not been out a week
before a new Costumer appeared who cast all the
others into the shade directly. He set up his shop
on the corner of one of the principal streets, and
hung up his beautiful costumes in the windows. He
was a little fellow, not much bigger than a boy of
ten. His cheeks were as red as roses, and he had on
a long curling wig as white as snow. He wore a suit
of crimson
velvet knee-breeches, and a little swallow-tailed
coat with beautiful
golden buttons. Deep lace ruffles fell over his
slender white hands,and he wore elegant knee buckles of glittering
stones. He sat on a high
stool behind his counter and served his customers
himself; he kept no
clerk.
It did not take the children long to discover what
beautiful things he
had, and how superior he was to the other costumers,
and they begun to flock to his shop immediately,
from the Mayor's daughter to the poor rag picker's.
The children were to select their own costumes; the
Mayor had stipulated that. It was to be a children's
ball in every sense of the word.
So they decided to be fairies and shepherdesses, and
princesses
according to their own fancies; and this new
Costumer had charming
costumes to suit them.
It was noticeable that, for the most part, the
children of the rich,
who had always had everything they desired, would
choose the parts of
goose-girls and peasants and such like; and the poor
children jumped
eagerly at the chance of being princesses or fairies
for a few hours in
their miserable lives.
When Christmas Eve came and the children flocked
into the Mayor's
mansion, whether it was owing to the Costumer's art,
or their own
adaptation to the characters they had chosen, it was
wonderful how
lifelike their representations were. Those little
fairies in their
short skirts of silken gauze, in which golden
sparkles appeared as they
moved with their little funny gossamer wings, like
butterflies, looked
like real fairies. It did not seem possible, when
they floated around
to the music, half supported on the tips of their
dainty toes, half by
their filmy purple wings, their delicate bodies
swaying in time, that
they could be anything but fairies. It seemed absurd
to imagine that
they were Johnny Mullen's, the washerwoman's son,
and Polly Flinders,
the charwoman's little girl, and so on.
The Mayor's daughter, who had chosen the character
of a goose-girl,
looked so like a true one that one could hardly
dream she ever was
anything else. She was, ordinarily, a slender,
dainty little lady
rather tall for her age. She now looked very short
and stubbed and
brown, just as if she had been accustomed to tend
geese in all sorts of
weather. It was so with all the others--the Red
Riding-hoods, the
princesses, the Bo-Peeps and with every one of the
characters who came
to the Mayor's ball; Red Riding-hood looked round,
with big, frightened eyes, all ready to spy the
wolf, and carried her little pat of butter and pot
of honey gingerly in her basket; Bo-Peep's eyes
looked red with weeping for the loss of her sheep;
and the princesses swept about so grandly in their
splendid brocaded trains, and held their crowned
heads so high that people half-believed them to be
true princesses.
But there never was anything like the fun at the
Mayor's Christmas
ball. The fiddlers fiddled and fiddled, and the
children danced and
danced on the beautiful waxed floors. The Mayor,
with his family and a
few grand guests, sat on a dais covered with blue
velvet at one end of
the dancing hall, and watched the sport. They were
all delighted. The
Mayor's eldest daughter sat in front and clapped her
little soft white
hands. She was a tall, beautiful young maiden, and
wore a white dress,
and a little cap woven of blue violets on her yellow
hair. Her name was
Violetta.
The supper was served at midnight--and such a
supper! The mountains of pink and white ices, and
the cakes with sugar castles and flower
gardens on the tops of them, and the charming shapes
of gold and
ruby-colored jellies. There were wonderful bonbons
which even the
Mayor's daughter did not have every day; and all
sorts of fruits, fresh
and candied. They had cowslip wine in green glasses,
and elderberry
wine in red, and they drank each other's health. The
glasses held a
thimbleful each; the Mayor's wife thought that was
all the wine they
ought to have. Under each child's plate there was a
pretty present and
every one had a basket of bonbons and cake to carry
home.
At four o'clock the fiddlers put up their fiddles
and the children went
home; fairies and shepherdesses and pages and
princesses all jabbering
gleefully about the splendid time they had had.
But in a short time what consternation there was
throughout the city.
When the proud and fond parents attempted to
unbutton their children's dresses, in order to
prepare them for bed, not a single costume would
come off. The buttons buttoned again as fast as they
were unbuttoned; even if they pulled out a pin, in
it would slip again in a twinkling; and when a
string was untied it tied itself up again into a
bowknot. The parents were dreadfully frightened. But
the children were so tired out they finally let them
go to bed in their fancy costumes and thought
perhaps they would come off better in the morning.
So Red Riding-hood went to bed in her little red
cloak holding fast to her basket full of dainties
for her grandmother, and Bo-Peep slept with her
crook in her hand.
The children all went to bed readily enough, they
were so very tired,
even though they had to go in this strange array.
All but the
fairies--they danced and pirouetted and would not be
still.
"We want to swing on the blades of grass," they kept
saying, "and play
hide and seek in the lily cups, and take a nap
between the leaves of
the roses."
The poor charwomen and coal-heavers, whose children
the fairies were
for the most part, stared at them in great distress.
They did not know
what to do with these radiant, frisky little
creatures into which their
Johnny's and their Polly's and Betsey's were so
suddenly transformed. But the fairies went to bed
quietly enough when daylight came, and were soon
fast asleep.
There was no further trouble till twelve o'clock,
when all the children
woke up. Then a great wave of alarm spread over the
city. Not one of
the costumes would come off then. The buttons
buttoned as fast as they
were unbuttoned; the pins quilted themselves in as
fast as they were
pulled out; and the strings flew round like
lightning and twisted
themselves into bow-knots as fast as they were
untied.
And that was not the worst of it; every one of the
children seemed to
have become, in reality, the character which he or
she had assumed.
The Mayor's daughter declared she was going to tend
her geese out in
the pasture, and the shepherdesses sprang out of
their little beds of
down, throwing aside their silken quilts, and cried
that they must go
out and watch their sheep. The princesses jumped up
from their straw
pallets, and wanted to go to court; and all the rest
of them likewise.
Poor little Red Riding-hood sobbed and sobbed
because she couldn't go and carry her basket to her
grandmother, and as she didn't have any
grandmother she couldn't go, of course, and her
parents were very much doubled. It was all so
mysterious and dreadful. The news spread very
rapidly over the city, and soon a great crowd
gathered around the new Costumer's shop for every
one thought he must be responsible for all this
mischief.
The shop door was locked; but they soon battered it
down with stones.When they rushed in the Costumer was not there; he
had disappeared with all his wares. Then they did
not know what to do. But it was evident that they
must do something before long for the state of
affairs was growing worse and worse.
The Mayor's little daughter braced her back up
against the tapestry
wall, and planted her two feet in their thick shoes
firmly. "I will go
and tend my geese," she kept crying. "I won't eat my
breakfast. I won't
go out in the park. I won't go to school. I'm going
to tend my geese--I
will, I will, I will!"
And the princesses trailed their rich trains over
the rough unpainted
floors in their parents' poor little huts, and held
their crowned heads
very high and demanded to be taken to court. The
princesses were mostly geese-girls when they were
their proper selves, and their geese were suffering,
and their poor parents did not know what they were
going to do and they wrung their hands and wept as
they gazed on their
gorgeously appareled children.
Finally the Mayor called a meeting of the Aldermen,
and they all
assembled in the City Hall. Nearly every one of them
had a son or a
daughter who was a chimney-sweep, or a little
watch-girl, or a
shepherdess. They appointed a chairman and they took
a great many votes and contrary votes but they did
not agree on anything, until every one proposed that
they consult the Wise Woman. Then they all held up
their hands, and voted to, unanimously.
So the whole board of Aldermen set out, walking by
twos, with the Mayor at their head, to consult the
Wise Woman. The Aldermen were all very fleshy, and
carried gold-headed canes which they swung very high
at every step. They held their heads well back, and
their chins stiff, and whenever they met common
people they sniffed gently. They were very imposing.
The Wise Woman lived in a little hut on the
outskirts of the city. She
kept a Black Cat, except for her, she was all alone.
She was very old,
and had brought up a great many children, and she
was considered
remarkably wise.
But when the Aldermen reached her hut and found her
seated by the fire, holding her Black Cat, a new
difficulty presented itself. She had
always been quite deaf and people had been obliged
to scream as loud as they could in order to make her
hear; but lately she had grown muchdeafer, and when the Aldermen attempted to lay the
case before her she
could not hear a word. In fact, she was so very deaf
that she could not
distinguish a tone below G-sharp. The Aldermen
screamed till they were
quite red in the faces, but all to no purpose: none
of them could get
up to G-sharp of course.
So the Aldermen all went back, swinging their
gold-headed canes, and
they had another meeting in the City Hall. Then they
decided to send
the highest Soprano Singer in the church choir to
the Wise Woman; she
could sing up to G-sharp just as easy as not. So the
high Soprano
Singer set out for the Wise Woman's in the Mayor's
coach, and the
Aldermen marched behind, swinging their gold-headed
canes.
The High Soprano Singer put her head down close to
the Wise Woman's ear, and sung all about the
Christmas Masquerade and the dreadful dilemma
everybody was in, in G-sharp--she even went higher,
sometimes, and the Wise Woman heard every word.
She nodded three times, and every time she nodded
she looked wiser.
"Go home, and give 'em a spoonful of castor-oil, all
'round," she piped
up; then she took a pinch of snuff, and wouldn't say
any more.
So the Aldermen went home, and every one took a
district and marched
through it, with a servant carrying an immense bowl
and spoon, and
every child had to take a dose of castor-oil.
But it didn't do a bit of good. The children cried
and struggled when
they were forced to take the castor-oil; but, two
minutes afterward,
the chimney-sweeps were crying for their brooms, and
the princesses
screaming because they couldn't go to court, and the
Mayor's daughter,
who had been given a double dose, cried louder and
more sturdily: "I
want to go and tend my geese. I will go and tend my
geese."
So the Aldermen took the high Soprano Singer, and
they consulted the
Wise Woman again. She was taking a nap this time,
and the Singer had to sing up to B-flat before she
could wake her. Then she was very cross
and the Black Cat put up his back and spit at the
Aldermen.
"Give 'em a spanking all 'round," she snapped out,
"and if that don't
work put 'em to bed without their supper."
Then the Aldermen marched back to try that; and all
the children in the
city were spanked, and when that didn't do any good
they were put to
bed without any supper. But the next morning when
they woke up they
were worse than ever.
The Mayor and Aldermen were very indignant, and
considered that they had been imposed upon and
insulted. So they set out for the Wise Woman again,
with the high Soprano Singer.
She sang in G-sharp how the Aldermen and the Mayor
considered her an impostor, and did not think she
was wise at all, and they wished her to take her
Black Cat and move beyond the limits of the city.
She sang it beautifully; it sounded like the very
finest Italian opera
music.
"Deary me," piped the Wise Woman, when she had
finished, "how very
grand these gentlemen are." Her Black Cat put up his
back and spit.
"Five times one Black Cat are five Black Cats," said
the Wise Woman.
And directly there were five Black Cats spitting and
meowing.
"Five times five Black Cats are twenty-five Black
Cats." And then there
were twenty-five of the angry little beasts.
"Five times twenty-five Black Cats are one hundred
and twenty-five
Black Cats," added the Wise Woman with a chuckle.
Then the Mayor and the Aldermen and the high Soprano
Singer fled
precipitately out the door and back to the city. One
hundred and
twenty-five Black Cats had seemed to fill the Wise
Woman's hut full,
and when they all spit and meowed together it was
dreadful. The
visitors could not wait for her to multiply Black
Cats any longer.
As winter wore on and spring came, the condition of
things grew more
intolerable. Physicians had been consulted, who
advised that the
children should be allowed to follow their own
bents, for fear of
injury to their constitutions. So the rich
Aldermen's daughters were
actually out in the fields herding sheep, and their
sons sweeping
chimneys or carrying newspapers; and while the poor
charwomen's and
coal-heavers, children spent their time like
princesses and fairies.
Such a topsy-turvy state of society was shocking.
While the Mayor's
little daughter was tending geese out in the meadow
like any common
goose-girl, her pretty elder sister, Violetta, felt
very sad about it
and used often to cast about in her mind for some
way of relief.
When cherries were ripe in spring, Violetta thought
she would ask the
Cherry-man about it. She thought the Cherry-man
quite wise. He was a
very pretty young fellow, and he brought cherries to
sell in graceful
little straw baskets lined with moss. So she stood
in the kitchen door
one morning and told him all about the great trouble
that had come upon the city. He listened in great
astonishment; he had never heard of it before. He
lived several miles out in the country.
"How did the Costumer look?" he asked respectfully;
he thought Violetta the most beautiful lady on
earth.
Then Violetta described the Costumer, and told him
of the unavailing
attempts that had been made to find him. There were
a great many
detectives out, constantly at work.
"I know where he is!" said the Cherry-man. "He's up
in one of my
cherry-trees. He's been living there ever since
cherries were ripe, and
he won't come down."
Then Violetta ran and told her father in great
excitement, and he at
once called a meeting of the Aldermen, and in a few
hours half the city
was on the road to the Cherry-man's.
He had a beautiful orchard of cherry-trees all laden
with fruit. And,
sure enough in one of the largest, way up amongst
the topmost branches, sat the Costumer in his red
velvet and short clothes and his diamond
knee-buckles. He looked down between the green
boughs. "Good-morning, friends!" he shouted.
The Aldermen shook their gold-headed canes at him,
and the people
danced round the tree in a rage. Then they began to
climb. But they
soon found that to be impossible. As fast as they
touched a hand or
foot to a tree, back it flew with a jerk exactly as
if the tree pushed
it. They tried a ladder, but the ladder fell back
the moment it touched
the tree, and lay sprawling upon the ground.
Finally, they brought axes
and thought they could chop the tree down, Costumer
and all; but the
wood resisted the axes as if it were iron, and only
dented them,
receiving no impression itself.
Meanwhile, the Costumer sat up in the tree, eating
cherries and
throwing the stones down. Finally he stood up on a
stout branch, and,
looking down, addressed the people.
"It's of no use, your trying to accomplish anything
in this way," said
he; "you'd better parley. I'm willing to come to
terms with you, and
make everything right on two conditions."
The people grew quiet then, and the Mayor stepped
forward as spokesman, "Name your two conditions,"
said he rather testily. "You own, tacitly, that you
are the cause of all this trouble."
"Well" said the Costumer, reaching out for a handful
of cherries, "this
Christmas Masquerade of yours was a beautiful idea;
but you wouldn't do it every year, and your
successors might not do it at all. I want those
poor children to have a Christmas every year. My
first condition is
that every poor child in the city hangs its stocking
for gifts in the
City Hall on every Christmas Eve, and gets it
filled, too. I want the
resolution filed and put away in the city archives."
"We agree to the first condition!" cried the people
with one voice,
without waiting for the Mayor and Aldermen.
"The second condition," said the Costumer, "is that
this good young
Cherry-man here has the Mayor's daughter, Violetta,
for his wife. He
has been kind to me, letting me live in his
cherry-tree and eat his
cherries and I want to reward him."
"We consent," cried all the people; but the Mayor,
though he was so
generous, was a proud man. "I will not consent to
the second
condition," he cried angrily.
"Very well," replied the Costumer, picking some more
cherries, "then
your youngest daughter tends geese the rest of her
life, that's all."
The Mayor was in great distress; but the thought of
his youngest
daughter being a goose-girl all her life was too
much for him. He gave
in at last.
"Now go home and take the costumes off your
children," said the
Costumer, "and leave me in peace to eat cherries."
Then the people hastened back to the city, and
found, to their great
delight, that the costumes would come off. The pins
stayed out, the
buttons stayed unbuttoned, and the strings stayed
untied. The children
were dressed in their own proper clothes and were
their own proper
selves once more. The shepherdesses and the
chimney-sweeps came home, and were washed and
dressed in silks and velvets, and went to
embroidering and playing lawn-tennis. And the
princesses and the
fairies put on their own suitable dresses, and went
about their useful
employments. There was great rejoicing in every
home. Violetta thought she had never been so happy,
now that her dear little sister was no longer a
goose-girl, but her own dainty little lady-self.
The resolution to provide every poor child in the
city with a stocking
full of gifts on Christmas was solemnly filed, and
deposited in the
city archives, and was never broken.
Violetta was married to the Cherry-man, and all the
children came to
the wedding, and strewed flowers in her path till
her feet were quite
hidden in them. The Costumer had mysteriously
disappeared from the
cherry-tree the night before, but he left at the
foot some beautiful
wedding presents for the bride--a silver service
with a pattern of
cherries engraved on it, and a set of china with
cherries on it, in
hand painting, and a white satin robe, embroidered
with cherries down
the front.
