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but that I saw and heard them, I should never have believed them. The
clock stood, of course, in the corner, a moonbeam floated idly on the
floor, and a little mauve mouse came from the hole in the chimney corner
and frisked and scampered in the light of the moonbeam upon the floor. The
little mauve mouse was particularly merry; sometimes she danced upon two
legs and sometimes upon four legs, but always very daintily and always
very merrily.
mice we used to have in the good old times! Now there was your grandma,
Mistress Velvetpaw, and there was your grandpa, Master Sniffwhisker, -- how
grave and dignified they were! Many a night have I seen them dancing upon
the carpet below me, but always the stately minuet and never that crazy
frisking which you are executing now, to my surprise -- yes, and to my
horror, too."
a very long time: I have not used any bad words, nor have I gnawed any
holes, nor have I stolen any canary seed, nor have I worried my mother by
running behind the flour-barrel where that horrid trap is set. In fact, I
have been so good that I'm very sure Santa Claus will bring me something
very pretty."
Claus? Why shouldn't I? Didn't Santa Claus bring me a beautiful
butter-cracker last Christmas, and a lovely gingersnap, and a delicious
rind of cheese, and -- and -- lots of things? I should be very ungrateful if I
did _not_ believe in Santa Claus, and I certainly shall not
disbelieve in him at the very moment when I am expecting him to arrive
with a bundle of goodies for me.
not believe in Santa Claus, and the very thought of the fate that befell
her makes my blood run cold and my whiskers stand on end. She died before
I was born, but my mother has told me all about her. Perhaps you never saw
her; her name was Squeaknibble, and she was in stature one of those long,
low, rangy mice that are seldom found in well-stocked pantries. Mother
says that Squeaknibble took after our ancestors who came from New England,
where the malignant ingenuity of the people and the ferocity of the cats
rendered life precarious indeed. Squeaknibble seemed to inherit many
ancestral traits, the most conspicuous of which was a disposition to sneer
at some of the most respected dogmas in mousedom. From her very infancy
she doubted, for example, the widely accepted theory that the moon was
composed of green cheese; and this heresy was the first intimation her
parents had of the sceptical turn of her mind. Of course, her parents were
vastly annoyed, for their maturer natures saw that this youthful
scepticism portended serious, if not fatal, consequences. Yet all in vain
did the sagacious couple reason and plead with their headstrong and
heretical child.
archfiend as a cat; but she came to be convinced to the contrary one
memorable night, on which occasion she lost two inches of her beautiful
tail, and received so terrible a fright that for fully an hour afterward
her little heart beat so violently as to lift her off her feet and bump
her head against the top of our domestic hole. The cat that deprived my
sister of so large a percentage of her vertebral colophon was the same
brindled ogress that nowadays steals ever and anon into this room,
crouches treacherously behind the sofa, and feigns to be asleep, hoping,
forsooth, that some of us, heedless of her hated presence, will venture
within reach of her diabolical claws. So enraged was this ferocious
monster at the escape of my sister that she ground her fangs viciously
together, and vowed to take no pleasure in life until she held in her
devouring jaws the innocent little mouse which belonged to the mangled bit
of tail she even then clutched in her remorseless claws."
it well. I was here then, in this very corner, and I remember that I
laughed at the cat and chided her for her awkwardness. My reproaches
irritated her; she told me that a clock's duty was to run itself down,
_not_ to be depreciating the merits of others! Yes, I recall the
time; that cat's tongue is fully as sharp as her claws."
history, and therefore beyond dispute, that from that very moment the cat
pined for Squeaknibble's life; it seemed as if that one little two-inch
taste of Squeaknibble's tail had filled the cat with a consuming passion,
or appetite, for the rest of Squeaknibble. So the cat waited and watched
and hunted and schemed and devised and did everything possible for a
cat -- a cruel cat -- to do in order to gain her murderous ends. One
night -- one fatal Christmas eve -- our mother had undressed the children for
bed, and was urging upon them to go to sleep earlier than usual, since she
fully expected that Santa Claus would bring each of them something very
palatable and nice before morning. Thereupon the little dears whisked
their cunning tails, pricked up their beautiful ears, and began telling
one another what they hoped Santa Claus would bring. One asked for a slice
of Roquefort, another for Neufchatel, another for Sap Sago, and a fourth
for Edam; one expressed a preference for de Brie, while another hoped to
get Parmesan; one clamored for imperial blue Stilton, and another craved
the fragrant boon of Caprera. There were fourteen little ones then, and
consequently there were diverse opinions as to the kind of gift which
Santa Claus should best bring; still, there was, as you can readily
understand, an enthusiastic unanimity upon this point, namely, that the
gift should be cheese of some brand or other.
Santa Claus brings be royal English cheddar or fromage de Bricquebec,
Vermont sage, or Herkimer County skim-milk? We should be content with
whatsoever Santa Glaus bestows, so long as it be cheese, disjoined from
all traps whatsoever, unmixed with Paris green, and free from glass,
strychnine, and other harmful ingredients. As for myself, I shall be
satisfied with a cut of nice, fresh Western reserve; for truly I recognize
in no other viand or edible half the fragrance or half the gustfulness to
be met with in one of these pale but aromatic domestic products. So run
away to your dreams now, that Santa Claus may find you sleeping.'
they please,' said she, 'but _I_ don't believe in Santa Claus. I'm
not going to bed, either. I'm going to creep out of this dark hole and
have a quiet romp, all by myself, in the moonlight. ' Oh, what a vain,
foolish, wicked little mouse was Squeaknibble! But I will not reproach the
dead; her punishment came all too swiftly. Now listen: who do you suppose
overheard her talking so disrespectfully of Santa Claus?"
cat! Just as Satan lurks and lies in wait for bad children, so does the
cruel cat lurk and lie in wait for naughty little mice. And you can depend
upon it, that when that awful cat heard Squeaknibble speak so
disrespectfully of Santa Claus, her wicked eyes glowed with joy, her sharp
teeth watered, and her bristling fur emitted electric sparks as big as
marrowfat peas. Then what did that bloodthirsty monster do but scuttle as
fast as she could into Dear-my-Soul's room, leap up into Dear-my-Soul's
crib, and walk off with the pretty little white muff which Dear-my-Soul
used to wear when she went for a visit to the little girl in the next
block! What upon earth did the horrid old cat want with Dear-my-Soul's
pretty little white muff? Ah, the duplicity, the diabolical ingenuity of
that cat! Listen.
testified eloquently to the depth of her emotion, -- "in the first place,
that wretched cat dressed herself up in that pretty little white muff, by
which you are to understand that she crawled through the muff just so far
as to leave her four cruel legs at liberty."
there is more of my story left than there was of Squeaknibble when that
horrid cat crawled out of that miserable disguise. You are to understand
that, contrary to her sagacious mother's injunction, and in notorious
derision of the mooted coming of Santa Claus, Squeaknibble issued from the
friendly hole in the chimney corner, and gambolled about over this very
carpet, and, I dare say, in this very moonlight."
mouse, "and she had just turned a double back somersault without the use
of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming
up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she
was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost
in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me! ' pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll
not hurt you,' said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've
brought you a beautiful piece of savory old cheese, you dear little
mousie, you. ' Poor Squeaknibble was deceived; a sceptic all her life, she
was at last befooled by the most palpable and most fatal of frauds. 'How
good of you! ' said Squeaknibble. 'I didn't believe there was a Santa
Claus, and -- ' but before she could say more she was seized by two sharp,
cruel claws that conveyed her crushed body to the murderous mouth of
mousedom's most malignant foe. I can dwell no longer upon this harrowing
scene. Suffice it to say that ere the morrow's sun rose like a big yellow
Herkimer County cheese upon the spot where that tragedy had been enacted,
poor Squeaknibble passed to that bourn whence two inches of her beautiful
tail had preceded her by the space of three weeks to a day. As for Santa
Claus, when he came that Christmas eve, bringing morceaux de Brie and of
Stilton for the other little mice, he heard with sorrow of Squeaknibble's
fate; and ere he departed he said that in all his experience he had never
known of a mouse or of a child that had prospered after once saying that
he didn't believe in Santa Claus."
old, and I have travelled many, many leagues, and I have seen wondrous
things. Sometimes I toss upon the ocean, sometimes I fall upon a
slumbering flower, sometimes I rest upon a dead child's face. I see the
fairies at their play, and I hear mothers singing lullabies. Last night I
swept across the frozen bosom of a river. A woman's face looked up at me;
it was the picture of eternal rest. 'She is sleeping,' said the frozen
river. 'I rock her to and fro, and sing to her. Pass gently by, O
moonbeam; pass gently by, lest you awaken her."
upon a hillside. It was in a far distant country; this I know, because,
although it was the Christmas time, it was not in that country as it is
wont to be in countries to the north. Hither the snow-king never came;
flowers bloomed all the year, and at all times the lambs found pleasant
pasturage on the hillsides. The night wind was balmy, and there was a
fragrance of cedar in its breath. There were violets on the hillside, and
I fell amongst them and lay there. I kissed them, and they awakened. 'Ah,
is it you, little moonbeam? ' they said, and they nestled in the grass
which the lambs had left uncropped.
olive-tree, old, ragged, and gloomy; but now it swayed its rusty branches
majestically in the shifting air of night. The shepherd's name was Benoni.
Wearied with long watching, he had fallen asleep; his crook had slipped
from his hand. Upon the hillside, too, slept the shepherd's flock. I had
counted them again and again; I had stolen across their gentle faces and
brought them pleasant dreams of green pastures and of cool water-brooks. I
had kissed old Benoni, too, as he lay slumbering there; and in his dreams
he seemed to see Israel's King come upon earth, and in his dreams he
murmured the promised Messiah's name.
"Do not go to sleep, little violets," said the old olive-tree, "for this
is Christmas night, and the Master shall walk upon the hillside in the
glory of the midnight hour. " So we waited and watched; one by one the
lambs fell asleep; one by one the stars peeped out; the shepherd nodded
and crooned and crooned and nodded, and at last he, too, went fast asleep,
and his crook slipped from his keeping. Then we called to the old
olive-tree yonder, asking how soon the midnight hour would come; but all
the old olive-tree answered was "Presently, presently," and finally we,
too, fell asleep, wearied by our long watching, and lulled by the rocking
and swaying of the old olive-tree in the breezes of the night.'
by the others. He comes here often, and plays among the flowers of the
hillside. Sometimes the lambs, gambolling too carelessly, have crushed and
bruised us so that we lie bleeding and are like to die; but the little
Master heals our wounds and refreshes us once again.'
Dimas, the son of Benoni. He was rugged and sinewy, and over his brown
shoulders was flung a goat-skin; a leathern cap did not confine his long,
dark curly hair. The other child was he whom they called the little
Master; about his slender form clung raiment white as snow, and around his
face of heavenly innocence fell curls of golden yellow. So beautiful a
child I had not seen before, nor have I ever since seen such as he. And as
they came together to the hillside, there seemed to glow about the little
Master's head a soft white light, as if the moon had sent its tenderest,
fairest beams to kiss those golden curls.
they stood under the old olive-tree, and the old olive-tree swayed no
longer in the night wind, but bent its branches reverently in the presence
of the little Master. It seemed as if the wind, too, stayed in its
shifting course just then; for suddenly there was a solemn hush, and you
could hear no noise, except that in his dreams Benoni spoke the Messiah's
name.
light of day, illumined the sky and fell upon all that hillside. The
heavens opened, and angels, singing joyous songs, walked to the earth.
More wondrous still, the stars, falling from their places in the sky,
clustered upon the old olive-tree, and swung hither and thither like
colored lanterns. The flowers of the hillside all awakened, and they, too,
danced and sang. The angels, coming hither, hung gold and silver and
jewels and precious stones upon the old olive, where swung the stars; so
that the glory of that sight, though I might live forever, I shall never
see again. When Dimas heard and saw these things he fell upon his knees,
and catching the hem of the little Master's garment, he kissed it.
Sometimes I tossed upon the ocean's bosom, sometimes I scampered o'er a
battle-field, sometimes I lay upon a dead child's face. I heard the voices
of Darkness and mothers' lullabies and sick men's prayers, -- and so the
years went on.
A thief was dying on the cross, and this was his wretched face. About the
cross stood men with staves and swords and spears, but none paid heed unto
the thief. Somewhat beyond this cross another was lifted up, and upon it
was stretched a human body my light fell not upon. But I heard a voice
that somewhere I had heard before, -- though where I did not know, -- and this
voice blessed those that railed and jeered and shamefully entreated. And
suddenly the voice called 'Dimas, Dimas! ' and the thief upon whose
hardened face I rested made answer.
but little of the shepherd child whom I had seen in all his innocence upon
the hillside. Long years of sinful life had seared their marks into his
face; yet now, at the sound of that familiar voice, somewhat of the
old-time boyish look came back, and in the yearning of the anguished eyes
I seemed to see the shepherd's son again.
consoling voice and the Master's presence there wrought in the dying
criminal such a new spirit, that when at last his head fell upon his
bosom, and the men about the cross said that he was dead, it seemed as if
I shined not upon a felon's face, but upon the face of the gentle shepherd
lad, the son of Benoni.
The shepherd's bones are dust, the flocks are scattered, the old
olive-tree is gone, the flowers of the hillside are withered, and none
knoweth where the grave of Dimas is made. But last night, again, there
shined a star over Bethlehem, and the angels descended from the sky to
earth, and the stars sang together in glory. And the bells, -- hear them,
little Dear-my-Soul, how sweetly they are ringing, -- the bells bear us the
good tidings of great joy this Christmas morning, that our Christ is born,
and that with him he bringeth peace on earth and good-will toward men.
