On Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion
presented a beautiful appearance. There were rows of different coloured 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 ragpicker'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 Mullens, 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-coloured 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 Johnnys and their Pollys and Betseys 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 tapestried 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 apparelled
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 much deafer, 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 miauling.
"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 miauled 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.