The Christmas Masquerade Part 2

Story posted by Chris Cade | Short Christmas Stories on Dec 13, 2009 in Children's Christmas Stories (If known, the original author is listed below)

Story written by Olive Thorne Miller

…continutation of The Christmas Masquerade Part 1

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.

–OLIVE THORNE MILLER