The Big Book of Classic Christmas Tales

Christmas at Fezziwig's Warehouse - Charles Dickens
The Fir-Tree - Hans Christian Andersen
The Christmas Masquerade - Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Shepherds and the Angels - Adapted from the Bills
The Telltale Tile - Olive Thorne Miller
Little Girl's Christmas - By Winnifred E. Lincoln
A Christmas Matinee - M.A.L. Lane
Toinette and the Elves - Susan Coolidge
The Voyage of the Wee Red Cap. By Ruth Sawyer Durand
A Story of the Christ-Child (a German Legend for Christmas Eve) - Elizabeth Harrison
Jimmy Scarecrow's Christmas - Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Why the Chimes Rang - Raymond McAlden
The Birds'Christmas (founded on fact) - F.E. Mann
The Little Sister's Vacation - Winifred M. Kirkland
Little Wolff's Wooden Shoes - Francois Coppee, adapted and translated by Alma J. Foster
Christmas in the Alley - Olive Thorne Miller
A Christmas Star - Katherine Pyle
The Queerest Christmas - Grace Margaret Gallaher
Old Father Christmas - J.H. Ewing
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
How Christmas Came to the Santa Maria Flats - Elia W. Peattie
The Legend of Babouscka - From the Russian Folk Tale
Christmas in the Barn - F. Arnstein
The Philanthropist's Christmas - James Weber Linn
The First Christmas-Tree - Lucy Wheelock
The First New England Christmas - G.L. Stone and M.G. Fickett
The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner - Charles Dickens
Christmas in Seventeen Seventy-Six - Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
Christmas Under the Snow - Olive Thorne Miller
Mr. Bluff's Experience of Holidays - Oliver Bell Bunce
Master Sandy's Snapdragon - Elbridge S. Brooks
A Christmas Fairy - John Strange Winter
The Greatest of These - Joseph Mills Hanson
Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe - Elizabeth Harrison
Big Rattle - Theodore Goodridge Roberts


THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE*
* From "The Pot of Gold , copyright by Lothrop, Lee & Shepherd Co.
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
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 l