by A. A. Milne
"The waistcoat is cut out from peach-coloured satin—tambour stitch and rose-buds in beautiful floss silk! Was I wise to entrust my last fourpence to Simpkin? One-and-twenty buttonholes of cherry-coloured twist!"
* * *
But all at once, from the dresser, there came other little noises—
* * *
Tip tap, tip tap, tip tap tip!
* * *
"This is passing extraordinary!" aid the Tailor of Gloucester, and turned over another tea-cup, which was upside down.
* * *
Out stepped a little gentleman mouse, and made a bow to the tailor!
* * *
And then from all over the dresser came a chorus of little tappings, all sounding together, and answering one another, like watch-beetles in an old worm-eaten window-shutter—
* * *
Tip tap, tip tap, tip tap tip!
* * *
And out from under tea-cups and from under bowls and basins, stepped other and more little mice, who hopped away down off the dresser and under the wainscot.
* * *
The tailor sat down, close over the fire, lamenting: "One-and-twenty buttonholes of cherry-coloured silk!
* * *
To be finished by noon of Saturday: and this is Tuesday evening. Was it right to let loose those mice, undoubtedly the property of Simpkin? Alack, I am undone, for I have no more twist!"
* * *
The little mice came out again and listened to the tailor; they took notice of the pattern of that wonderful coat. They whispered to one another about the taffeta lining and about little mouse tippets.
* * *
And then suddenly they all ran away together down the passage behind the wainscot, squeaking and calling to one another as they ran from house to house; and not one mouse was left in the tailor's kitchen when Simpkin came back with the pipkin of milk!
* * *
Simpkin opened the door and bounced in, with an angry "G-r-r-miaw!" like a cat that is vexed; for he hated the snow, and there was snow in his ears, and snow in his collar at the back of his neck. He put down the loaf and the sausages upon the dresser, and sniffed.
* * *
"Simpkin," said the tailor, "where is my twist?"
* * *
But Simpkin set down the pipkin of milk upon the dresser, and looked suspiciously at the tea-cups. He wanted his supper of little fat mouse!
* * *
"Simpkin," said the tailor, "where is my twist?"
* * *
But Simpkin hid a little parcel privately in the tea-pot, and spit and growled at the tailor; and if Simpkin had been able to talk, he would have asked: "Where is my Mouse?"
* * *
"Alack, I am undone!" said the Tailor of Gloucester, and went sadly to bed.
* * *
All that night long Simpkin hunted and searched through the kitchen, peeping into cupboards and under the wainscot, and into the tea-pot where he had hidden that twist; but still he found never a mouse!
* * *
And whenever the tailor muttered and calked in his sleep, Simpkin said: "Miaw-ger-r-w-s-s-ch!" and made strange, horrid noises, as cats do at night.
* * *
For the poor old tailor was very ill with a fever, tossing and turning in his four-post bed; and still in his dreams he mumbled: "No more twist! no more twist!"
* * *
All that day he was ill, and the next day, and the next; and what should become of the cherry-coloured coat? In the tailor's shop in Westgate Street the embroidered silk and satin lay cut out upon the table—one-and-twenty buttonholes—and who should come to sew them, when the window was barred, and the door was fast locked?
* * *
But that does not hinder the little brown mice; they run in and out without any keys through all the old houses in Gloucester!
* * *
Out-of-doors the market folks went trudging through the snow to buy their geese and turkeys, and to bake their Christmas pies; but there would be no Christmas dinner for Simpkin and the poor old tailor of Gloucester.
* * *
The tailor lay ill for three days and nights; and then it was Christmas Eve, and very late at night. The moon climbed up over the roofs and chimneys, and looked down over the gateway into College Court. There were no lights in the windows, nor any sound in the houses; all the city of Gloucester was fast asleep under the snow.
* * *
And still Simpkin wanted his mice, and mewed as he stood beside the four-post bed.
* * *
But it is in the old story that all the beasts can talk in the night between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the morning (though there are very few folk that can hear them, or know what it is that they say).
* * *
When the Cathedral clock struck twelve there was an answer—like an echo of the chimes—and Simpkin heard it, and came out of the tailor's door, and wandered about in the snow.
* * *
From all the roofs and gables and old wooden houses in Gloucester came a thousand merry voices singing the old Christmas rhymes—all the old songs that ever I heard of, and some that I don't know, like Whittington's bells.
* * *
First and loudest the cocks cried out: "Dame, get up, and bake your pies!"
* * *
"Oh, dilly, dilly, dilly!" sighed Simpkin.
* * *
And now in a garret there were lights and sounds of dancing, and cats came from over the way.
* * *
"Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle! All the cats in Gloucester—except me," said Simpkin,
* * *
Under the wooden eaves the starlings and sparrows sang of Christmas pies; the jackdaws woke up in the Cathedral tower; and although it was the middle of the night the throstles and robins sang; the air was quite full of little twittering tunes.
* * *
But it was all rather provoking to poor hungry Simpkin.
* * *
Particularly he was vexed with some little shrill voices from behind a wooden lattice. I think that they were bats, because they always have very small voices—especially in a black frost, when they talk in their sleep, like the Tailor of Gloucester.
* * *
They said something mysterious that sounded like—
* * *
"Buzz, quoth the blue fly; hum, quoth the bee;
Buzz and hum they cry, and so do we!"
* * *
and Simpkin went away shaking his ears as if he had a bee in his bonnet.
* * *
From the tailor's shop in Westgate came a glow of light; and when Simpkin crept up to peep in at the window it was full of candles. There was a snippeting of scissors, and snappeting of thread; and little mouse voices sang loudly and gaily:
* * *
"Four-and-twenty tailors
Went to catch a snail,
The best man amongst them
Durst not touch her tail;
She put out her horns
Like a little kyloe cow.
Run, tailors, run! or she'll have you all e'en now!"
Then without a pause the little mouse voices went on again:
* * *
"Sieve my lady's oatmeal,
Grind my lady's flour,
Put it in a chestnut,
Let it stand an hour——"
* * *
"Mew! Mew!" interrupted Simpkin, and he scratched at the door. But the key was under the tailor's pillow; he could not get in.
* * *
The little mice only laughed, and tried another tune—
* * *
"Three little mice sat down to spin,
Pussy passed by and she peeped in.
What are you at, my fine little men?
Making coats for gentlemen.
Shall I come in and cut off your threads?
Oh, no, Miss Pussy, you'd bite off our heads!"
* * *
"Mew!
Mew!" cried Simpkin.
* * *
"Hey diddle dinketty!" answered the little mice—
* * *
"Hey diddle dinketty, poppetty pet!
The merchants of London they wear scarlet;
Silk in the collar, and gold in the hem,
So merrily march the merchantmen!"
* * *
They clicked their thimbles to mark the time, but none of the songs pleased Simpkin; he sniffed and mewed at the door of the shop.
* * *
"And then I bought
A pipkin and a popkin,
A slipkin and a slopkin,
All for one farthing——
* * *
and upon the kitchen dresser!" added the rude little mice.
* * *
"Mew! scratch! scratch!" scuffled Simpkin on the window-sill; while the little mice inside sprang to their feet, and all began to shout at once in little twittering voices: "No more twist! No more twist!" And they barred up the window-shutters and shut out Simpkin.
* * *
But still through the nicks in the shutters he could hear the click of thimbles, and little mouse voices singing:
* * *
"No more twist! No more twist!"
* * *
Simpkin came away from the shop and went home considering in his mind. He found the poor old tailor without fever, sleeping peacefully.
* * *
Then Simpkin went on tip-toe and took a little parcel of silk out of the tea-pot; and looked at it in the moonlight; and he felt quite ashamed of his badness compared with those good little mice!
* * *
When the tailor awoke in the morning, the first thing which he saw, upon the patchwork quilt, was a skein of cherry-coloured twisted silk, and beside his bed stood the repentant Simpkin!
* * *
"Alack, I am worn to a ravelling," said the tailor of Gloucester, "but I have my twist!"
* * *
The sun was shining on the snow when the tailor got up and dressed, and came out into the street with Simpkin running before him.
* * *
The starlings whistled on the chimney stacks, and the throstles and robins sang—but they sang their own little noises, not the words they had sung in the night.
* * *
"Alack," said the tailor, "I have my twist; but no more strength—nor time—than will serve to make me one single buttonhole; for this is Christmas Day in the Morning! The Mayor of Gloucester shall be married by noon —and where is his cherry-coloured coat?"
* * *
He unlocked the door of the little shop in Westgate Street, and Simpkin ran in, like a cat that expects something.
* * *
But there was no one there! Not even one little brown mouse!
* * *
The boards were swept and clean; the little ends of thread and the little silk snippets were all tidied away, and gone from off the floor.
* * *
But upon the table—oh joy! the tailor gave a shout—there, where he had left plain cuttings of silk there lay the most beautifullest coat and embroidered satin waistcoat that ever were worn by a Mayor of Gloucester!
* * *
There were roses and pansies upon the facings of the coat; and the waistcoat was worked with poppies and corn-flowers.
* * *
Everything was finished except just one single cherry-coloured buttonhole, and where that buttonhole was wanting there was pinned a scrap of paper with these words—in little teeny weeny writing—
* * *
NO MORE TWIST.
* * *
And from then began the luck of the Tailor of Gloucester; he grew quite stout, and he grew quite rich.
* * *
He made the most wonderful waistcoats for all the rich merchants of Gloucester, and for all the fine gentlemen of the country round.
* * *
Never were seen such ruffles, or such embroidered cuffs and lappets! But his buttonholes were the greatest triumph of it all.
* * *
The stitches of those buttonholes were so neat—so neat—I wonder how they could be stitched by an old man in spectacles, with crooked old fingers, and a tailor's thimble.
* * *
The stitches of those buttonholes were so small—so small—they looked as if they had been made by little mice!
* * *
THE END
Christian Gellert's Last Christmas
Berthold Auerbach
Christian Gellert's Last Christmas
Three o'clock had just struck from the tower of St. Nicholas, Leipzig, on the afternoon of December 22d, 1768, when a man, wrapped in a loose overcoat, came out of the door of the University. His countenance was exceedingly gentle, and on his features cheerfulness still lingered, for he had been gazing upon a hundred cheerful faces; after him thronged a troop of students, who, holding back, allowed him to precede them: the passengers in the streets saluted him, and some, students, who pressed forwards and hurried past him homewards, saluted him quite reverentially. He returned their salutations with a surprised and almost deprecatory air, and yet he knew, and could not conceal from himself, that he was one of the best beloved, not only in the good city of Leipzig, but in all lands far and wide.
It was Christian Furchtegott Gellert, the Poet of Fables, Hymns, and Lays, who was just leaving his college.
When we read his "Lectures upon Morals," which were not printed until after his death, we obtain but a very incomplete idea of the great power with which they came immediately from Gellert's mouth. Indeed, it was his voice, and the touching manner in which he delivered his lectures, that made so deep an impression upon his hearers; and Rabener was right when once he wrote to a friend, that "the philanthropic voice" of Gellert belonged to his words.
Above all, however, it was the amiable and pure personal character of Gellert which vividly and edifyingly impressed young hearts. Gellert was himself the best example of pure moral teaching; and the best which a teacher can give his pupils is faith in the victorious might, and the stability of the eternal moral laws. His lessons were for the Life, for his life in itself was a lesson. Many a victory over the troubles of life, over temptations of every kind, ay, many an elevation to nobility of thought, and to purity of action, had its origin in that lecture-hall, at the feet of Gellert.
It was as though Gellert felt that it was the last time he would deliver these lectures; that those words so often and so impressively uttered would be heard no more from his mouth; and there was a peculiar sadness, yet a peculiar strength, in all he said that day.
He had this day earnestly recommended modesty and humility; and it appeared almost offensive to him, that people as he went should tempt him in regard to these very virtues; for continually he heard men whisper, "That is Gellert!"
What is fame, and what is honor? A cloak of many colors, without warmth, without protection: and now, as he walked along, his heart literally froze in his bosom, as he confessed to himself that he had as yet done nothing—nothing which could give him a feeling of real satisfaction. Men honored him and loved him: but what was all that worth? His innermost heart could not be satisfied with that; in his own estimation he deserved no meed of praise; and where, where was there any evidence of that higher and purer life which he would fain bring about! Then, again, the Spirit would comfort him and say: "Much seed is lost, much falls in stony places, and much on good ground and brings forth sevenfold."
His inmost soul heard not the consolation, for his body was weak and sore burdened from his youth up, and in his latter days yet more than ever; and there are conditions of the body in which the most elevating words, and the cheeriest notes of joy, strike dull and heavy on the soul. It is one of the bitterest experiences of life to discover how little one man can really be to another. How joyous is that youthful freshness which can believe that, by a thought transferred to another's heart, we can induce him to become another being, to live according to what he must acknowle
dge true, to throw aside his previous delusions, and return to the right path!
"The youngsters go their way! Do your words follow after? Whither are they going? What are now their thoughts? What manner of life will be theirs? My heart yearns after them, but cannot be with them: oh, how happy were those messengers of the Spirit, who cried aloud to youth or manhood the words of the Spirit, that they must leave their former ways, and thenceforth change to other beings! Pardon me, O God! that I would fain be like them; I am weak and vile, and yet, methinks, there must be words as yet unheard, unknown—oh! where are they, those words which at once lay hold upon the soul?"
