The little match girl . . . - a photo on Flickriver

♪♫♪♫ To get in the right mood ♪♫♪♫

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. Evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl was walking through the streets. In an old apron she carried several packages of matches, and she held a box of them in her hand. No one had bought any from her all day long, and no one had given her a cent.

Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along. The snowflakes fell on her long hair, which hung over her neck. In all the windows lights were shining, and there was a wonderful smell of roast goose, for it was New Year's eve. Yes, she thought of that!

She was getting colder and colder, but did not dare to go home, for she had sold no matches, nor earned a single cent, and her father would surely beat her. Besides, it was cold at home, for they had nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistled even though the biggest cracks had been stuffed with straw and rags.

Then she saw a figure coming out of one of the warehouses. She recognized her. It was the owner of the old cold leaking house she lived in with her parents. It was miss Ebeniris Scrooge. She had heard her parents speak about her in words that scared her. She was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, miss Scrooge. A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous old sinner. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster. She carried her own low temperature always about with her; she iced her office in the dogdays and didn’t thaw it one degree at christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on miss Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill her. No wind that blew was bitterer than she, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have her. The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast over the advantage over her in only one respect. They often ‘came down’ handsomely, and miss Scrooge never did.

The little girl braced herself and approached miss Scrooge. “Good evening ma’am. Would you perhaps buy a box of matches from me?” Miss Scrooge looked at the little girl with a cold and heartless expression on her face. “Aren’t you the daughter of Jack Jones who rents one of my houses? And you’re trying to sell me a box of matches? You’re trying to sell ME something? You go back to that deadbeat of a father of yours and tell him he still owes me two months of rent! And if he doesn’t pay up in one week I’ll have him and his family evicted!”. “Please ma’am”, said the little girl, “Please, my parents have no money and I’m trying to help by selling these matches. If I don’t sell any, father will get angry and will surely beat me. Please ma’am, take pity on us? Wouldn’t you please buy a box of . . . “ But miss Scrooge cut her short with a firm: “NO! Now bugger off!” The little girl hung her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks while she turned and walked away.

When she crossed the street two carriages came rattling by and she had to run to get to the other side. She lost her shoes while running. They fell off easily because they were too big for her. They belonged to her mother. One shoe she was not able to find again, and a boy had run off with the other, saying he could use it very well as a cradle some day when he had children of his own. And so the little girl walked along on her naked feet, which became quite red and blue with the cold. In a corner formed by two houses, one of which projected farther out into the street than the other, she sat down and drew up her little freezing feet under her.

Her hands were almost dead with cold. Oh, how much one little match might warm her! If she could only take one from the box and rub it against the wall and warm her hands. She drew one out. R-r-ratch! How it sputtered and burned! It made a warm, bright flame, like a little candle, as she held her hands over it; but it gave a strange light! It really seemed to the little girl as if she were sitting before a great iron stove with shining brass knobs and a brass cover. How wonderfully the fire burned! How comfortable it was! The youngster stretched out her feet to warm them too; then the little flame went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the burnt match in her hand.

She struck another match against the wall. It burned brightly, and when the light fell upon the wall it became transparent like a thin veil, and she could see through it into a room. On the table a snow-white cloth was spread, and on it stood a shining dinner service. The roast goose steamed gloriously, stuffed with apples and prunes. And what was still better, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled along the floor with a knife and fork in its breast, right over to the little girl. Then the match went out, and she could see only the thick, cold wall. She lighted another match. Then she was sitting under the most beautiful Christmas tree. It was much larger and much more beautiful than the one she had seen last Christmas through the glass door at a rich merchant's home. Thousands of candles burned on the green branches, and colored pictures like those in the printshops looked down at her. The little girl reached both her hands toward them. Then the match went out. But the Christmas lights mounted higher. She saw them now as bright stars in the sky. One of them fell down, forming a long line of fire.

"Now someone is dying," thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star fell down a soul went up to heaven.

She rubbed another match against the wall. It became bright again, and in the glow the old grandmother stood clear and shining, kind and lovely.

"Grandmother!" cried the child. "Oh, take me with you! I know you will disappear when the match is burned out. You will vanish like the warm stove, the wonderful roast goose and the beautiful big Christmas tree!"

And she quickly struck the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother with her. And the matches burned with such a glow that it became brighter than daylight. Grandmother had never been so grand and beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and both of them flew in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor fear - they were in heaven.

But in the corner, leaning against the wall, sat the little girl with red cheeks and smiling mouth, frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. The New Year's sun rose upon a little pathetic figure. The child sat there, stiff and cold, holding the matches, of which one bundle was almost burned.

"She wanted to warm herself," the people said.

No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, and how happily she had gone with her old grandmother into the bright New Year.

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The above story took place two years before miss Scrooge's redemption.

Thank you Mr Hans Christian Andersen and Mr. Charles Dickens for their wonderful stories on which this is based. I have mixed their words and some of my own into the above story ^_^

Also thank you very much dear Samantha Yates for being my 'little match girl' !

And to all you good people out there; be kind and nice to each other in these difficult times please? After all; a little kindness goes a long way.

Taken on: December 20, 2021

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Iris Okiddo

Samantha Yates

Charles Dickens

christmas

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