THE little girl came into her papa's study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. So he began: "Well, once there was a little pig She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him at the word. She said she had heard little pig stories till she was perfectly sick of them. season. don't go on, I'll give it to you!" And at this her papa darted off like lightning, and began to tell the story as fast as he could. Well, once there was a little girl who liked Christmas so much that she wanted it to be Christmas every day in the year; and as soon as Thanksgiving was over she began to send postal cards to the old Christmas Fairy to ask if she might n't have it. But the old Fairy never answered any of the postals; and, after a while, the little girl found out that the Fairy was pretty particular, and would n't notice anything but letters, not even correspondence cards in envelopes; but real letters on sheets of paper, and sealed outside with a mon "Well, what kind of story shall I tell, then?" "About Christmas. It 's getting to be the It's past Thanksgiving already." "It seems to me," argued her papa, "that I've told as often about Christmas as I have about little pigs." "No difference! Christmas is more interest- ogram,- or your initial, any way. So, then, she ing." "Well!" Her papa roused himself from his writing by a great effort. "Well, then, I'll tell you about the little girl that wanted it Christmas every day in the year. How would you like that?" "First-rate!" said the little girl; and she nestled into comfortable shape in his lap, ready for listening. began to send her letters; and in about three weeks or just the day before Christmas, it was - she got a letter from the Fairy, saying she might have it Christmas every day for a year, and then they would see about having it longer. The little girl was a good deal excited already, preparing for the old-fashioned, once-a-year Christmas that was coming the next day, and perhaps "Very well, then, this little pig,— Oh, what the Fairy's promise did n't make such an imare you pounding me for?" pression on her as it would have made at some "Because you said little pig instead of little other time. She just resolved to keep it to hergirl." "I should like to know what's the difference between a little pig and a little girl that wanted it Christmas every day!" "Papa," said the little girl, warningly, "if you self, and surprise everybody with it as it kept coming true; and then it slipped out of her mind altogether. She had a splendid Christmas. She went to bed early, so as to let Santa Claus have a chance at the stockings, and in the morning she was up the first of anybody and went and felt them, and found hers all lumpy with packages of candy, and oranges and grapes, and pocket-books and rubber balls and all kinds of small presents, and her big brother's with nothing but the tongs in them, and her young lady sister's with a new silk umbrella, and her papa's and mamma's with potatoes and pieces of coal wrapped up in tissue paper, just as they always had every Christmas. Then she waited around till the rest of the family were up, and she was the first to burst into the library, when the doors were opened, and look at the large presents laid out on the library-tablebooks, and portfolios, and boxes of stationery, and breast-pins, and dolls, and little stoves, and dozens of handkerchiefs, and ink-stands, and skates, and snow-shovels, and photograph-frames, and little easels, and boxes of water-colors, and Turkish paste, and nougat, and candied cherries, and dolls' houses, pouring in that the expressman had not had time to deliver the night before; and she went 'round giving the presents she had got for other people, and came home and ate turkey and cranberry for dinner, and plum-pudding and nuts and raisins and oranges and more candy, and then went out and coasted and came in with a stomach-ache, crying; and her papa said he would see if his house was turned into that sort of fool's paradise another year; and they had a light supper, and pretty early everybody went to bed cross. THE SECOND CHRISTMAS MORNING. and waterproofs,- and the big Christmas-tree, lighted and standing in a waste-basket in the middle. She had a splendid Christmas all day. She ate so much candy that she did not want any breakfast; and the whole forenoon the presents kept Her father went on: The little girl slept very heavily, and she slept very late, but she was wakened at last by the other children dancing 'round her bed with their stockings full of presents in their hands. "What is it?" said the little girl, and she day, and it did n't skip even the First of April, rubbed her eyes and tried to rise up in bed. Well, and there was the Christmas-tree blazing away, and the family picking out their presents, but looking pretty sleepy, and her father perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry. "I'm sure I don't see how I'm to dispose of all these things," said her mother, and her father said it seemed to him they had had something just like it the day before, but he supposed he must have dreamed it. This struck the little girl as the best kind of a joke; and so she ate so much candy she did n't want any breakfast, and went 'round carrying presents, and had turkey and cranberry for dinner, and then went out and coasted, and came in with a Well, the next day, it was just the same thing over again, but everybody getting crosser; and at the end of a week's time so many people had lost their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers anywhere; they perfectly strewed the ground. Even when people tried to recover their tempers they usually got somebody else's, and it made the most dreadful mix. The little girl began to get frightened, keeping the secret all to herself; she wanted to tell her mother, but she did n't dare to; and she was ashamed to ask the Fairy to take back her gift, it seemed ungrateful and ill-bred, and she thought she would try to stand it, but she hardly knew how she could, for a whole year. So it went on and on, and it was Christmas on St. Valentine's Day, and Washington's Birthday just the same as any though everything was counterfeit that day, and that was some little relief. After a while, coal and potatoes began to be awfully scarce, so many had been wrapped up in tissue paper to fool papas and mammas with. Turkeys got to be about a thousand dollars apiece And they got to passing off almost anything for turkeys,-half-grown humming-birds, and even rocs out of the "Arabian Nights," the real turkeys were so scarce. And cranberries-well, they asked a diamond apiece for cranberries. All the woods and orchards were cut down for Christmastrees, and where the woods and orchards used to be, it looked just like a stubble-field, with the stumps. After a while they had to make Christmas-trees out of rags, and stuff them with bran, like oldfashioned dolls; but there were plenty of rags, because people got so poor, buying presents for one another, that they could n't get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones to tatters. They got so poor that everybody had to go to the poorhouse, except the confectioners, and the fancy store-keepers, and the picture-booksellers, and the expressmen; and they all got so rich and proud that they would hardly wait upon a person when he came to buy; it was perfectly shameful! Well, after it had gone on about three or four months, the little girl, whenever she came into the room in the morning and saw those great ugly lumpy stockings dangling at the fire-place, and the disgusting presents around everywhere, used to just and, instead of running their tongues out and taking great pains to write "For dear Papa," or "Mamma," or "Brother," or "Sister," or "Susie," or "Sammie," or "Billie," or "Bobby," or "Jimmie," or "Jennie," or whoever it was, and troubling to get the spelling right, and then signing their names, and "'Xmas, 188-," they used to write in the gift-books, "Take it, you horrid old thing!" and then go and bang it against the front door. Nearly everybody had built barns to hold their presents, but pretty soon the barns over before twelve o'clock, as usual, expecting to be wakened by the bells and cannon. But it was nearly eight o'clock before the first boy in the United States woke up, and then he found out what the trouble was. As soon as he could get his clothes on, he ran out of the house and smashed a big cannon-torpedo down on the pavement; but it did n't make any more noise than a damp wad of paper, and, after he tried about twenty or thirty more, he began to pick them up and look at them. Every single torpedo was a big |