In
the Great Walled Country
Away
at the northern end of the world, farther than men have ever gone with their
ships or their sleds, and where most people suppose that there is nothing but
ice and snow, is a land full of children, called The Great Walled Country. This name is given because all around the
country is a great wall, hundreds of feet thick and hundreds of feet high. It is made of ice and never melts, winter or
summer; and of course it is for this reason that more people have not
discovered the place.
The land, as I said, is filled
with children, for nobody who lives there ever grows up. The king and the queen, the princes and the
courtiers, may be as old as you please, but they are children for all
that. They play a great deal of the time
with dolls and tin soldiers, and every night at seven o’clock have a bowl of bread
and milk and go to bed. But they make
excellent rulers, and the other children are well pleased with the government.
There are all sorts of curious
things about the way they live in The Great Walled Country, but this story is
only of their Christmas season. One can
imagine what a fine thing their Christmas must be, so near the North Pole, with
ice and snow everywhere, but this is not all.
Grandfather Christmas lives just on the north side of the country, so
that his house leans against the great wall and would tip over if it were not
for its support. Grandfather Christmas
is his name in The Great Walled Country; no doubt we should call him Santa
Claus here. At any rate, he is the same
person, and, best of all the children in the world, he loves the children
behind the great wall of ice.
One very pleasant thing about
having Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor is that in The Great Walled Country
they never have to buy their Christmas presents. Every year, on the day before Christmas,
before he makes up his bundles for the rest of the world, Grandfather Christmas
goes into a great forest of Christmas trees, that grows just back of the palace
of the king of The Great Walled Country, and fills the trees with candy and
books and toys and all sorts of good things.
So when night comes, all the children wrap up snugly, while the children
in all other lands are waiting in their beds, and go to the forest to gather
gifts for their friends. Each one goes
by himself, so that none of his friends can see what he has gathered; and no
one ever thinks of such a thing as taking a present for himself. The forest is so big that there is room for
every one to wander about without meeting the people from whom he has secrets,
and there are always enough nice things to go around.
So Christmas time is a great
holiday in that land. They have been
celebrating it in this way for hundreds of years, and since Grandfather
Christmas does not seem to grow old any faster than the children, they will
probably do so for hundreds of years to come.
But there was once a time, so
many years ago that they would have forgotten all about it if the story were not
written in their Big Book and read to them every year, when the children in The
Great Walled Country had a very strange Christmas. There came a visitor to the land. He was an old man, and was the first stranger
for very many years that had succeeded in getting over the wall. He looked so wise, and was so much interested
in what he saw and heard, that the king invited him to the palace, and he was
treated with every possible honor.
When this old man had inquired
about their Christmas celebration, and was told how they carried it on every
year, he listened gravely, and then, looking wiser than ever, he said to the
king:
“That is all very well, but I
should think that children who have Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor could
find a better and easier way. You tell
me that you all go out on Christmas Eve to gather presents to give to one
another the next morning. Why take so
much trouble, and act in such a round-about way? Why not go out together, and every one get
his own presents? That would save the
trouble of dividing them again, and every one would be better satisfied, for he
could pick out just what he wanted for himself.
No one can tell what you want as well as you can.”
This seemed to the king a very
wise saying, and he called all his courtiers and counselors about him to hear
it. The wise stranger talked further
about his plan, and when he had finished they all agreed that they had been
very foolish never to have thought of this simple way of getting their
Christmas gifts.
“If we do this,” they said, “no
one can ever complain of what he has, or wish that some one had taken more
pains to find what he wanted. We will
make a proclamation, and always after this follow the new plan.”
So the proclamation was made, and
the plan seemed as wise to the children of the country as it had to the king
and the counselors. Every one had at
some time been a little disappointed with his Christmas gifts; now there would
be no danger of this.
On Christmas Eve they always had
a meeting at the palace, and sang carols until the time for going in the
forest. When the clock struck ten every
one said, “I wish you a Merry Christmas!” to the person nearest him, and then
they separated to go their ways into the forest. On this particular night it seemed to the king
that the music was not quite so merry as usual, and that when the children
spoke to one another their eyes did not shine as gladly as he had noticed them
in other years; but there could be no good reason for this, since every one was
expecting a better time than usual. So
he thought no more of it.
There was only one person at the
palace that night who was not pleased with the new proclamation about the
Christmas gifts. This was a little boy
named Inge, who lived not far from the palace with his sister. Now his sister was a cripple, and had to sit
all day looking out of the window from her chair; and Inge took care of her,
and tried to make her life happy from morning till night. He had always gone to the forest on Christmas
Eve and returned with his arms and pockets loaded with pretty things for his
sister, which would keep her amused all the coming year. And although she was not able to go after
presents for her brother, he did not mind that at all, especially as he had
other friends who never forgot to divide their good things with him.
But now, said Inge to himself,
what would his sister do? For the king
had ordered that no one should gather any presents except for himself, or any
more than he could carry away at once.
All of Inge’s friends were busy planning what they would pick for
themselves, but the poor crippled child could not go a step toward the
forest. After thinking about it a long
time, Inge decided that it would not be wrong if, instead of taking gifts for
himself, he took them altogether for his sister. This he would be very glad to do; for what
did a boy who could run about and play in the snow care for presents, compared
with a little girl who could only sit still and watch others having a good
time? Inge did not ask the advice of any
one, for he was a little afraid others would tell him he must not do it; but he
silently made up his mind not to obey the proclamation.
And now the chimes had struck
ten, and the children were making their way toward the forest, in starlight
that was so bright that it almost showed their shadows on the sparkling
snow. As soon as they came to the edge
of the forest, they separated, each one going by himself in the old way, though
now there was really no reason why they should have secrets from one another.
Ten minutes later, if you had
been in the forest, you might have seen the children standing in dismay with
tears on their faces, and exclaiming that there had never been such a Christmas
Eve before. For as they looked eagerly
about them to the low-bending branches of the evergreen trees, they saw nothing
hanging from them that could not be seen every day in the year. High and low they searched, wandering farther
into the forest than ever before, lest Grandfather Christmas might have chosen
a new place this year for hanging his presents; but still no presents
appeared. The king called his counselors
about him, and asked them if they knew whether anything of this kind had
happened before, but they could tell him nothing. So no one could guess whether Grandfather
Christmas had forgotten them, or whether some dreadful accident had kept him
away.
As the children were trooping out
of the forest, after hours of weary searching some of them came upon little
Inge, who carried over his shoulder a bag that seemed to be full to
overflowing. When he saw them looking at
him, he cried: “Are they not beautiful things?
I think Grandfather Christmas was never so good to us before!”
“Why what do you mean” cried the
children. “There are no presents in the
forest.”
“No presents!” said Inge. “I have my bag full of them.” But he did not offer to show them, because he
did not want the children to see that they were all for his little sister
instead of for himself.
Then the children begged him to
tell them in what part of the forest he had found his presents, and he turned
back and pointed them to the place where he had been. “I left many more behind that I brought
away,” he said. “There they are! I can see some of the things shining on the
trees even from here.”
But when the children followed
his foot prints in the snow to the place where he had been, they still saw
nothing on the trees, and thought that Inge must be walking in his sleep, and
dreaming that he had found presents.
Perhaps he had filled his bag with the cones from the evergreen trees.
On Christmas Day there was
sadness all through The Great Walled Country.
But those who came to the house of Inge and his sister saw plenty of
books and dolls and beautiful toys piled up about the little cripple’s chair; and when they asked where these things came
from, they were told, “Why, from the Christmas-tree forest.” And they shook their heads, not knowing what
it could mean.
The king held a council in the
palace, and appointed a committee of his most faithful courtiers to visit
Grandfather Christmas, and see if they could find what was the matter. In a day or two more the committee set out on
their journey. They had very hard work
to climb the great wall of ice that lay between their country and the place where
Grandfather Christmas lived, but at last they reached the top. And when they came to the other side of the
wall, they were looking down into the top of his chimney. It was not hard to go down this chimney into
the house, and when they reached the bottom of it, they found themselves in the
very room where Grandfather Christmas lay sound asleep.
It was hard enough to waken him,
for he always slept one hundred days after his Christmas work was over, and it
was only by turning the hands of the clock around two hundred times that the
committee could do anything. When the
clock had struck twelve times two hundred hours, Grandfather Christmas thought
it was time for his nap to be over, and he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.
“Oh, sir!” cried the prince who
was in charge of the committee. “we have come from the king of The Great Walled
Country, who has sent us to ask why you forgot us this Christmas, and left no
presents in the forest.”
“No presents!” said Grandfather
Christmas. “I never forget anything. The presents were there. You did not see them, that’s all.”
But the children told him that
they had searched long and carefully, and in the whole forest there had not
been found a thing that could be called a Christmas gift.
“Indeed!” said Grandfather
Christmas. “And did little Inge, the boy
with the crippled sister, find none?”
Then the committee was silent,
for they had heard of the gifts at Inge’s house, and did not know what to say
about them.
“You had better go home,” said
Grandfather Christmas, who now began to realize that he had been awakened too
soon, “and let me finish my nap. The
presents were there, but they were never intended for children who were looking
only for themselves. I am not surprised
that you could not see them. Remember
that not everything that wise travelers tell you is wise.” And he turned over and went to sleep again.
The committee returned silently
to The Great Walled Country, and told the king what they had heard. The king did not tell all the children of the
land what Grandfather Christmas had said, but, when the next December came, he
made another proclamation, bidding every one to seek gifts for others, in the
old way, in the Christmas-tree forest.
So that is what they have been doing ever since; and in order that they
many not forget what happened, in case any one should ever ask for another
change, they have read to them every year from their Big Book the story of the
time when they had no Christmas gifts.
Raymond
MacDonald Alden
From
the book, Why the Chimes Rang
Bobbs-Merrill
Company, Publishers, Indianapolis
Copywrited
1906, 1908, 1924
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