Produced by Paul Ereaut, Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
"Sic as folk tell ower at a winter ingle"
Copyright, 1891, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
CHRISTMAS WITH THE BARON _By Angelo J. Lewis._
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE _By Harrison S. Morris._
SALVETTE AND BERNADOU _From the French of Alphonse Daudet._ _By Harrison S. Morris._
THE PEACE EGG _By Juliana Horatia Ewing._
A STORY OF NUREMBERG _By Agnes Repplier._
A PICTURE OF THE NATIVITY BY FRA FILIPPO LIPPI _By Vernon Lee._
MELCHIOR'S DREAM _By Juliana Horatia Ewing._
MR. GRAPEWINE'S CHRISTMAS DINNER _By Harrison S. Morris._
"I here beheld an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing the way to be young at sixty-five."
Once upon a time--fairy tales always begin with once upon a time--once upon a time there lived in a fine old castle on the Rhine a certain Baron von Schrochslofsleschshoffinger. You will not find it an easy name to pronounce; in fact, the baron never tried it himself but once, and then he was laid up for two days afterwards; so in future we will merely call him "the baron," for shortness, particularly as he was rather a dumpy man.
After having heard his name, you will not be surprised when I tell you that he was an exceedingly bad character. For a baron, he was considered enormously rich; a hundred and fifty pounds a year would not be thought much in this country; but still it will buy a good deal of sausage, which, with wine grown on the estate, formed the chief sustenance of the baron and his family.
Now, you will hardly believe that, notwithstanding he was the possessor of this princely revenue, the baron was not satisfied, but oppressed and ground down his unfortunate tenants to the very last penny he could possibly squeeze out of them. In all his exactions he was seconded and encouraged by his steward Klootz, an old rascal who took a malicious pleasure in his master's cruelty, and who chuckled and rubbed his hands with the greatest apparent enjoyment when any of the poor landholders could not pay their rent, or afforded him any opportunity for oppression.
Not content with making the poor tenants pay double value for the land they rented, the baron was in the habit of going round every now and then to their houses and ordering anything he took a fancy to, from a fat pig to a pretty daughter, to be sent up to the castle. The pretty daughter was made parlor-maid, but as she had nothing a year, and to find herself, it wasn't what would be considered by careful mothers an eligible situation. The fat pig became sausage, of course.