Favourite Christmas Stories from Fireside Al by Alan Maitland

Author:Alan Maitland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin

"I t's too bad!" said Carl. "I've heard six stories and a little piece, and now there's nothing left but this old stocking!"

"I believe I will not tell you my story at all," said the stocking.

"But you shall," said Carl, "or else I will cut you all up into little pieces."

"Then, you certainly will never hear it," said the stocking.

"Well, now," said Carl, "what a disagreeable old stocking you are. Why don't you begin at once?"

"I am tired of always being at the foot," said the stocking; "as one may say, at the fag end. And besides, your way of speaking is not proper. I suppose you have been told as much before. This is not the way little boys used to speak when I was knit."

"You are only a stocking," said Carl.

"Everything that is worth speaking to at all, is worth speaking to politely," replied the stocking.

"I can't help it," said Carl, "you might tell me your story, then. I'm sure one of my own red stockings would tell its story in a minute."

"Yes," said the gray stocking; "and the story would be 'Lived on little Carl's foot all my life, and never saw anything.' "

"It wouldn't be true, then," said Carl, "for I never wear them except on Sundays. Mother says she can't afford it."

"Nobody afforded it once," said the stocking. "My ancestors were not heard of until ten or eleven hundred years ago, and then they were made of leather or linen. And then people wore cloth hose; and then, some time in the sixteenth century, silk stockings made their appearance in England. But there was never a pair of knit woollen stockings until the year 1564."

"I say," said Carl, "do stop—will you? and go on with your story." And putting his hand down into the old stocking, he stretched it out as far as he could on his little fingers.

"You'd better amuse yourself in some other way," said the stocking. "If my yarn should break, it will be the worse for your story."

"Well, why don't you begin, then?" said Carl, laying him down again.

"It not always pleasant to recount one's misfortunes," said the stocking, "and I have come down in the world sadly. You would hardly think it, I dare say, but I did once belong to a very good family."

"So you do now," said Carl. "There never was anybody in the world better than my mother; and father's very good too."

"Yes," said the stocking again, "Mrs. Krinken does seem to be quite a respectable woman for her station in life, very neat about her house, and I presume makes most excellent porridge. But you see, where I used to live, porridge had never even been heard of. I declare," said the stocking, "I can hardly believe it myself, I think my senses are getting blunted. I have lain in that chest so long with a string of red onions, that I have really almost forgotten what musk smells like! But my lady Darlington always fainted

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