A Christmas Carol

Once upon a time, on a dark, freezing Christmas Eve in London, England, the fog was so thick that the street lamps looked like ghostly fingers poking through the gray air. It was a cold that bit your nose, froze your breath into white clouds, and made people hurry home to their blazing fires. But there was one man in London who did not care about the cold, because he carried a winter of his own deep inside his chest. His name was Ebenezer Scrooge. This famous story comes to us from the rich storytelling tradition of Victorian England, a place of cobblestone streets, coal fires, and grand snowy winters. It is a tale that has been told and retold for nearly 200 years, because it asks a question that belongs to every human being, no matter where or when they live. Can a person truly change their heart, or is it ever too late to become kind? To understand Scrooge, you must understand that he was a man made of sharp edges and locked doors. He was a clutching, covetous, squeezing, grasping old sinner. No one ever stopped him in the street to say, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?" No beggars implored him to bestow a single penny, no children asked him what time it was. Even the blind men's dogs seemed to know him, tugging their owners into doorways when they saw him coming, as if to say, "No light at all is better than an evil eye, dark master." Scrooge liked it that way. He liked to edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance. On this particular Christmas Eve, Scrooge sat in his counting house. The door of his office was open, so that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, a poor, gentle man named Bob Cratchit. Bob sat in a dismal little cell beyond, copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire in his grate, but Bob's fire was so tiny that it looked like a single dying coal. Bob could not add more coal to it, because Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room, and if the clerk entered with the shovel, Scrooge would surely threaten to fire him. So Bob wrapped himself in his long white comforter and tried to warm his hands at the candle. Suddenly, the door burst open, and a voice full of warmth and youth cried out, "A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" It was Scrooge's nephew, Fred. He had walked through the fog so quickly that he was all in a glow. His face was ruddy, his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked in the air. "Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!" "Christmas a humbug, uncle?" said Fred, laughing. "You don't mean that, I am sure." "I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough." "Come then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough." Scrooge had no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, so he said, "Bah!" again, and followed it up with, "Humbug!" Fred did not lose his temper. He pleaded with his uncle to come to his house for Christmas dinner the next day. He spoke of Christmas as a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time, the only time in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. But Scrooge only growled that Fred could keep Christmas in his own way, and let Scrooge keep it in his. "Keep it?" repeated Fred. "But you don't keep it." "Let me leave it alone then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you." After Fred left, still wishing his uncle a Merry Christmas with a cheerful heart, two portly gentlemen entered the office. They took off their hats and presented papers, explaining that they were collecting…

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