The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1903-12-25
Irving Depicted the Hospitality o
an English Squire.
Tales of the YuIetide Which Bring
Cheer to Many Hearts.

mas dinner mean what it does to Eng
lishmen and Americans. Charles Dickens
was the father of the Christmas dinner
in literature. He first described the ideal
dinner for Christmas day, with it's
steaming plum pudding and roast goose
or turkey; the English public gratefully |
accepted his ideal and made it real
The best Christmas feast in all Dick
ems books is Tiny Tins dinner in GA
Christmas Carol.
The spirit of old Marley on Christ
mas eve shows his misery partner in
life, Scrooge, what kind of dinner his
underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit, should
have And this is what the spirit show
ed Scrooge:
"Bob, turning up his cuffs-as if, poor
fellow, they were capable of being made
more shabby-compounded some hot
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons
and stirred it around and around and
put it on the hob to simmer. Master
Peter and the two ubiquitous young
Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with
which they soon returned in high glee.
"Such hustle ensued that you might
have thought goose the rarest of all
birds "a feathered phenomenon, to which a
black swan was a matter of course-and,
in truth, it was something very like it
in that house.
Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready
beforehand in a little saucepan) kissing
hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes
with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda
sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha
busted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny
Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the
table; the two young Cratchits set chairs
for everybody, not forgetting themselves,
and, mounting guard upon their posts,
crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
they should shrek for goose before their
turn came to be helped. At last the
dishes were set on and grace was said
1t was succeeded by a breathless pause
as Mrs. Cratehit, looking slowly all along
the carving knife, prepared to plunge it
in the breast, but when she did and when
the long expected gush of stuffing issued
forth, one murmur of delight rose all
around the board, and even Tiny Tim,
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat
ON the table with the handle of his knife
and feebly cried FHurrah'
There never was such goose. Bob
said he believed there never vas such a
goose cooked. It's tenderness and flavor,
size and cheapness were the themes of
universal admiration. Fixed out by APP
pie sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a
sufficient dinner for the whole family;
indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great
delight, surveying one small atom of a
bone upon dish, they hadn't ate it all
at last Yet everyone had had enough,
and the youngest Cratchits in particular
were STEPPED in sage and onions to the
eyebrows. But now the plates being
changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit
left the room alone-too nervous to bear
witnesses-to take the pudding up and
bring it in.
Suppose it should not be done
enough; suppose it should break in turn
ing out; suppose somebody should have
got over the wall of the back yard and
stolen it while they were merry with the
goose-a supposition at which the two
young Cratchits became livid. All sorts
of horrors were supposed.
Halo! A great deal of steam! The
pudding was out of the copper. A smell
like washing day. That was the CLOTH
A smell like an eating house and a pas
try cooks next door to each other, with
laundress' next door to that That was
the pudding. In half minute Mrs.
Cratchit entered, flushed, but smiling
proudly, with the pudding, like speckl-
ed cannon ball, so hard and firm, blaz-
ing in half of half quarters of ignited
brandy and bedight with Christmas holly
stuck into the top.
ooh, a wonderful pudding! Bob
Cratchit said and calmly, too, that he re-
garded it as the greatest success achiev-
ed by Mrs. Cratchit since their marri-
age. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the
weight was off her mind she would con-
fess she had her doubts about the guam
THY of flour. Everybody had something
to say about it, but nobody said or
thought it was at all small pudding for
a large family. 1t would have been
fat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would
have blushed to hint at such thing.
cat last the dinner was all done, the
cloth was cleared, the hearth swept and
The fire made up. The compound in the
ug being tasted and considered perfect,
apples and oranges were put upon the
able and a shovelful of chestnuts on the
ire. Then all the Cratchit family drew
,round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit
,alled circle, meaning half one, and at
Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family
display of glass-two tumblers and a