NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
Copyright, 1892, by W. D. HOWELLS.
All rights reserved. 
CONTENTS 
CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY                                                    3 
TURKEYS TURNING THE TABLES                                            25 
THE PONY ENGINE AND THE PACIFIC EXPRESS                               51 
THE PUMPKIN-GLORY                                                     71 
BUTTERFLYFLUTTERBY AND FLUTTERBYBUTTERFLY                            111 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
                                                                    PAGE 
"Having Bonfires in the Back Yard of the Palace"          Frontispiece 
"The Old Gobbler 'First Premium' said They were Going to Turn the Tables Now"                                                 35 
Two Little Pumpkin Seeds                                            75 
Took the First Premium at the County Fair                           83 
"'Here's that little fool pumpkin,' said the farmer"                85 
"Caught His Trousers on a Shingle-nail, and Stuck"                  93 
"'My sakes! it's comin' to life!'"                                 103 
Tail-piece                                                         107 
"'Fix dusters! Make ready! Aim! Dust!'"                            121 
"The General-in-Chief used to go behind the Church and Cry"                                                                125 
"The Young Khan and Khant entered the Kingdom with a Magnificent Retinue"                                                131 
"She was Going to Take the Case into Her own Hands"                135 
"The Imam put His Head to the Floor"                               139 
"They began to scream, 'Oh, the cow! the cow!'"                    143 
CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY.
The little girl came into her papa's study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. So he began:
"Well, once there was a little pig "
She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him at the word. She said she had heard little pig-stories till she was perfectly sick of them.
"Well, what kind of story shall I tell, then?"
"About Christmas. It's getting to be the season. It's past Thanksgiving already."
"It seems to me," her papa argued, "that I've told as often about Christmas as I have about little pigs."
"No difference! Christmas is more interesting."
"Well!" Her papa roused himself from his writing by a great effort.
"Well, then, I'll tell you about the little girl that wanted it Christmas every day in the year. How would you like that?"
"First-rate!" said the little girl; and she nestled into comfortable shape in his lap, ready for listening.
"Very well, then, this little pig Oh, what are you pounding me for?"
"Because you said little pig instead of little girl."
"I should like to know what's the difference between a little pig and a little girl that wanted it Christmas every day!"
"Papa," said the little girl, warningly, "if you don't go on, I'll give it to you!" And at this her papa darted off like lightning, and began to tell the story as fast as he could.
  Well, once there was a little girl who liked Christmas so much that   she wanted it to be Christmas every day in the year; and as soon as   Thanksgiving was over she began to send postal-cards to the old   Christmas Fairy to ask if she mightn't have it. But the old fairy   never answered any of the postals; and after a while the little girl   found out that the Fairy was pretty particular, and wouldn't notice   anything but letters not even correspondence cards in envelopes; but   real letters on sheets of paper, and sealed outside with a   monogram or your initial, anyway. So, then, she began to send her   letters; and in about three weeks or just the day before Christmas,   it was she got a letter from the Fairy, saying she might have it   Christmas every day for a year, and then they would see about having   it longer.
  The little girl was a good deal excited already, preparing for the   old-fashioned, once-a-year Christmas that was coming the next day, and   perhaps the Fairy's promise didn't make such an impression on her as   it would have made at some other time. She just resolved to keep it to   herself, and surprise everybody with it as it kept coming true; and   then it slipped out of her mind altogether.
  She had a splendid Christmas. She went to bed early, so as to let   Santa Claus have a chance at the stockings, and in the morning she was   up the first of anybody and went and felt them, and found hers all   lumpy with packages of candy, and oranges and grapes, and pocket-books   and rubber balls, and all kinds of small presents, and her big   brother's with nothing but the tongs in them, and her young lady   sister's with a new silk umbrella, and her papa's and mamma's with   potatoes and pieces of coal wrapped up in tissue-paper, just as they   always had every Christmas. Then she waited around till the rest of   the family were up, and she was the first to burst into the library,   when the doors were opened, and look at the large presents laid out on   the library-table books, and portfolios, and boxes of stationery, and   breastpins, and dolls, and little stoves, and dozens of handkerchiefs,   and ink-stands, and skates, and snow-shovels, and photograph-frames,   and little easels, and boxes of water-colors, and Turkish paste, and   nougat, and candied cherries, and dolls' houses, and waterproofs and   the big Christmas-tree, lighted and standing in a waste-basket in the   middle.
  She had a splendid Christmas all day. She ate so much candy that she   did not want any breakfast; and the whole forenoon the presents kept   pouring in that the expressman had not had time to deliver the night   before; and she went round giving the presents she had got for other   people, and came home and ate turkey and cranberry for dinner, and   plum-pudding and nuts and raisins and oranges and more candy, and then   went out and coasted, and came in with a stomach-ache, crying; and her   papa said he would see if his house was turned into that sort of   fool's paradise another year; and they had a light supper, and pretty   early everybody went to bed cross.
Here the little girl pounded her papa in the back, again.
"Well, what now? Did I say pigs?"
"You made them act like pigs."
"Well, didn't they?"
"No matter; you oughtn't to put it into a story."
"Very well, then, I'll take it all out."
Her father went on:
  The little girl slept very heavily, and she slept very late, but she   was wakened at last by the other children dancing round her bed with   their stockings full of presents in their hands.
  "What is it?" said the little girl, and she rubbed her eyes and tried   to rise up in bed.
  "Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!" they all shouted, and waved their   stockings.
  "Nonsense! It was Christmas yesterday."
  Her brothers and sisters just laughed. "We don't know about that. It's   Christmas to-day, anyway. You come into the library and see."
  Then all at once it flashed on the little girl that the Fairy was   keeping her promise, and her year of Christmases was beginning. She   was dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang up like a lark a lark that had   overeaten itself and gone to bed cross and darted into the library.
  There it was again! Books, and portfolios, and boxes of stationery,   and breastpins 
"You needn't go over it all, papa; I guess I can remember just what was there," said the little girl.
  Well, and there was the Christmas-tree blazing away, and the family   picking out their presents, but looking pretty sleepy, and her father   perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry. "I'm sure I don't see   how I'm to dispose of all these things," said her mother, and her   father said it seemed to him they had had something just like it the   day before, but he supposed he must have dreamed it. This struck the   little girl as the best kind of a joke; and so she ate so much candy   she didn't want any breakfast, and went round carrying presents, and   had turkey and cranberry for dinner, and then went out and coasted,   and came in with a 
"Papa!"
"Well, what now?"
"What did you promise, you forgetful thing?"
"Oh! oh yes!"
  Well, the next day, it was just the same thing over again, but   everybody getting crosser; and at the end of a week's time so many   people had lost their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers   anywhere; they perfectly strewed the ground. Even when people tried to   recover their tempers they usually got somebody else's, and it made   the most dreadful mix.
  The little girl began to get frightened, keeping the secret all to   herself; she wanted to tell her mother, but she didn't dare to; and   she was ashamed to ask the Fairy to take back her gift, it seemed   ungrateful and ill-bred, and she thought she would try to stand it,   but she hardly knew how she could, for a whole year. So it went on and   on, and it was Christmas on St. Valentine's Day and Washington's   Birthday, just the same as any day, and it didn't skip even the First   of April, though everything was counterfeit that day, and that was   some little relief.
  After a while coal and potatoes began to be awfully scarce, so many   had been wrapped up in tissue-paper to fool papas and mammas with.
  Turkeys got to be about a thousand dollars apiece 
"Papa!"
"Well, what?"
"You're beginning to fib."
"Well, two thousand, then."
  And they got to passing off almost anything for turkeys half-grown   humming-birds, and even rocs out of the Arabian Nights the real   turkeys were so scarce. And cranberries well, they asked a diamond   apiece for cranberries. All the woods and orchards were cut down for   Christmas-trees, and where the woods and orchards used to be it   looked just like a stubble-field, with the stumps. After a while they   had to make Christmas-trees out of rags, and stuff them with bran,   like old-fashioned dolls; but there were plenty of rags, because   people got so poor, buying presents for one another, that they   couldn't get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones to   tatters. They got so poor that everybody had to go to the poor-house,   except the confectioners, and the fancy-store keepers, and the   picture-book sellers, and the expressmen; and they all got so rich   and proud that they would hardly wait upon a person when he came to   buy. It was perfectly shameful!
  Well, after it had gone on about three or four months, the little   girl, whenever she came into the room in the morning and saw those   great ugly, lumpy stockings dangling at the fire-place, and the   disgusting presents around everywhere, used to just sit down and   burst out crying. In six months she was perfectly exhausted; she   couldn't even cry any more; she just lay on the lounge and rolled her   eyes and panted. About the beginning of October she took to sitting   down on dolls wherever she found them French dolls, or any kind she   hated the sight of them so; and by Thanksgiving she was crazy, and   just slammed her presents across the room.
  By that time people didn't carry presents around nicely any more. They   flung them over the fence, or through the window, or anything; and,   instead of running their tongues out and taking great pains to write   "For dear Papa," or "Mamma," or "Brother," or "Sister," or "Susie," or   "Sammie," or "Billie," or "Bobbie," or "Jimmie," or "Jennie," or   whoever it was, and troubling to get the spelling right, and then   signing their names, and "Xmas, 18 ," they used to write in the   gift-books, "Take it, you horrid old thing!" and then go and bang it   against the front door. Nearly everybody had built barns to hold their   presents, but pretty soon the barns overflowed, and then they used to   let them lie out in the rain, or anywhere. Sometimes the police used   to come and tell them to shovel their presents off the sidewalk, or   they would arrest them.
"I thought you said everybody had gone to the poor-house," interrupted the little girl.
"They did go, at first," said her papa; "but after a while the poor-houses got so full that they had to send the people back to their own houses. They tried to cry, when they got back, but they couldn't make the least sound."
"Why couldn't they?"
"Because they had lost their voices, saying 'Merry Christmas' so much.
Did I tell you how it was on the Fourth of July?"
"No; how was it?" And the little girl nestled closer, in expectation of something uncommon.
  Well, the night before, the boys stayed up to celebrate, as they   always do, and fell asleep before twelve o'clock, as usual, expecting   to be wakened by the bells and cannon. But it was nearly eight o'clock   before the first boy in the United States woke up, and then he found   out what the trouble was. As soon as he could get his clothes on he   ran out of the house and smashed a big cannon-torpedo down on the   pavement; but it didn't make any more noise than a damp wad of paper;   and after he tried about twenty or thirty more, he began to pick them   up and look at them. Every single torpedo was a big raisin! Then he   just streaked it up-stairs, and examined his fire-crackers and   toy-pistol and two-dollar collection of fireworks, and found that they   were nothing but sugar and candy painted up to look like fireworks!
  Before ten o'clock every boy in the United States found out that his   Fourth of July things had turned into Christmas things; and then they   just sat down and cried they were so mad. There are about twenty   million boys in the United States, and so you can imagine what a noise   they made. Some men got together before night, with a little powder   that hadn't turned into purple sugar yet, and they said they would   fire off one cannon, anyway. But the cannon burst into a thousand   pieces, for it was nothing but rock-candy, and some of the men nearly   got killed. The Fourth of July orations all turned into Christmas   carols, and when anybody tried to read the Declaration, instead of   saying, "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary," he   was sure to sing, "God rest you, merry gentlemen." It was perfectly   awful.
The little girl drew a deep sigh of satisfaction.
"And how was it at Thanksgiving?"
Her papa hesitated. "Well, I'm almost afraid to tell you. I'm afraid you'll think it's wicked."
"Well, tell, anyway," said the little girl.
  Well, before it came Thanksgiving it had leaked out who had caused all   these Christmases. The little girl had suffered so much that she had   talked about it in her sleep; and after that hardly anybody would play   with her. People just perfectly despised her, because if it had not   been for her greediness it wouldn't have happened; and now, when it   came Thanksgiving, and she wanted them to go to church, and have   squash-pie and turkey, and show their gratitude, they said that all   the turkeys had been eaten up for her old Christmas dinners, and if   she would stop the Christmases, they would see about the gratitude.
  Wasn't it dreadful? And the very next day the little girl began to   send letters to the Christmas Fairy, and then telegrams, to stop it.
  But it didn't do any good; and then she got to calling at the Fairy's   house, but the girl that came to the door always said, "Not at home,"
  or "Engaged," or "At dinner," or something like that; and so it went   on till it came to the old once-a-year Christmas Eve. The little girl   fell asleep, and when she woke up in the morning 
"She found it was all nothing but a dream," suggested the little girl.
"No, indeed!" said her papa. "It was all every bit true!"
"Well, what did she find out, then?"
"Why, that it wasn't Christmas at last, and wasn't ever going to be, any more. Now it's time for breakfast."
The little girl held her papa fast around the neck.
"You sha'n't go if you're going to leave it so!"
"How do you want it left?"
"Christmas once a year."
"All right," said her papa; and he went on again.
  Well, there was the greatest rejoicing all over the country, and it   extended clear up into Canada. The people met together everywhere, and   kissed and cried for joy. The city carts went around and gathered up   all the candy and raisins and nuts, and dumped them into the river;   and it made the fish perfectly sick; and the whole United States, as   far out as Alaska, was one blaze of bonfires, where the children were   burning up their gift-books and presents of all kinds. They had the   greatest time!
  The little girl went to thank the old Fairy because she had stopped   its being Christmas, and she said she hoped she would keep her promise   and see that Christmas never, never came again. Then the Fairy   frowned, and asked her if she was sure she knew what she meant; and   the little girl asked her, Why not? and the old Fairy said that now   she was behaving just as greedily as ever, and she'd better look out.
  This made the little girl think it all over carefully again, and she   said she would be willing to have it Christmas about once in a   thousand years; and then she said a hundred, and then she said ten,   and at last she got down to one. Then the Fairy said that was the good   old way that had pleased people ever since Christmas began, and she   was agreed. Then the little girl said, "What're your shoes made of?"
  And the Fairy said, "Leather." And the little girl said, "Bargain's   done forever," and skipped off, and hippity-hopped the whole way home,   she was so glad.
"How will that do?" asked the papa.
"First-rate!" said the little girl; but she hated to have the story stop, and was rather sober. However, her mamma put her head in at the door, and asked her papa:
"Are you never coming to breakfast? What have you been telling that child?"
"Oh, just a moral tale."
The little girl caught him around the neck again.
"We know! Don't you tell what, papa! Don't you tell what!"
TURKEYS TURNING THE TABLES.
"Well, you see," the papa began, on Christmas morning, when the little girl had snuggled in his lap into just the right shape for listening, "it was the night after Thanksgiving, and you know how everybody feels the night after Thanksgiving."
"Yes; but you needn't begin that way, papa," said the little girl; "I'm not going to have any moral to it this time."
"No, indeed! But it can be a true story, can't it?"
"I don't know," said the little girl; "I like made-up ones."
"Well, this is going to be a true one, anyway, and it's no use talking."
  All the relations in the neighborhood had come to dinner, and then   gone back to their own houses, but some of the relations had come from   a distance, and these had to stay all night at the grandfather's. But   whether they went or whether they stayed, they all told the   grandmother that they did believe it was the best Thanksgiving dinner   they had ever eaten in their born days. They had had cranberry sauce,   and they'd had mashed potato, and they'd had mince-pie and pandowdy,   and they'd had celery, and they'd had Hubbard squash, and they'd had   tea and coffee both, and they'd had apple-dumpling with hard sauce,   and they'd had hot biscuit and sweet pickle, and mangoes, and frosted   cake, and nuts, and cauliflower 
"Don't mix them all up so!" pleaded the little girl. "It's perfectly confusing. I can't hardly tell what they had now."
"Well, they mixed them up just in the same way, and I suppose that's one of the reasons why it happened."
  Whenever a child wanted to go back from dumpling and frosted cake to   mashed potato and Hubbard squash they were old-fashioned kind of   people, and they had everything on the table at once, because the   grandmother and the aunties cooked it, and they couldn't keep jumping   up all the time to change the plates and its mother said it   shouldn't, its grandmother said, Indeed it should, then, and helped it   herself; and the child's father would say, Well, he guessed he would   go back, too, for a change; and the child's mother would say, She   should think he would be ashamed; and then they would get to going   back, till everything was perfectly higgledy-piggledy.
"Oh, shouldn't you like to have been there, papa?" sighed the little girl.
"You mustn't interrupt. Where was I?"
"Higgledy-piggledy."
"Oh yes!"
  Well, but the greatest thing of all was the turkey that they had. It   was a gobbler, I tell you, that was nearly as big as a giraffe.
"Papa!"
  It took the premium at the county fair, and when it was dressed it   weighed fifteen pounds well, maybe twenty and it was so heavy that   the grandmothers and the aunties couldn't put it on the table, and   they had to get one of the papas to do it. You ought to have heard the   hurrahing when the children saw him coming in from the kitchen with   it. It seemed as if they couldn't hardly talk of anything but that   turkey the whole dinner-time.
  The grandfather hated to carve, and so one of the papas did it; and   whenever he gave anybody a piece, the grandfather would tell some new   story about the turkey, till pretty soon the aunties got to saying,   "Now, father, stop!" and one of them said it made it seem as if the   gobbler was walking about on the table, to hear so much about him, and   it took her appetite all away; and that made the papas begin to ask   the grandfather more and more about the turkey.
"Yes," said the little girl, thoughtfully; "I know what papas are."
"Yes, they're pretty much all alike."
  And the mammas began to say they acted like a lot of silly boys; and   what would the children think? But nothing could stop it; and all   through the afternoon and evening, whenever the papas saw any of the   aunties or mammas round, they would begin to ask the grandfather more   particulars about the turkey. The grandfather was pretty forgetful,   and he told the same things right over. Well, and so it went on till   it came bedtime, and then the mammas and aunties began to laugh and   whisper together, and to say they did believe they should dream about   that turkey; and when the papas kissed the grandmother good-night,   they said, Well, they must have his mate for Christmas; and then they   put their arms round the mammas and went out haw-hawing.
"I don't think they behaved very dignified," said the little girl.
"Well, you see, they were just funning, and had got going, and it was Thanksgiving, anyway."
  Well, in about half an hour everybody was fast asleep and dreaming 
"Is it going to be a dream?" asked the little girl, with some reluctance.
"Didn't I say it was going to be a true story?"
"Yes."
"How can it be a dream, then?"
"You said everybody was fast asleep and dreaming."
"Well, but I hadn't got through. Everybody except one little girl."
"Now, papa!"
"What?"
"Don't you go and say her name was the same as mine, and her eyes the same color."
"What an idea!"
  This was a very good little girl, and very respectful to her papa,   and didn't suspect him of tricks, but just believed everything he   said. And she was a very pretty little girl, and had red eyes, and   blue cheeks, and straight hair, and a curly nose 
"Now, papa, if you get to cutting up "
"Well, I won't, then!"
  Well, she was rather a delicate little girl, and whenever she   over-ate, or anything, 
"Have bad dreams! Aha! I told you it was going to be a dream."
"You wait till I get through."
  She was apt to lie awake thinking, and some of her thinks were pretty   dismal. Well, that night, instead of thinking and tossing and turning,   and counting a thousand, it seemed to this other little girl that she   began to see things as soon as she had got warm in bed, and before,   even. And the first thing she saw was a large,  bronze-colored 
"Turkey gobbler!"
"No, ma'am. Turkey gobbler's ghost."
"Foo!" said the little girl, rather uneasily; "whoever heard of a turkey's ghost, I should like to know?"
"Never mind, that," said the papa. "If it hadn't been a ghost, could the moonlight have shone through it? No, indeed! The stuffing wouldn't have let it. So you see it must have been a ghost."
  It had a red pasteboard placard round its neck, with FIRST PREMIUM   printed on it, and so she knew that it was the ghost of the very   turkey they had had for dinner. It was perfectly awful when it put up   its tail, and dropped its wings, and strutted just the way the   grandfather said it used to do. It seemed to be in a wide pasture,   like that back of the house, and the children had to cross it to get   home, and they were all afraid of the turkey that kept gobbling at   them and threatening them, because they had eaten him up. At last one   of the boys it was the other little girl's brother said he would   run across and get his papa to come out and help them, and the first   thing she knew the turkey was after him, gaining, gaining, gaining,   and all the grass was full of hen-turkeys and turkey chicks, running   after him, and gaining, gaining, gaining, and just as he was getting   to the wall he tripped and fell over a turkey-pen, and all at once she   was in one of the aunties' room, and the aunty was in bed, and the   turkeys were walking up and down over her, and stretching out their   wings, and blaming her. Two of them carried a platter of chicken pie,   and there was a large pumpkin jack-o'-lantern hanging to the bedpost   to light the room, and it looked just like the other little girl's   brother in the face, only perfectly ridiculous.