The Little Match Girl.

Here is a traditional story that is told at this time of year it was originally written by Hans Christian Anderson. I have slightly adapted it and it is called,

 

The Little Match Girl.

The night was terribly cold, snow fell and it was getting dark. It was December 31^st, the last evening of the year. It was on this cold, cold night that a poor lonely little girl was seen shuffling along the street.  She was in her bare feet, true when she left home she had some slippers on but they were very big slippers that had belonged to her mother. They were so big that the poor little girl had lost them as she shuffled along the street when two carriages rolled past her. They were going that fast that they forced her to jump out of the way and it was then that she lost her slippers. One had fallen off and she couldn’t see where it had gone, the other was quickly stolen by one of the street urchins, he appeared out of nowhere picked it up and was gone in a flash.

She carried on walking, her little feet turning blue from the cold. The only thing she had to her name was a pile of matches that she carried in her old apron and she held a bundle of them in her little hand. Nobody had bought any off her all day and she had no money to buy something to warm her. She crept along the street, trembling with cold and hunger. She was a sorrowful sight to all who bothered to look upon her.  The snow fell upon her bare head, it looked like a piece of lace as it covered her long fair hair but she never even noticed. She saw all the windows she passed had candles shining in them and there was a delicious smell of roast turkey in the air. Well it was New Years Eve and of course she couldn’t help noticing the smell as it made her little tummy rumble.

She found a little corner in between two walls and here she gained a little shelter from the wind and the cold. She huddled down and drew her little feet up close to her, she grew colder and colder. She didn’t dare go home because she hadn’t sold any matches and so she didn’t have as much as a single cent to give her father. He was a cruel and heartless man and she knew he would beat her and anyway it would be just as cold at home as she slept in the attic and the roof was full of holes through which the wind whistled even though she had tried to stuff them with straw and bits of old rags.

Her tiny hands were numb with the cold. Oh a match might give her a little warm and comfort if only she dare take one out of the bundle and strike it against the wall.  She drew one out and ohh how it blazed, she could feel its warmth upon her fingers. Its flame was bright and shone like a little candle and as she held her hands around it she smiled at the wonderful light it gave out. To her eyes it seemed that she was sat in front of a warm stove with shiny brass feet. She stretched out her little cold feet towards the stove but the flame of the match went out and with that the image of the lovely warm stove vanished. All she had left was the burnt out stump of a match in her cold little hand.

She took out another match and struck it against the wall, it burned brightly and where the light fell on the wall the wall seemed to become transparent so that she could see beyond it and into the room behind. On a table there lay a beautiful white tablecloth and upon that a splendid porcelain service. There was a roast turkey with stuffing and roast potatoes. The turkey jumped down off the table and danced across the floor coming towards the little girl. Suddenly the match went out and the cold damp wall appeared once again.

She lit another match, now she saw a large Xmas tree, it was magnificent, covered in the most beautiful decorations she had ever seen. It was even better than the one she had seen through the glass window of the rich merchant’s house. There were thousands of lights burning upon green branches and gaily coloured pictures just like those she’d seen in the fancy shop windows. The little girl stretched out her hand to touch them when once again the match went out.

 The lights on the Xmas tree rose higher and higher, the little girl now saw them as stars in heaven and one fell down and formed a trail of fire.

“Someone has died” said the little girl, for her grandmother, the only person who had ever loved her and who was now in heaven had told her that when a star falls it was a soul returning to god.

She drew another match against the wall, once again it was light and in the light stood her old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so gentle and mild with a beautiful expression of love.

“Grandmother” cried the little girl, “Oh, take me with you, don’t disappear when the match goes out. Please don’t vanish like the warm stove or the turkey. Don’t go away like the Xmas tree”

She began to rub the whole bundle of matches against the wall because she wanted to make sure she kept her grandmother near her and the matches gave off such a brilliant light that is was even brighter than day time. Her grandmother had never looked so beautiful, so radiant, so tall. She took the little girl by the hand and they both flew off into the brightness and the joy she felt was like nothing she had ever felt before. They flew high so very high and she felt neither cold nor hunger. She just felt incredibly happy for now she was with the angels.

In the corner, at the cold dawn of the day they found the little girl. She sat with rosy cheeks and a smiling mouth. She was leaning against the corner where two walls met. She was frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and cold sat the little girl with the matches, of which one bundle had been burnt.

“She wanted to warm herself” people said.

No one knew what beautiful things she had seen, no one could ever dream of the splendour in which the little girl and her grandmother had entered heaven on the first day of that New Year.