Christmas

by Zona Gale

Overview

Christmas, by Zona Gale, is a tender little study of the intricacies of human nature, done with that clear-eyed understanding that made the Friendship Village stories memorable. This new story has its scene laid in Old Trail Town, a town which is undergoing a temporary period of financial depression, because the Ebenezer Rule Factory Company has been obliged to shut clown for the time being, and Abel Ames's Granger Company Merchandise Emporium is in straitened circumstances, owing to the failure of about half the towns-folk to settle their bills for last year's Christmas presents. So the church committees and the town meeting and other official bodies get together and vote that this year, for the good of the community at large, no one shall give presents,—and despite a few feeble protests from mothers who foresee heart-aches and tears for the little ones, the measure is carried with general approval. But it happens that a certain maiden lady, Mary Chavah, receives word that her sister has died, leaving a little orphaned boy, who is to be sent on to her, and will arrive just before Christmas. And it is the Christmas spirit brought by the advent of this little child into the house of Mary Chavah that sets at nought all the wise economical forethought of the worldly minded Abels and Simeons and Ebenezers. There is a good deal of symbolism lurking behind the simple surface narrative, making an effective little parable, embodying much indulgent criticism of human frailty and shortsightedness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783849647025
Publisher:	Jazzybee Verlag
Publication date:	11/14/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	127
File size:	449 KB

About the Author

Zona Gale (1874-1938) was an American writer. Born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her writing, she attended Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Later she entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from which she received a Bachelor of Literature degree in 1895, and four years later a Master's degree. After graduation, Gale wrote for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York City.

However, before long she gave up journalism to focus on fiction writing. She then published her first novel, Romance Island (1906), and began the very popular series of "Friendship Village" stories. In 1912, Gale moved back to Portage, which she would call home for the rest of her life, although alternating with trips to New York. In 1920, she published the novel Miss Lulu Bett, which depicts life in the Midwestern United States.

She adapted it as a play, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921. In the same year, Gale took an active role in the creation of the Wisconsin Equal Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination against women.

Read an Excerpt

Ill It was interesting to see how they took the proposal to drop that Christmas from the calendar there in Old Trail Town. It was so eminently a sensible thing to do, and they all knew it. Oh, every way they looked at it, it was sensible, and they admitted it. Yet, besides Mary Chavah and Ebenezer Rule, probably the only person in the town whose satisfaction in the project could be counted on to be unfeigned was little Tab Winslow. For Tab, as all the town knew, had a turkey brought up by his own hand to be the Winslows' Christmas dinner, but such had become Tab's intimacy with and fondness for the turkey that he was prepared to forego his Christmas if only that dinner were foregone, too. "Theophilus Thistledown is such a human turkey," Tab had been heard explaining patiently; "he knows me and he knows his name. He don't expect us to eat him . . . why, you can't eat anything that knows its name." But every one else was just merely sensible. And they had been discussing Christmas in this sensible strain at the town meeting that night, before Simeon and Abel broached their plan for standardizing their sensible leanings. Somebody had said that Jenny Wing, and Bruce Rule, who was Ebenezer's nephew, were expected home for Christmas, and had added that it "didn't look as if there would be much of any Christmas down to the station to meet them." On which Mis' Mortimer Bates had spoken out, philosophical to the point of brutality. Mis' Bates was little and brown and quick, and her clothes seemed always to curtainher off, so that her figure was no part of her presence. "I ain't going to do a thing for Christmas this year," she declared, as nearly everybody in the village had intermittentlydeclared, "not a living, breathing thing. I can't, and folks might just as well k...

Table of Contents

About Author:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Editorial Reviews

"I donno," said Mary, thoughtfully, "but what, when folks stop chasing after Christmas and driving it before them, Christmas may turn around and come to find them."

"Why," said Simeon, "everybody in town's talking that they ain't going to give anybody anything for Christmas. Some means it and some don't. Some'll do it and some'll back out. But the churches has decided to omit Christmas exercises altogether this year. Some thought to have speaking pieces, but everybody concluded if they had exercises without oranges and candy the children'd go home disappointed, so they've left the whole thing slide—"

— [Christmas, Zona Gale]

From the Publisher