{"id":31686,"date":"2020-11-28T21:28:57","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T04:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?page_id=31686"},"modified":"2020-11-28T22:57:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T05:57:08","slug":"fan-and-father","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/dickens-in-days\/fan-and-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 8 – Fan and Father"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dickens<\/a>Scrooge\u2019s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.<\/p>\n

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.<\/p>\n

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her \u201cDear, dear brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have come to bring you home, dear brother!\u201d said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. \u201cTo bring you home, home, home!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHome, little Fan?\u201d returned the boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes!\u201d said the child, brimful of glee. \u201cHome, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home\u2019s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you\u2019re to be a man!\u201d said the child, opening her eyes, \u201cand are never to come back here; but first, we\u2019re to be together all the Christmas<\/a> long, and have the merriest time in all the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are quite a woman, little Fan!\u201d exclaimed the boy.<\/p>\n

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.<\/p>\n

A terrible voice in the hall cried, \u201cBring down Master Scrooge\u2019s box, there!\u201d and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of \u201csomething\u201d to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge\u2019s trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,\u201d said the Ghost. \u201cBut she had a large heart!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo she had,\u201d cried Scrooge. \u201cYou\u2019re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe died a woman,\u201d said the Ghost, \u201cand had, as I think, children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne child,\u201d Scrooge returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue,\u201d said the Ghost. \u201cYour nephew!\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scrooge\u2019s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"parent":31663,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"pageWithContainerAndSidebar.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":10,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31686","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31686\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}