It was a terribly cold and nearly dark on the the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little naked feet which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and she also had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything from her the whole day, nor had any one given her even as much as a penny. Shivering with the cold and hunger, she crept along, poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not.
Lights were shinning from every window, and there was a savory smell of roast goose, for it was New Years Eve--yes, she remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold, and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her, besides, it was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! Perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out 'scratch' how it sputtered as it burnt ! It gave a warm light, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polishsed brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! And it seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo, the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished and she had only the remains of the half burnt match in her hand.
She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame and when its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent as a veil, and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy white tablecloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floow, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick damp, cold wall before her.
She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas tree. It was larger and more beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant's. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches, and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the show-windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out.
The Christmas lights rose higher and higher, till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. "Someone is dying," thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.
She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her, in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clean and shinning, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one. O take me with you, I know you will go away when the match burns out, you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brigher than the noon day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall. She had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year, and the New Year's sun rose and shone upon a little corpse. The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of them was burnt. "She tried to warm herself," said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had see, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother on New Years Day.
This story was written by Hans Christian Anderson, in the year of our Lord, "1846".
