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Updated: May 28, 2025
"Every one of them would hang well in a doorway, if I had the doing of it. And so you can't afford a Christmas, Widow Monk?" "No," said she, setting herself to work on her horse-blanket, "not this year. When I came to Barnbury, baker, I thought I might do well, but I have not done well." "Did not your husband leave you anything?" he asked.
That night the baker did all his regular work, but not a finger did he put to any Christmas order. The next day, at supper-time, he went out for a walk. On the way he said to himself, "If she is going to skip Christmas, and I am going to skip Christmas, why should we not skip it together? That would truly be most fit and gladsome, and it would serve Barnbury aright.
When I am nursing up a love match I don't mention that sort of thing." It was three days before Christmas, and the baker of the little village of Barnbury sat in the room behind his shop. He was a short and sturdy baker, a good fellow, and ordinarily of a jolly demeanor, but this day he sat grim in his little back room. "Christmas, indeed," he said to himself, "and what of Christmas?
And after giving the baker a powerful handshake, the sailor kissed the bride, the parson's wife, the parson's daughter, and the parson's maid, and wished the family were larger, having just returned from the cruel seas. The only people in the village of Barnbury, who thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas of that year, were the baker, his wife, and the sailor brother.
They don't put them on horses, but they have them bound with red, and use them for door curtains. That's all the fashion now, and all the Barnbury folks who can afford them, have sent them to me to be bound with red. That one is nearly finished, and there are no more to be bound."
"Oh, that will be skipped," she said, with a laugh; "and now go you and make ready for the cakes, pastry, and sweetmeats, the baked meats and the poultry, with which the people of Barnbury are to be made right happy on New Year's day."
"But haven't the Barnbury folks any more work for you?" cried the baker; "haven't they shirts or gowns, or some other sort of needling?" "Those things they make themselves," answered the widow; "but this binding is heavy work, and they give it to me. The blankets are coarse, you see, but they hang well in the doorway." "Confound the people of Barnbury!" cried the baker.
The only person in Barnbury who has not ordered either pastry, cakes, or sweetmeats; or fowls or meat to be baked. If I skip Christmas, she'll not mind it, she'll be the only one the only one in all Barnbury. Ha! ha!" The baker wanted some fresh air, and, as this was supper-time for the whole village, he locked up his shop and went out for a walk. The night was clear and frosty.
The next day the sun shone golden, the snow shone silvery, and Barnbury was like a paradise to the good baker. For the Widow Monk had told him he might come again, and that was almost the same thing as telling him that he and she would skip Christmas together! And not a finger, so far, had he put to any Christmas order.
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