Directions: Read the rewritten excerpt from Kate Dickinson Sweetser’s “Ten Boys from Dickens” and Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Then answer the questions.
Charles Dickens has given us no picture of Tiny Tim, but at the thought of him comes a vision of a delicate figure less boy than spirit. We seem to see a face oval in shape and fair in coloring. We see eyes deep set and grey shaded by lashes as dark as the hair parted from the middle of his low forehead. We see a sunny, patient smile which from time to time lights up his whole face, and a mouth whose firm, strong lines reveal clearly the beauty of character and the happiness of disposition which were Tiny Tim's.
He was a rare little chap indeed and a prime favorite as well. Ask the Crachits old and young whose smile they most desired, whose applause they most coveted, whose errands they almost fought with one another to run, whose sadness or pain could most affect the family happiness, and with one voice they would answer, "Tim's!"
It was Christmas Day, and in all the suburbs of London there was to be no merrier celebration than at the Crachits. To be sure, Bob Crachit had but fifteen "Bob" a week on which to clothe and feed all the little Crachits, but what they lacked in luxuries they made up in affection and contentment and would not have changed places, one of them, with any king or queen.
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
So Martha hid herself and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe hanging down before him. His threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable. Tiny Tim was upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!
"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.
"Not coming!" said Bob with a sudden declension in his high spirit, for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas day!"
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed. If it were only in joke, she would understand. So, she came out prematurely from behind the closet door and ran into his arms while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim and bore him off into the washhouse that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.
"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.
"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow, he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me coming home that he hoped the people saw him in the church because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see."
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
Note
Only spelling mistakes, if any, in the above passage have been corrected. No other corrections, including grammatical, have been made so that the originality of the passage is maintained.
