Blogsy Babbles

     It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death; it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh.  It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his own nephew’s, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!

     “Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew.  “Ha, ha, ha!”

      If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him, too.  Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.

    It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.  When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he.  And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out, lustily.

     “Ga, ha!  Gam ham ha, ha!”

     “He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!” cried Scrooge’s nephew.  “He believed it, too!”

     “More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece, indignantly.  Bless these women, they never do anything by halves.  They are always in earnest.

     She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty.  With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed—as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature’s face.  Altogether, she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too.  Oh, perfectly satisfactory!

     “He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be.  However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.”

    “I am sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted scrooge’s niece.  “At least you always tell ME so.”

     “What of that, my dear?” said Scrooge’s nephew.  “His wealth is of no use to him.  He don’t do any good with it.  He don’t make himself comfortable with it.  He hasn’t th satisfaction of thinking—ha, ha, ha!—that he is ever going to benefit us with it.”

     “I have no patience with him,” observed Scrooge’s niece.  Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

     “Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew.  “I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried.  Who suffers by his ill whims?  Himself, always.  Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us.  What’s the consequence?  He don’t lose much of a dinner.”

      “Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,” interrupted Scrooge’s niece.  Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner, and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered around the fire, by lamplight.

     “Well, I’m very glad to hear it,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “because I haven’t great faith in these young housekeepers.  What do you say, Topper?”
     Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.  Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister—the pump one with the lace tucker; not the one with the roses—blushed.

     “Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands.  “He never finishes what he begins to say!  He is such a ridiculous fellow!”

     Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed.

     “I was going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that the consequence of his tsking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm.  I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers.  I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him.  He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of it—if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying, Uncle Scrooge, how are you?  If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, THAT’S something; and I think I shook him, yesterday.”

     It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his shaking Scrooge.  But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously.

     There’s a lot going on here, even leaving out the subplot of Topper and Scrooge’s niece’s sister, but by and large screenwriters find Fred less interesting than Bob Cratchit’s family.  Fred’s whole Christmas gathering is often dropped, or abridged and tucked in ahead of the Cratchit episodes, since those are far more dramatic.  Still, when twisting the knife a bit in Ebenezer Scrooge, they sometimes like to show him what Fred says about his uncle when he thinks his uncle can’t hear.  Some screenwriters make him far less pleasant about the old man.  I can’t believe these writers were really paying attention to the text.

     March, Magoo, Haddrick, Sim II, and McDuck all omit this sequence.  Caines cuts it down to Scrooge appearing with the Ghost in a nice room.  Scrooge exclaims “It’s Fred!  My dear nephew Fred and his wife, Clara, having Christmas with friends!” before moving on to the next section.

     In Hicks, we see Fred and Mrs. Fred from below, at about the level of the tabletop.  They are well dressed, laughing a good deal, and Mrs. Fred is tossing oranges or big marshmallows or fake snowballs among the guests.  They are having a jolly old time.  “And he said Christmas was a humbug!”  Much of the dialogue follows as written, sometimes splitting the lines between Fred and one of his guests.  They omit the business about not missing much of a dinner.

     Owen arrives on “He said that Christmas was humbug!  As id anything that gives us an excuse for this could be humbug!”  Fredd’s fiancée replies as in the text.  Fred answers, “Well, he has money, hasn’t he?  Abd he makes no use of it: mind you, no use of it whatsoever.  Therefore he is a far more pathetic and unhappy xcase than the man who has no money at all.”  Thr business about not missing much of a dinner (a little rude here, as Fred is not the husband but a mere guest and prospective in-law in this version) is saved for another section.

     Sim I arrives to laughter.  “He said Christmas was a humbug.  And he believed it, too.”  Mrs. Fred replies, “I told you so.”  Fred delivers the toast from the next sequence, at which his wife expresses the doubt that toasting Uncle Scrooge will do him any good; her sister adds, “I hate him.”  “Oh, I forbid it,” says Fred, “I am sorry for him.  I couldn’t feel angry with him if I tried.  Who suffers worst by his ill whims?  Himself, always.  Look at the way he’s taken it into his head to disown us without a shilling and won’t even come to dinner with us.  And what’s the consequence?  He’s only cheated himself out of a highly indigestible dinner.”  Topper, in the corner, calls it a wonderful dinner, and the sister, Miss Flora, agrees.  Fred announces himself relieved to hear it, as in the text, and Topper Makes the remark about outcasts, obviously with his eye on Miss Flora.  Music follows.

     Rathbone and the Spirit come to a somewhat more high class window than that at the Cratchits’—it has a wrought iron railing at the base—similarly suspended in the fog.  The Spirit orders Scrooge to look; when Scrooge does, we are into the next scene,

     Finney is told “We have one more call to make.”  They find Harry (Fred) calling for silence.  “The time has come that I know you all look forward to in this house on Christmas Eve.”  He then toasts his celebrated Uncle Scrooge.  A guest notes “Harry, I’ve visited you every Christmas for the past five years and to this day I cannot understand this extraordinary ritual of toasting the health of your old Uncle Ebenezer.”  Another guest agrees, “Everybody knows he’s the most miserable old skinflint that ever walked God’s earth.”  Harry does not deny this.  “He is indeed the most despicable old miser.”  The Ghost laughs.  “If I can wish a merry Christmas to him, who is beyond dispute the most obnoxious and parsimonious of all living creatures, then I know in my heart I am a man of good will.”  Scrooge keeps rising to argue, but the Ghost calls him back, saying that, oddly enough, the boy likes him.  “Besides,” Harry goes on, “I like old Scrooge.  Hidden somewhere deep inside that loathsome old carcass of his there’s a different man fighting to get out.”  “He may be worse than the one you know,” he is warned.  Harry declares he will continue to wish his uncle a merry Christmas in the forlorn hope that Scrooge might at least raise his clerk’s salary by five shillings.  Mrs. Harry now declares she’s had enough of Uncle Scrooge haunting Christmas.

     Matthau is pleading “Oh, Spirit!  Please take me back to my miserable room!”  When the Ghost tells him, “There is another Christmas to visit, even though you refused the invitation yesterday,” he protests “Oh no!”  They arrive at Fred’s home (where a portrait of Scrooge hangs in a place of honor on the wall) as Fred calls, “I give you a toast to my Uncle Scrooge!”  Mrs. Fred declines to drink the toast.  “Have pity on him my dear.”  “Pity?  On someone so rich?”  Fred explains how the money does Scrooge no good, and then cries, “To Uncle Scrooge!  May he some day know I love him!”  The guests are utterly unenthusiastic; Scrooge snuffles a bit.  “Why this remorse?” the Ghost remands.  “He gave me a gift.  I threw it away!”

     Scott demands “Where are we now?”  “Just a street.  Any street.  This house.  We’ll go in here.  I think it might amuse you.”  “I’m in no mood to be amused.”  The Ghost is laughed, and is reinforced y laughter inside.  Mrs. Fred, at a keyboard, stops playing and asks whether her music is so funny.  Fred explains about his uncle calling Christmas a humbug.  “I’d very much like to meet your uncle, sir,” says a guest.  Fred and Mrs. Fred share the lines about his being a comical old fellow; her sister says “I am sure he is very rich.”  Fred responds with the lines about that wealth doing Scrooge no good.  Scrooge snaps, “I don’t squander it, if that’s what you mean by comical.”  “You mustn’t argue with those we visit,” the Ghost tells him, “It’s useless.  And even tactless.”  “Tact,” Scrooge replies, “Is a quality I despise.”  “That I can see.”  The dialogue continues as written; Scrooge grows more and more offended.  Fred goes on, “The reason I talk about my uncle, sir, is that my mother, God rest her saintly soul, was very fond of him.  She loved him.”  Scrooge muses, “Fan loved me, and I her.  Dear Fan.  If only she were alive today.”  “Fred looks very much like her.”  “Yes,  I’ve been reminded of that just recently.”  “And I mean to give him,” Fred continues, “The same chance every year whether he likes it or not.”  “And every year,” his wife retorts, “He’ll say: Christmas?  Bah humbug!”  Everyone laughs but Scrooge, who does give a rueful nod.

     Curry appears amid much laughter.  Fred, by his Christmas tree, quotes Scrooge’s remark about “A year older and not an hour richer.”  The Ghost laughs as much as anyone at this, to which Scrooge replies, “But it is true.”  “Oh, Scrooge, just listen to you!” exclaims the Ghost, “You’re so funny now, aren’t you?  I just love you!”  “And that Christmas was a humbug!” Fred goes on  “He’s the humbug, Fred!”  Scrooge tells the Ghost, “I want to go now.”  Fred delivers the line about his offenses carrying their own punishment, and then proposes the toast “for my sweet mother’s sake  I know it’s hard to believe, but she loved him dearly.”  Scrooge murmurs, “I never realized how….”  “What?” the Ghost inquires.  “How much he looks like Fan.”  “And with such a big heart.”

     Stewart enters the house to laughter.  “He said that Christmas was a humbug: he really did!  The less Uncle Scrooge knows, the more stubbornly he knows it!”  Mr. Bennett agrees.  “Do you think he believes it?  About Christmas and humbug?”  “Oh, yes, he believes it.”  “More shame to him!”  Mr. Topper Haines and Miss Betsy agree.  Scrooge is offended to hear Fred call him a comical old fellow.  Topper is then sent to heat the poker for the punch; Mrs. Fred follows Fred to the punchbowl.  “Why won’t you say anything against uncle Scrooge after the way he’s treated you?”  Fred replies that his offenses carry their own punishment; Scrooge is confused by this.  “I have no patience with the man.”  Mr. Bennett also comments; the lady who spoke earlier asserts that Scrooge “leaves a bad taste in people’s eyes.”  Fred says that nonetheless he will keep the door of happiness open for him.  Everyone rushes to watch the poke plunged into the punch, thrilled at the bubble and hiss.  When the punch is handed out, Scrooge reaches for a glass himself, but someone else takes it.  The astringent woman asks Mrs. Fred why Fred defends his uncle and is told “His mother loved Scrooge when they were children.”  Fred steps over to add, “And when my mother loved someone, they must have had a good heart in them, just as she did.”  “And she gave that heart to you, my dear,” Mrs. Fred tells him.  This affects the listeners very much.  The Ghost notes, “They’re talking about your little sister, Fran, aren’t they?”  “Yes, they are.  I sometimes forget that Fred is her son.”  “You shouldn’t.”  The Ghost puts a hand on Scrooge’s shoulder.  “We have to go now.”

INTERLUDE

     Matthau, in tears, is admitting what he did with Fred’s gifts.  The Ghost explains that gifts have been a part of Christmas since the beginning.  B.A.H. Humbug sings a song at a small Nativity scene beneath Fred’s Christmas tree, “The Birthday Party of a King”.  That makes this version the only one to include the manger, Santa Claus, AND Ebenezer Scrooge.

    By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful.  Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, ad deep red curtains, ready to be drawn, t shut out cold and darkness.  There, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them.  Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped  lightly off to dome near neighbour’s house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter—artful witches; well they knew it—in a glow!

     But if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high.  Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted!  How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach!  The very lamplighter, who ran on before dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and wo was dressed the spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed: though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas!

     And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed—or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass.  Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of the darkest night.

     “What place is this?” asked Scrooge.

     “A place where Miner dwell, who labour in the bowels of the earth,” returned the Spirit.  “But they know me.  See!”

     A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it.  Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire.  An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.  The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon a barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined in on the chorus.  So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; amd so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

     The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither?  Not to sea?  To sea.  To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he sw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

     Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.  Great heaps of sea weed clung to its base, and storm-birds—born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water—rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

     But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed a ray of brightness on the awful sea.  Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the older, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, a the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

     Again the Spirit sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship.  They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christas tune, or had a Christas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas, with homeward hopes belonging to it.  And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

     The inclination of most filmmakers is to rush straight to nephew Fred’s party from the Cratchit household, if Fred’s scenes have been included at all, and not pushed in ahead of the Cratchit section.  A few more aesthetically-inclined versions do bring this in for atmosphere.  More often, bits and pieces of it are dropped into other parts of the Ghost’s visit.

     Hicks is told to come and see how others keep Christmas.  We watch silhouettes on windowshades, and lights going on all over London.  In the background, we get “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.  We get a distant storm-battered lighthouse and a toast by the two keepers.  On a wind-tossed ship, the lookout calls out a Merry Christmas and laughs; his laugh melts into Fred’s laugh and the next episode.

     In Sim II, a swirl takes us out to a place where miners live.  A very old man, surrounded by a large family, sings “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.”  Scrooge looks grim as he is hauled into a very Edward Gorey skyscape; the two men in the lighthouse are singing the same song as the old miner.  A swoop takes us to a ship, where the pilot is singing “God Rest Ye”.  We then swoop back toward the city and a window hung with wreaths.

     To Stewart’s alarm, a white tornado picks up Scrooge and Spirit from a white field.  They arrive at the lighthouse, where the men sing “Silent Night”.  The tornado then carries them to the ship, where the crew sing “Silent Night” in German.  Scrooge is much annoyed by the constant spray of waves hitting the deck.  They move next to a place where miners dwell.  Here a noble Welsh choir is singing “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.”

     Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground.  But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.

     “Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

     “The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening, “I wish I had him here.  I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

     “My dear,” said Bob, “the children; Christmas Day.”

     “It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said she “on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge.  You know he is, Robert!  Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

     “My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.”

     “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his.  Long life to him!  A merry Christmas and a happy new year!—he’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!”

     The children drank the toast after her.  It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it.  Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it.  Scrooge was the Ogre of the family.  The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

     After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with.  Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly.  The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter’s being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income.  Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie a-bed tomorrow morning for a good long rest; tomorrow being a holiday she passed at home.  Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord was “much as tall as Peter”; at which Peter pulled his collars so high that you couldn’t have seen his head had you been there.  All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and bye and bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim; who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

     There was nothing of high mark in this.  They were not a handsome family; they were not well-dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker’s.  But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

     The screenwriters often move this scene around, or combine it with the “God bless us” toast, but few omit it entirely.  There’s too much going on.  Mrs. Cratchit gets her big speech (and Dickens indulges a practice for making women the voice of reason in this story)  Our opinion of Bob Cratchit as one of those “No, everything’s all right, really” sort is confirmed.  And we get to twist the knife just a wee bit more in Ebenezer Scrooge.

     Hicks has the dialogue much as written.  The toast is drunk with no great willingness.  Tiny Tim, at request, sings “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, since the experts have never quite figured out what song Dickens had in mind when he wrote the passage.  (Still, there are so many songs about children lost in the snow/forest/jungle/big city/darkness/high weeds that it might be a version of any of those.)

     Owen accomplishes a major shift by having Mrs. Cratchit propose the toast to Mr. Scrooge.  “And here’s to next Christmas, may it bring us luck.  And may Mr. Scrooge give your father a raise!”  Martha and Bob, the only ones who know Bob has been sacked, look somber.  “And a merry Christmas to Mr. Scrooge!” Nob says, “I can drink to that.”  Scrooge is much abashed by all this.  “And now a story!”  Bob prepares to tell the children a story; Scrooge is eager to hear it.  “It’s about Aladdin!” he tells the Ghost, “And the magic lamp!”  After some coaxing, the Ghost is able to tear him away.

     In Sim I, Peter brings in the gin punch, and has some actual lines.  We hear the bit about Peter’s possible job.  The “God bless us” toast make Scrooge look rueful; his face really drops when the next toast is proposed, even before the family starts to boo and shout objections.  Thoroughly miserable, he turns to go, but the Ghost stops him.  The speeches are delivered more or less as written, and the lack of enthusiasm when the toast is finally drunk is obvious.  The scene fades in smoke.

     March omits this toast.

     Magoo pushes this scene to the very end, just before Scrooge appears, in the flesh, at the Cratchit household.  Some of the dialogue is omitted, but the toast is drunk with a thorough lack of enthusiasm.  Bob reproves the children, asking them to do justice to the day and to this marvelous turkey they are about to eat (having no idea that the reviled Founder of the Feast sent it.)

     Haddrick keeps the dialogue as written through “My dear!  Christmas Day!” when Bob adds “I’m sure Mr. Scrooge is a good man under hs hard front.  After all, he is a businessman.”  “And his business is making people unhappy,” comes the reply.  Then Mrs. Cratchit delivers her line about Scrooge being very merry and very happy, she’s sure.  “Are you very merry and happy?” the Ghost asks Mr. Scrooge.  “After that, I have cause to be.  But I’m not.”  “Why is that so?”  Scrooge explains he is unhappy for worrying about Tiny Tim; he now inquires about the boy’s future, as explained in the last chapter.

     Sim II omits the scene.

     In Finney, Bob toasts Tiny Tim for the fortune he’s made caroling, and joins this to a toast to Mr. Scrooge, naming them as the two individuals whose industry and generosity have provided the feast.  Mrs. Cratchit and the others thump their cups on the table, refusing to drink the toast.  “What are you trying to do?” Mrs. Cratchit demands, “Ruin our Christmas?”  “But his money paid for the goose, my dear.”  “No, YOUR money paid for the goose, my dear.”  “But he paid me the money.”  :because you earned it.”  She points out that Bob hasn’t had any raise in eight years.  “My dear, Mr. Scrooge assures me times are hard.”  “For you they are, not for himself.”  Bob, digging in his heels, insists, “Nonetheless, he is the founder of our feast and we SHALL drink to him.”  Mrs. Cratchit is not intimidated.  “The Founder of the Feast indeed!”  We return to our regularly scheduled dialogue through “My dear!  Christmas Day!”, with a modest embellishment in her opinion that a piece of her mind would give Mr. Scrooge indigestion for a month.  She finally turns to the others and announces, “Children, we shall drink to your father and Tiny Tim.  And for the sake of your father, I’ll even drink to that old miser Mr. Scrooe.  Long life to him and to us all.”  “A merry Christmas to us all.”  Now we can move to the God bless us every one toast, and the song “The Beautiful Day” from Tiny Tim.

     Matthau omits the scene.  It exists in McDuck only as the mournful look on Mrs. Cratchit’s face when Tiny Tim suggests thanking Mr. Scrooge for all the wunnerful food.

     Scott seems impatient to leave; when the pudding has arrived and been approved by the head of the household, he is glad to be finished.  The Ghost detains him.  “Just one more ceremonious moment.  Look!”  Bob kisses his wife under the mistletoe, and then proposes a toast to Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast.  The children rise slowly to drink it, and Mrs. Cratchit sits down hard, to deliver the “Founder of the Feast indeed!” speech.  “My dear, have some charity.”  She thinks this over.  “Very well, I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s” and so forth.  Everyone drinks as if they are imbibing some vile medicine.  Scrooge points out that Bob made a good point: without him, there would have been no Christmas feast.  “My head for business furnished him employment.”  “Is that all you’ve learned by watching this family on Christmas Day?”  “No.  Not all.  But one must speak up for oneself, for one’s life.”  The family have a better time with the toast out of the way, and start singing “The Wassail Song”.  “We have some time left,” says the Ghost, “Tale my robe.”  They look toward the window, and a bright light.

     Caine hears Bob say “Mr. Scrooge,” and walks through the wall to answer.  Bob is proposing thr toast; his wife objects, going on to say “I would give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I bet he would choke on it.”  “:Choke!” agree Bettina and Belinda.  “My der.  The children.  Christmas Day.”  Mrs. Cratchit is a bit flustered at having vented unpleasant opinions on Christmas Day.  “Oh.  Well, I suppose that on the blessed day of Christmas, one must drink to the health of Mr. Scroooooooge, even though he is odious.”  Belinda and Bettina nod.  “Stingy.”  Bettina and Belinda nod.  “Wicked.”  Bettina and Belinda nod.  “And unfeeling.”  Bettina and Belinda nod.  Scrooge looks up anxiously at the Ghost.  Mrs. Cratchit goes on, “And badly dressed.”  Bettina and Belinda gasp in horror at how far their mother is going.  “And….”  Tim breaks in with “To the Founder of the Feast!  Mr. Scrooge!”  His mother relents.  “To Mr. Scrooge!  He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt.”  “No doubt!” snap the twins.  “Mmmm,” says their father, not perfectly convinced of the sincerity of the toast.  “Cheers.”  Now Tiny Tim sings “Bless Us All”; the family chime in.  Tim ends with a coughing fit, badly frightening Scrooge.  The Ghost draws him away, and Dickens reads us the closing line of the text.

      Curry has the toast to Mr. Cratchit, and then a toast to Mr. Scrooge, which becomes an excuse to reprise the song “Random Acts of Kindness”, this time phrasing it to explain how much happier we are with each other than Scrooge is with all his money.  Scrooge grumb;es, “I provide them with an income, and this is how they treat me.”

     Stewart begins with Bob proposing the toast; Mrs. Cratchit is stunned.  “Did you say Scrooge, Founder of the Feast?”  “Well, my dear….”  The written dialogue appears now, starting with “Founder of the Feast indeed!”; Bob recoils under the impact of “odious, stingy” and the other adjectives.  When convinced to go ahead with the toast, Mrs. Cratchit rushes through the words to get them out of her mouth all the faster.  “A nice gesture,” the Ghost remarks, But Mrs. Cratchit hasn’t finished.  “He’ll be about as merry as a graveyard on a wet Sunday.”  The Ghost laughs; Scrooge is offended.  Tim sings “Silent Night”; his brother looks grave.  The Ghost draws Scrooge outdoors.

      He sat very close to his father’s side, upon his little stool.  Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

     “Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

     “I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.  If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.”

     “No, no,” said Scrooge.  “Oh no, kind Spirit!  Say he will be spared.”

     “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here.  What then?  If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

      Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

     “Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is.  Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?  It may be, that in the light of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child.  Oh God!  to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”

      And here we smack Scrooge right between the eyes.  In most versions, the Ghost doesn’t come right out and give the message as “You don’t care what happens to other people; this is what ha[p[pens to other people.  Of you hadn’t been obsessed by on taking care of yourself, this odd and thoughtful child might not be near death.”  In some versions, to be sure, we give another twist of the knife by making Tim the only one aside from Bob to stick up for Scrooge during the Toast.  (To do that, of course, they have to put the next segment before this one.)

     Hicks watches Tim lean on the crutch, looking up at Bob.  “Spirit, tell me that Tiny Tim will live.”  The conversation continues much as written; when Scrooge recognizes the quote, he murmurs “Me own words.”  The Spirit goes on with that magnificent final speech, but leaves out the insect on the leaf image.

     Owen puts this scene before dinner.  He asks about Tim, is answered, and says “No, no: surely he’ll be spared.”  “With the kind of care that money could buy, who could tell?  But Bob Cratchit has no money.  Not even a position, I’ve heard.  If all this remains unaltered by the future, next Christmas will not find Tiny Tim here.”  Scrooge then hears himself being quoted, and turns to stare at the Spirit.

     Sim I puts this all between church and dinner, presenting it much as written, except that the Spirit does not repeats the line about shadows being unaltered, as he does in the text.  He merely asks, “Why?  If he be like to die, he’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”  Scrooge’s head jerks on recognizing this remark.

     March has to nag to get an answer.  “Will Tiny Tim live?”  “My life on this globe is very brief; it ends tonight.”  “Will Tiny Tim live?”  “I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.  These shadows may be altered only by the Spirit of the Future.”  “Well, where do I find the Spirit of the Future?”  “Look within yourself, for if you continue as you are, the answer is there before you.”  Scrooge thinks this over, but when he turns to ask a question, the Spirit is gone.  Scrooge, looking around, suddenly stops and stares straight ahead in horror.

     Rathbone asks, “Spirit, tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”  “I see an empty chair by the chimney corner.  If these shadows remain unaltered, no brother of mine will find him here.”  Scrooge protests, but the Spirit replies, “I am the Present.  I cannot answer for the Future.”  Scrooge is of a mind to argue, but the Spirit cuts him off by saying he has another house from Scrooge to see.

     Magoo demands, “What’s wrong with that boy, the tiny one?”  “I see a vacant seat in the chimney corner, and a crutch carefully preserved.  If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.”  Scrooge has a flashback of himself delivering the “If they be like to die” speech.  This act of the play closes on this, and the curtain falls.

     Haddrick brings this in after the Toast.  “Yon child.  Tiny Tim.  Tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”  “I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.  If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”  “Is there no chance he’ll live?”  “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race will find him here.  What of it?  If he be likely to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”  “You use my own words against me.”  “You used the words.  Only you can undo them.”  “There is nothing I can do.”  “There is.  But you’ll have to find out the hard way.”  “The hard way?”  “My time is nigh.  Come!”

     Sim II does not give us much of the Cratchits, but their financial situation is indicated by how much they are bundled up, even indoors; there is much coughing, too, though they’re right up next to the fire.  Scrooge, eyes cast down, asks if Tiny Tim will live.  The Ghost replies, also giving him a quick vision of the empty chimney corner.  Scrooge’s eyes widen.  “No no.”  “What of it?  If he be like to die, he had better do it….”  “Don’t!”  “And decrease the surplus population.”  He goes through the whole insect on the leaf speech, his eyes raised to Heaven, his voice one of sorrow.

     In Finney, the toast before this and the one after are combined and given first; Scrooge and the Ghost walk from the house.  “What an unpleasant child!” cries the Ghost.  “There are few things more nauseating to see than a happy family enjoying themselves at Christmas.  Do you not agree?”  Scrooges knows he is being baited, but responds, “I think Bob Cratchit’s really quite fond of me.”  “So’s his wife: couldn’t you tell?”  “She doesn’t really know me.”  “That is one of the few things wherein Fate has blessed her.”  Scrooge walks on before asking “What will become of the child?”  The Ghost stops.  “What’s this?  Concern over a sick child?  Have you taken leave of your senses?”  “Don’t mock me, Spirit.  Is the child very sick?  Not that it’s of any great importance to me whether he is or not, but is he?”  “Well, of course, he’s sick.”  “You mean he’s seriously ill?’  the Spirits answers with only a gaze of deep solemnity.  “Will he live?  Well, WILL he?”  “What does it matter to you, Ebenezer Scrooge?  If he is going to die, then he’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”  Scrooge does not reply.

     In Matthau, Tim, running to Martha with his toy soldier, trips and falls.  Scrooge cannot intervene, and becomes distraught at this.  “Is there no way I can help him?”  “It is, perhaps, too late.”  We break off here to take Scrooge to his nephew’s party, but we return later to the Cratchits’, where Scrooge asks “What of that other child, so tiny he seems little more than a babe himself?”  “I see a vacant seat in the chimney corner, and a little crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.”  “Oh, dear God, let it not be!”  Scrooge falls across the vacant seat, calling “This cannot be!”  “Why not?” says the Ghost, “Who cares?”  Scrooge is astonished by this, which leads to the song “One Little Boy”, in which the ghost argues the case for Tim’s demise, forcing Scrooge to retort that one life DOES matter.  There is a line about decreasing the surplus population, a line which Scrooge has not, in this version, actually uttered.  He does admit to having thought it, though, and is ashamed of it.

     In McDuck, Tim, still looking at all the food, says “We must thank Mr. Scrooge.”  Mrs. Cratchit looks sorrowful, but says nothing.  “What’s wrong with that kind lad?”  “Much, I’m afraid.  If these shadows remain unchanged, I see an empty chair where Tiny Tim once sat.”  Tim, having observed that his father’s plate is nearly empty, offers some of his own food.  “You mean…Tim will….”  But the Spirit has vanished.  Scrooge cries out to him, demanding to know more about Tim.

     Scott steps to the table to peer at Tim as the boy eats.  The dialogue proceeds much as written, save that the Ghost sees “an empty seat at this table.”  Scrooge smiles a bit on hearing himself quoted, and says “You use my own words against me.”  Nodding, the Spirit laughs and replies, “Yes.  So perhaps in the future you’ll hold your tongue.”  He delivers a fierce “insect on the leaf” speech.

      In Caine, we get the Toast first, and the song “Bless us All,” closing i=with another of Tim’s coughing fits.  “Spirit, tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”  “That is the Future.  My realm is in the present.”  The Ghost speaks with an effort, he is already going gray.  “However, I see a vacant seat by the chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner.  If these shadows remain unaltered, I believe the child will die.  But what then?  If he is going to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!”  Scrooge turns, with a stricken, “Oh, Spirit!”  He turns to look with fear at the Cratchits again.  Dickens himself then gives us the paragraph (yet to come in the text) which closes the Cratchit section of the book.

     Curry also has the Toast first.  While the rest of the family clears the table, Tim hobbles to the fire and picks up a copy of Robinson Crusoe.  “Look familiar?” asks the Ghost.  Scrooge sees a vision of himself as a child.  Bob and his wife now go through the material about Tim hoping the people saw him in church ending with “People would be thankful for their good fortune.”  Scrooge murmurs “I am.”  “What?”  Instead of answering the Ghost, Scrooge moves in to look over Tim’s shoulder, enjoying Robinson Crusoe with him.  “A remarkable boy,” he says, “But so frail.  Spirit, tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”  The Ghost grows grey.  “I see an empty seat in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner.  If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”  There is a vision of the empty stool.  “Oh no, Spirit!  Tell me he will be spared!”  “Well, if he’s going to die, he had better do it, and so decrease the surplus population, right?”  “I didn’t mean….”  “Next time,” the Ghost instructs him, “Find out who the surplus is.  Remember, Scrooge, no one is worthless or unfit to live.”  The “God bless us, every one” toast comes in here, and Bob observes how glad he is to be in the bosom of his family.  Scrooge mourns, “I wish I had a family to be with.”  The Ghost says he does, silly man, and whisks him to Fred’s party.

     Stewart, having asked earlier if Tiny Tim would live, watches him drink the “God bless us every one” toast and demands, “Is there no chance that the boy will be spared?”  “Not if the future remains unaltered.”  “Hmmmmm?”  “But so what if it happens?  If he is going to die, he had better do it quick, and decrease the surplus population.”  Scrooge pulls himself up on hearing the quote, and takes it like a boy being scolded.  The Ghost delivers the “Insect n the Leaf” speech with real feeling.

FUSS FUSS FUSS #15: When Does the Old Man Melt?

     When does the power of Christmas to make us feel for others infect Scrooge?  The textuial Scrooge shows signs of softening early on, at his old school.  The fact that he weeps for the young Ebenezer hardly counts: he is, after all, just feeling sorry for himself.  But at the end, when he is wishing he had given the caroler at his door something, he is obviously picking up an idea.  By the time he meets Christmas present, he admits it, and Dickens observes that this is a humbler Scrooge than before.

     Filmmakers often alter this.  Obviously suspense will grow if Scrooge keeps refusing to listen.  This does run the risk of making audiences feel that the only thing that matters to the old geezer is the sight of his own tombstone.

     I have listed our Scrooges in the order they thaw.

     Curry, an especially hardhearted old miser to start with, wishes he’d been kind to the caroler.  He backslides a bit later, it is true, but the change has started.  The later visions seem to be working at his grumpiness as much as anything else.

     Hicks is very meek on meeting Christmas Present, actually using the line about Christmas past having taught him a lesson which is working in him now.

     Sim I is thawed by the visions of the past, but becomes despondent, frequently noting that he is too old to change his ways.

     Sim II is similarly very meek when he meets Christmas present, admitting the Ghost may have something to teach him; Rathbone is similarly inclined.

     Caine weeps during the breakup scene with Belle, and is hardly the same person afterward.  He laughs cheerfully with the Ghost of Christmas present, and admits that he may not have understood about Christmas.  The Cratchit dinner completes the change.

      Whenever Owen shows signs of relenting. Christmas Past pushes matters too far, freezing him up again.  He seems to understand that he has changed for the worse, and utterly refuses to look at any more visions of his past.  The Ghost of Christmas Present, a little less likely to lecture, accomplishes the transformation.

     March shows few signs of melting beyond enjoying the Fezziwig party, and Christmas present’s song.  He is not rendered wholly human until Tiny Tim’s song at the Christmas table.

      Magoo, merely puzzled by the Cratchits’ happiness, also seems to wait for Tiny Tim to convince him.

      Matthau, seeing Tiny Tim fall, rushes to catch him, showing that he has thought for others by now.  The recollection of his unkindness to Fred reduces him to tears.

     McDuck seems merely to regret his past, feeling sorry for himself.  But his concern for Tim’s future means, when he finds himself abandoned by the Spirit and standing in the snow while wearing only his nightshirt and slippers, he is more distraught about Tim’s situation than his own.

     Finney does wish he’d given the carolers something, but the sense of guilt makes him colder and grumpier.  He smiles while under the influence of the Milk of Human Kindness, but goes on snarling at the world and at Christmas.  Fred’s Christmas party is what makes the difference; he seems honestly to be considering what he “might have shared, and turned to happiness”.  His genuine regret when the Ghost of Christmas present departs indicates that he now attaches some importance to the holiday.

     Stewart is troubled by the visions of the past, particularly what they mean to his treatment of Fred, but he hasn’t especially changed.  He allows that he was happy with Belle, and at Fezziwig’s, but time changes people and those old days are gone now.  He greets Christmas Present as an unpleasant ordeal to be gotten through.  Fred’s Christmas party is what really starts to warm him up; the games and his sister’s favorite tune show Christmas to be of some value.

     Scott LEARNS things as he goes along but treats his experiences as information to be added to his knowledge of the world, not reasons for changing his philosophy or world view.  He declines even to admit he might have made some mistakes until he is abandoned by Christmas present.

     Haddrick shows not the slightest sign of relenting before he asks about Tim; he softened not a jot in the past, considering everyone he saw there, including himself, as a fool.  The Ghost of Christmas present ends by being disgusted with him (though he is at least thinking about things he never thought of before) and it takes the idea of dying unmourned to really melt THIS Ebenezer.

INTERLUDE

     In Matthau, Tiny Tim, having recovered from his stumble, tells Martha about the children next door, who claim there is no Santa Claus, and say his wooden soldier is no more than a clothespin his father painted.

     Martha sings “Yes, There Is a Santa Claus”, heavily inspired by “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus”.  We watch the ghost of Christmas present turn into Santa Claus.  (We also see bob Cratchit painting the clothespin.)  Mrs. Cratchit brings the dinner into this with “And yes,  there is a goose”.  Later, there is a toast, with glasses of punch, ending with “God bless us, every one.”