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On the last evening of the year, in the biting cold, a poor little girl walked alone through the dark streets. Snow swirled around her, settling on her bare head, and the icy wind pierced straight through her thin, tattered clothes.
She had worn her mother’s slippers when she left home, but now her little feet were bare. The slippers were far too big, and she had lost them as she hurried across the street just as two wagons thundered past. A boy — the neighbor’s son, Niels Christian — had run off with one of them, and the other she could not find anywhere.
So the tired girl walked on, her small feet turning numb against the freezing cobblestones. In her apron she carried a bundle of matches to sell, and she held one small packet in her hand. But no one had bought even a single match from her all day. No one had given her even a single coin.
Shivering from cold and hunger, she passed houses where warm light shone from the windows and where other children lay safely tucked into soft beds. Oh, if only she could have a warm bath. It was New Year’s Eve, and delicious scents drifted through the air — the smell of roast goose and festive feasts.
Soon she could walk no farther. She was exhausted. The cold grew sharper and sharper, yet she dared not return home without having sold something. There was no warmth there anyway, no food, no comfort. The wind whistled through the broken roof, and the family’s blankets were damp and threadbare.
The little girl found a narrow passage between two houses that sheltered her a little from the cruel wind. She sank down and curled up tightly. Her poor hands were nearly dead from the cold. She rubbed them together, trying to bring back the feeling, and wondered if the light from a match might warm them — just a little.
She took out one match and struck it against the wall. It flared up with a bright, warm flame — like a tiny candle — and she held her hands over it. In the glow, she imagined herself sitting before a great iron stove, its fire crackling with pine branches, filling the air with the scent of winter woods. For a moment she felt warm and safe — but then the match went out, and the vision vanished.
She struck a second match. This time, the wall before her seemed to grow transparent, like a window. She could see into a splendid room where a snow–white tablecloth lay spread over the table, with silver platters and crystal glasses arranged so beautifully. And there — in the center — stood a glorious roast goose stuffed with apples and prunes.
To her amazement, the goose suddenly hopped down from the platter and waddled straight toward her! But just before it reached her, the match went out — and darkness returned.
She lit a third match. Now she sat beneath the most magnificent Christmas tree she had ever seen. Thousands of candles glittered on its green branches, and ornaments of gold and silver shone like gemstones. She reached out for them.
But the flame flickered and died, and the tree’s lights rose higher and higher, until they floated up into the sky — becoming stars. One of them streaked across the heavens, leaving a long trail of fire.
“Someone is dying,” the little girl thought. For her grandmother had once told her that whenever a star falls, a soul rises to heaven.
She struck a fourth match, and in its glow stood her dear old grandmother — so kind, so gentle, and so bright. She had passed away many years ago, yet here she stood, just as the girl remembered her.
“Oh, Grandmother, take me with you!” cried the little girl. “I know you will disappear when the match burns out — just like the stove, and the goose, and the beautiful Christmas tree!”
Quickly, she lit the whole bundle of matches, desperate to keep her grandmother with her. The light shone brighter than daylight, blazing like the sun itself.
Her grandmother reached out, took the little girl in her arms, and together they rose — up, up into the sky, into the starlit heavens — to a place where hunger and cold could never touch her again.
When morning came, and the sun rose on New Year’s Day, the townspeople found the little girl in the passageway. At first they thought she was only sleeping, for her cheeks were rosy and a gentle smile rested on her lips.
But they could not wake her. She was cold and still — frozen in the night. She still held the matches in her hands, one bundle burned completely.
“She only wanted to warm herself,” the people said. “If only we had shown her a little kindness… welcomed her… or bought her matches.” But now it was too late.
No one ever knew the beautiful visions she had seen.
No one knew that her grandmother had come to guide her away from the darkness and the cold.
And no one knew that the little match girl was the very first soul that New Year’s night to find her way to a brighter, warmer place — the land of stars and everlasting joy.
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