"I think, sir, that mother is right. You see, I'm eight, going on nine; and when a man's that old he ought to be able to look after himself for awhile. Don't you think so?" With these brave words, David let his mother and father go on a long journey, while he stayed with his old Irish nurse, Johanna, and Barney, her husband, in the snow-covered hill country. It was just a short time until Christmas and David was a bit worried because he might have a lonely Christmas so far away from "his world." But he makes the acquaintance of a locked-out fairy who is lonely too; how they found a real Christmas is an unusual and charmingly told story. Then there are the wonderful tales of Christmas in other lands told by Johanna, Barney, Uncle Joab, the old darky from Virginia, the flagman, Nicholas Bassarba, a Romany wanderer, the Spanish boy and his mother, and the artist who was trying to run away from Christmas.

The frontispiece is by Maginel Wright Barney, one of the most distinguished children's artists in America.

From the dust jacket of the 1943 reprint edition