The Little Match-Seller
by
Hans Christian Andersen
(1846)
Audiobook free download: Link mediafire
IT was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the
old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor
little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is
true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of
much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her
mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street
to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the
slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with
it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own.
So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and
blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a
bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day,
nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she
crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The
snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders,
but she regarded them not.
