It is a very cold winter evening at the end of the year. Snow falls softly on the houses and bright windows shine with warm light. In the street, a little girl walks all alone. She has no hat and her feet are bare and red with cold. Once she had big slippers that belonged to her mother, but they slipped off when she ran across the street. Now the little girl walks on the hard snow with her tiny bare feet.
She carries a bundle of matches in her apron and more in her hand. She calls out in a small voice, 'Matches for sale, warm matches for sale!' But the people hurry past her and no one stops to buy. No one gives her even a little coin. From the windows she smells good warm food and hears laughter and songs. She knows it is New Year's Eve and many families are together in bright rooms.
At last the little girl is so tired and cold that she curls up in a corner between two houses, where one wall sticks out a little. She pulls her feet under her dress, but she still shivers. She does not want to go home because she has sold nothing. She is afraid, and at home it is also very cold. The roof has holes and the wind blows in.
The child looks at her small hands and the bundle of matches. Perhaps, she thinks, one small match will help my cold fingers. She pulls out a match and scratches it on the wall. Scratch! How it sputters and shines! A warm little flame appears, bright like a tiny candle. As she holds her hand over it, the light seems to grow. In the glow she thinks she is sitting in front of a large iron stove with a shining door. Inside, the fire burns with a gentle, cheerful flame.
Then the match goes out and the stove disappears. She is again in the dark corner with a tiny burnt stick between her fingers. She quickly strikes another match. The flame jumps up and makes a soft golden circle on the wall. The wall seems to open like a thin curtain, and she can see into a bright room. A table stands there with a clean white cloth and shining plates. There is a delicious roast goose, stuffed with apples and plums, and warm steam rises into the air.
She lights a third match. Now she sees a tall, beautiful Christmas tree. It is bigger and brighter than the one she once saw in the window of a rich house. Many little candles shine on the green branches, and tiny stars, ribbons, and pretty pictures hang down. She reaches out her hand to touch them, and the match goes out. The lights from the tree rise higher and higher until they look like real stars in the sky.
Just then she sees one star fall and make a silver line across the night. 'Someone is going to heaven,' she thinks, remembering what her dear grandmother told her. Her grandmother was the only one who ever held her close and spoke gently to her. The little girl feels a warm tear on her cheek, and she whispers, 'Grandmother.'
She strikes another match. In the bright light she suddenly sees her grandmother standing in front of her. She looks kind and loving, just as she always did, but even more gentle and beautiful. 'Oh Grandmother,' says the child, 'take me with you. Please do not go away when the match goes out. Stay with me.' She lights one more match, and then another, so that the light grows brighter than the daytime.
In that moment a door opens nearby. A kind woman from one of the houses has heard the small sounds in the corner and has come to see. She finds the little girl sitting on the ground with the last tiny flames of her matches in her hand and a soft smile on her face. The woman quickly wraps a warm shawl around the child and carries her gently inside.
Other people bring a blanket and warm soup and put her little feet near a safe, bright fire. As the warmth returns to her hands and cheeks, the girl looks up and seems to see her grandmother smiling in the firelight. She feels safe and loved. The next morning the New Year's sun rises over the snow, shining on the little girl's new bed by the warm stove. She holds one unlit match in her hand as a small reminder of hope, now surrounded by the gentle love in her new home.
