The Cricket on the Hearth

On a winter evening, the carrier John Peerybingle comes home to his young wife Dot, their baby, and the cheerful cricket that chirps upon their hearth, the little guardian of the house. Before the year is out, a blind toymaker's daughter, a hard-hearted toy merchant, a mysterious lodger, and a wedding that may be a terrible mistake will test every heart in the story. Charles Dickens's 1845 Christmas book, a fairy tale of home,