The story
It was terribly cold; it snowed and it was growing dark. It was the last evening of the year, New Year's Eve. In the cold and the dark a poor little girl walked through the streets, bareheaded and barefoot.
She carried a bundle of matches in her old apron. Nobody had bought any from her all day. Light shone from every window and the street smelled of roast goose. In a corner between two houses she sat down, and dared not go home.
She struck a match, and sat by a great iron stove. She struck another, and the wall turned thin as gauze: a table, and a roast goose that waddled toward her. She struck a third, and sat beneath a Christmas tree with a thousand candles, which rose and became the stars. One fell. Someone is dying, she thought.
She struck a fourth, and there stood her old grandmother. She struck the whole bundle to keep her there, and her grandmother took her in her arms, and they flew in brightness and joy to where there was no cold, no hunger and no fear.
In the cold morning the little girl sat in the corner with red cheeks and a smile on her lips. "She wanted to warm herself," people said. No one knew what beautiful things she had seen.