The Answers

Here are the answers to I Made You a Game. If you haven't played yet, avert your eyes. I've filled the names back into the quotes.

Here we go...

1. “Some Christmas,” remarked Rush in a satisfied tone at the end of the day. He was playing Randy’s Funeral March for her, very quietly in the dusk. “I bet we’re just about the only kids in the county, maybe even the whole state, that got such a big live alligator for a Christmas present.”

The Four-Story Mistake, by Elizabeth Enright

2. “Breakfast seems so commonplace at such an exciting moment. I’d rather feast my eyes on that dress….I feel that I ought to be a very good girl indeed. It’s at times like this I’m sorry I’m not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will be in future. But somehow it’s hard to carry out your resolutions when irresistible temptations come. Still, I really will make an extra effort after this.”

Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

3. “That was a wonderful day. It was a treasure, and no mistake! I never saw such heaps and heaps of presents, like things out of a fairy-tale—and even Eliza had a shawl. Perhaps she deserved it, for she did cook the rabbit and the pudding; and Oswald says it is not her fault if her nose turns up and she does not brush her hair. I do not think Eliza likes brushing things. It is the same with the carpets. But Oswald tries to make allowances even for people who do not wash their ears.”

The Story of the Treasure Seekers, by E. Nesbit (the first Bastable book)

4. “For ere one half of the night was gone,
Sudden a star has led us on,
Raining bliss and benison—
Bliss tomorrow and more anon,
Joy for every morning!”

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame

5. “And next day they rounded up the mice with the loudest voices. They spent the whole morning practicing their scales and the whole afternoon sorting out the pronunciation of Wenceslas, and by the time it was dark, they were ready.”

The Church Mice at Christmas, by Graham Oakley (one of the funniest Christmas picture books around)

6. (a Christmas list): “Tony—a jack-knife (his has only one blade.) Mr. Gilligan—a clay pipe and tobacco. Mrs. Gilligan—a tomato pin-cushion. Mr. Night-Owl—a cake of soap.”

Roller Skates, by Ruth Sawyer

7. “Don’t you have any tree?” Joey asked.
“Oh, it isn’t worth while just for me,” Mrs. Verduz said. “I don’t usually make any fuss over Christmas. But when I heard you singing I thought it was really awfully dull staying down there in my room all by myself. And you see, I’ve brought a few things with me.”

The Ark, by Margot Benary-Isbert

8. “'A hand-knit muffler! How warm it looks. I must try it on right now,' said Mr. Bear. He wrapped it around his neck…There was rather a lot left over.”

A Gift from the Lonely Doll, by Dare Wright

9. “There had never been such a Christmas as this. It was such a large, rich Christmas, the whole church full of Christmas. There were so many lamps, so many people, so much noise and laughter, and so many happinesses in it. Laura felt full and bursting, as if that whole big rich Christmas were inside her, and her mittens and her beautiful jewel-box with the wee gold cup-and-saucer and teapot, and her candy and her popcorn ball.”

On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

10. “She did not even hug to her heart that moment when, finally, she had become Mama’s ‘dearest, dearest child'. In her heart it was Christmas, and she was busy singing.”

From Anna, by Jean Little

Bonus Quote:
"All the ponies are at the war."

The Middle Moffat, by Eleanor Estes

And the answers are...

1. They waved their handkerchiefs until they turned the corner from New Dollar Street into Elm Street. Now they could no longer see the yellow house. Good-by, yellow house! Good-by!

The Moffats, by Eleanor Estes

2. That room was full to the brim of something beautiful, and Betsy knew what it was. Its name was Happiness.

Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

3. The other [thing] is that back in our own world everyone soon started saying how Eustace had improved, and how “You’d never know him for the same boy”: everyone except Aunt Alberta, who said he had become very commonplace and tiresome and it must have been the influence of those Pevensie children.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis

4. None throws away the apple for the core.
But if thou shalt cast all away as vain,
I know not but ‘twill make me dream again.

Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (the poem that ends Book I)

5. The mouse hurried to his safe home.
He lit the fire,
he ate his supper,
and he finished reading his book.

Mouse Soup, by Arnold Lobel

6. And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs, before the window, peering out into the night, gave a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast.

Three Men in a Boat (not to mention the dog), by Jerome K. Jerome

7. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny,, or reward filial disobedience.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

8. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

The Gospel of John

9. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. ALTERNATE ENDING I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview, for in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance that suffering had been stronger than XXX's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (he couldn't decide on an ending)

10. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.

The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien