ACT I
[Mother Goose and Jenny Wren at left, busily sewing. Tables and shelves piled high with toys. White skins on floor. Sparkling chandeliers, candles, etc.]
Jack Frost. [Dressed in white with spangles, pointed cap, pointed shoes, and wand. Enters at right with rush and whoop, scattering snow and breaking icicles.] Hello, Mother Goose. Hello, Jennie Wren. Oh, but I’ve had a hard time chasing up his reindeer for Santa Claus! I’ve got them herded into a mossy field over in the corner of Iceland, and I hope they will stay awhile now.
Jennie Wren
Mother Goose. [Sweeping up the litter made by Jack.] Dear me, Jack, what is the need of coming in in such a bluster and mussing the house this way?
Jack. Excuse me, Mother Goose. I just keep forgetting. My, but it is hot here! It almost gives me chilblains. Actually, the thermometer is only five degrees below zero in this room. I should think you’d melt, Jennie. [Opens a window, tweaks Jennie’s ear. Starts to skate across the room and falls down.]
Jennie. [With a start.] Why, Jack, how did you come to fall?
Jack. Oh, not-with-standing, Jennie. [Turns a handspring.]
Jennie. Oh, Jack, what a bad pun! Now see if you can’t subside and not make any more trouble for Mother Goose. You know it is only three more days before Santa has to start off with his pack, and there are many things for you to do to help him get ready.
Jack. Oh, excuse me, everybody. I wish I could learn calm, cool manners. Maybe I could behave better if I wasn’t so hungry. Couldn’t I have something to eat? I haven’t eaten a thing since breakfast but three tallow candles, and I’m starving.
Mother Goose. Yes, you shall have a little snack right now, Jack, as supper will not be ready for some time yet. You must attend the door to-night, as the Auld Lang Syne Club holds its annual meeting here this evening, you know. [She hurries out.]
Jack. I wish Santa would let me run the wireless, instead of always having me tend reindeer.
Mother Goose. [Entering with tray.] Here, Jack, is a little luncheon for you—a bowl of ice-cream, a piece of frosted cake, and some iced tea.
Jack. [Seating himself.] Oh, Mother Goose, you are the best cook at the Pole. Oh, how good and cold everything tastes. But where is Santa? I thought he was too busy to leave home to-day.
Mother Goose. He went out a little while ago to see if there were any messages at the Wireless Station. He thinks he has at last got the wireless line in working order. It runs from the Pole now to every school yard in the country, you know. He expects great fun in hearing the children of the world planning for their Christmas trees and stockings. There will be no more mistakes in presents now, for every boy and girl will get just what Santa hears him or her wishing for.
Jennie. [Looking out.] Why, here comes dear old Santa now, and he looks quite sad. I wonder if the wireless line is out of order after all the trouble he has had trying to get connections made.
Santa. [Enters and flings himself in easy-chair.] Well, Mother Goose and Jennie, you can put away your needles, and Jack, just turn the reindeer loose again. There will be no Christmas gifts for anybody this year, nor any other year.
All. No Christmas gifts! Never again any Christmas gifts!
Santa. That’s what I said. Never again any Christmas gifts! Santa Claus will never be seen away from the North Pole again!
Mother Goose. Why, Santa, you might as well say there will be no more skating or coasting. Winter without Santa Claus and Christmas is unbelievable. I can’t bear to think of your never again carrying Christmas gifts to the children. How can you think of stopping that custom?
Santa Claus. I feel just as bad as you do about stopping my annual visit and my gifts. Ever since I can remember I’ve been distributing gifts to children at Christmas time; and until an hour ago I expected to keep it up always, but now Santa Claus and his Christmas rounds are at an end forever!
Mother Goose. But what has happened, Santa, to put this into your mind? Have you had a fall on the ice and do you feel a little dazed?
Jennie. This is one of your jokes, Santa.
Jack. Oh, come off, now, Santa. You almost gave me a chill. Let’s get a big box of those drums and whistles packed up for the sleigh.
Jack Frost
Santa Claus. No; I am in dead earnest. My head never was clearer. I’ll tell you how it is. You will hardly believe me, but up at the Wireless to-day, I got the shock of my life. I went up and sat on an iceberg at the foot of the Pole to listen to what the children of different playgrounds were saying about Christmas, and what gifts they expected, and so on. I had my note-book ready to write what this one and that one wanted. And—oh, I can hardly tell you—I heard children from three different cities talking about Christmas and saying they did not believe in Santa Claus.
All. Not believe in Santa Claus? Impossible! Preposterous! And that, too, after all the gifts—dolls and Noah’s arks and bags of candy you have scattered around the world!
Jack. Maybe they think I have been chasing reindeer to the end of the rainbow for—nobody!
Santa Claus. I knew you’d hardly believe it. I would not believe it myself if I hadn’t heard the words just as plainly as I hear you all talking now. One little girl in Boston was talking to quite a lot of little comrades. “Pooh,” she said, “no well-informed person nowadays believes in Santa Claus. Santa Claus is only a medieval myth”—
Jennie. Medieval! What’s that? There’s nothing evil about you, Santa. You are just three hundred pounds of solid goodness.
Santa Claus. Oh, Jennie, I thought they all loved me as you do; and it is hard to find they don’t believe in me, after all my years of Christmas visits.
Mother Goose. Go on, Santa dear. What else did you hear over that horrid wireless line?
Santa Claus. Well, some boys were talking in a school yard in Chicago, and one of them said loudly: “You can’t fool me. There isn’t any Santa Claus, and there never was. He is nothing but a picture in the books, like Uncle Sam!” And he was a boy with a pair of mittens on his hands that I’d given him last Christmas. He was that curly-haired boy I think, Jennie, that you’ve been knitting mittens for ten years, each year a size larger.
Jennie. Oh, isn’t he ungrateful? And here I have another pair almost finished for him this year, too. [Holds up red mittens.]
Jack. I’ll give that fellow a nip yet. I’ll make him believe in me, anyhow!
Mother Goose. Those certainly were cruel speeches, Santa. But let us hear the worst. What else did they say?
Santa Claus. Some little girls in Los Angeles were at the school gate and I heard one saying, “Oh, Santa Claus will do for babies. But when you are seven you ought to say he’s just make-believe, like the Sand Man and such folks.”
Mother Goose. I don’t wonder you feel hurt, Santa, after all your kindness to children. But you must remember that these were only three out of all the school yards in the country. There must be hundreds of other children who do believe in you. Perhaps these just happened to be the few who don’t believe in fairies, either. There are some such strange children I have heard.
Jennie. Oh, Peter Pan will convince those foolish children who don’t believe in fairies.
Mother Goose. Never mind, Santa. I am sure there cannot be many children of that unbelieving kind. But I wish you had never had your wireless rigged up. It seems only to make you unhappy.
Santa Claus. [Sighing.] It has made me unhappy. I never felt so sad in all my life before. I shall order the wireless telegraph discontinued to-morrow. I shall give up the wireless line and the Christmas business altogether—Dear me, how lonesome I shall be for the children!
Mother Goose. I shall not be sorry to have you give up the wireless line, Santa. I can’t bear to think of your stopping this lovely custom of gift-giving. You have made so many children happy, and so many little believing hearts will miss you.
Santa Claus. It does seem sad, Mother Goose. But I shall never have the heart to set out again at Christmas time with the bells jingling, and the reindeer galloping and the sleigh flashing over the snow. I shall never again go crowding down the chimneys to cram stockings and load the children’s trees. All that pleasure is over forever, and I used to be so happy and so busy at Christmas!
Jack. But I should think you would be glad enough to give up that stunt of scrooging down chimneys. Suppose you’d get stuck some night!
Jennie. I’m sorry for the children who will expect you, Santa, but I am glad you will not have to work so hard any more. You have given your whole time to getting ready for Christmas, just to make other people happy.
Santa Claus. Oh, I’d gladly take all the danger and all the trouble of that Christmas journey and all the work of getting ready for it, if I were sure the children would care to have me come. But to be just an intruder, it is too much. I shall never go Christmasing again. Never, never, never!
Jennie. Oh, Santa, don’t be so sure of that. Let’s think it over. If you don’t go, what shall we do with all these toys and dolls in the attic and cellar and on the shelves here?
Santa Claus. Oh, have a rummage sale of them, Jennie.
Jack. But what use shall we have for the reindeer that I have been watching all year?
Santa Claus. Oh, give them to the Peary expedition when it gets to the North Pole. Really, I’d be glad to go just as I always have if I thought I was welcome; but you see how it is! I must not intrude where I’m not wanted.
Mother Goose. Santa, don’t decide yet. The Auld Lang Syne Club, as you know, is to meet here to-night. Let us put the case before those old friends and hear what they advise. What do you say to that?
Santa Claus. That is a good suggestion. These people of the Auld Lang Syne Club have all had experience in the world. They will be able to give me an expert opinion. I will do whatever they all seem to think best.