“I declare,” said Mama, “I was looking exactly for those stockings last night. They were the ones we were going to put up for Buddy, but we could not find them.”
Buddy sucked his thumb in silence.
“Santy Claus, he come—come on the big Kismas Tree,” explained Buddy. “Brung me candy and nuts and horrsie-n-n-n-”
“Yes,” explained Uncle John, “he was talking yesterday about that tree. I told him Santa might come in an airplane. Buddy seemed sure he would come and would crawl down by that big pine. Guess somebody did come, too—even just like they come by airplane,” added Uncle John.
Mama put her hand on Daddy’s shoulder. Buddy only looked wise.
Three Pines
Ginkle had found his way once more out upon the front veranda. Ginkle, you understand, was the name of a tousle headed boy just out of bed. The morning sun shone brightly across the lake. The air was still fresh with the early dew. Grandfather sat on the lower step, smoking his after-breakfast pipe. The early day was so clear and still, and the lake so quiet under the hills, covered with pine forest and second growth, brush and grass, that the pipe he smoked might well have been called the pipe of peace. This did not mean that there were any Indians about. Ginkle came down the steps and found his way out to the tall trees which crowned the curved edge of the hill, just as it began to slope gently toward the water’s edge. The bank itself was rather sharp and high, so that the little boy climbed down a series of steps, and so reached the shore, and went upon the dock or boat-landing to sit down and look about him. It is hard telling what a little boy of five will think about when he first gets out of bed in the morning, and begins the new day.
“Ginkle! Where’s Ginkle!” This is what they had come to call him. His right name was Sylvester.
“Ginkle—come to breakfast.”