Boy. Well, I should hope so. Say. I think it must be awful when you can’t run and holler and have fun—and—I guess some day I’ll be old like that. (Shrugs shoulders.) Gee! (Whistles softly.)
S. C. (rises, puts arm across Boy’s shoulder). Don’t you begin to see, my son, what I mean?
Boy (looks at him a minute). That little things strung along are better to make folks happy than a bigger thing for a gift at Christmas?
S. C. (slaps Boy on the back, grabs his hands and shakes them vigorously while he laughs. Boy rises.) That is it, to a tee. And do you begin to see any farther?
Boy (looks at S. C. in silence a minute). Perhaps you mean—do you mean—that to live that way—doing little things all the time—would be like Christmas? (Excitedly.) Jiminy Christmas! I see! I see! Why! I can keep Christmas going the whole year ’round that way!
S. C. That is the only Santa Claus worth while, and the only Christmas that can ever be real, for it is the Christmas spirit of love and kindness. (Boy whirls around, tosses up his cap. S. C. exit.)
Boy. Christmas and Santa Claus all in one. And every day in the year. Say—(turns suddenly and S. C. is gone). Why—where—(looks all around, then says slowly) well, I’ll be—isn’t that the queerest thing? (Puts hands in pockets.) But I see it just the same. (Musingly.) “The Christmas spirit of love and kindness.” “The only Santa Claus worth while.” Christmas every day in the year. (Shouts.) Hooray for Christmas. I’m going to tell mother. (Exit.)
A BOY’S CHRISTMAS.
For Three Boys of Ten or Twelve Years.
Two sit whittling, one working on the edge of a small wooden box, the other at the edges of a piece of wood about one inch thick by a foot square. The third has an oblong box partly together and is sawing the other piece or whittling the edges as they talk.