“Fine!” I cried with well-simulated enthusiasm. “I'll get an automobile coat from Millington, and sleigh bells and a mask with a long white beard—”
“And a wig with long white hair,” Isobel added joyously.
“And while our guests are all at dinner,” I cried, “I will steal away from the table—”
“John!” exclaimed Isobel. “You can't be Santa Claus! Can't you see that it would never, never do for you to leave the table when your guests were all there? You cannot be Santa Claus, John!”
“Oh, Isobel!”
“No,” she said firmly, “you cannot be Santa Claus. Jimmy Dunn must be Santa Claus!”
We had Jimmy Dunn out the next Sunday and broke it to him as gently as we could, and explained what a lot of fun it would be for him, and how I envied him the chance. For some reason he did not become wildly enthusiastic. Instead he kneeled down, as I had done, and put his head into the fireplace, in his usual slow-going manner, and looked up to where the small oblong of blue sky glowed far, far above him.
When he withdrew his head, he began some maundering talk about, an uncle of his in Baltimore who was far from well, and who was likely to be extremely dead or sick or married about Christmas time, but I had had too much experience with such excuses to pay any attention to him. Isobel and I gathered about him and talked as fast as we could, with merry little laughs, and presently Jimmy seemed more resigned, and said he supposed if he had to be Santa Claus there was no way out of it if he wanted t o keep our friendship. So when he suggested getting an automobile coat to wear, we hailed it as a splendidly original idea, and patted him on the back, and he went away in a rather good humour, particularly when we told him he need not come all the way down from the top of the chimney, but could get into the chimney from the room above the parlour. I told him it would be no trouble at all to take out the iron back of the fireplace, for it was almost falling out, and that we would have a ladder in the chimney for him to come down.
It was Mrs. Rolfs who changed our plans.
As soon as she heard we were going to have a Santa Claus, she brought over a magazine and showed Isobel an article that said Santa Claus was lacking in originality, and that it was much better to have two little girls dressed as snow fairies distribute the presents from the tree, and Mrs. Rolfs said she was willing to lend us her two daughters, if we insisted. So we had to insist.