“Who ever heard of such a thing!” exclaimed Tess, with exasperation. “Do you s’pose Santa Claus would come to the side door and knock like the old clo’s man? You are the most ridiculous child, Dot Kenway,” concluded Tess, with her most grown-up air.
“Say,” said the quite unabashed Dot, reflectively, “do you know what Sammy Pinkney says?”
“Nothing very good, I am sure,” rejoined her sister, tartly, for just at this time Sammy Pinkney, almost their next-door neighbor, was very much in Tess Kenway’s bad books. “What can you expect of a boy who wants to be a pirate?”
“Well,” Dot proclaimed, “Sammy says he doesn’t believe there is such a person as Santa Claus.”
“Oh!” gasped Tess, startled by this heresy. Then, after reflection, she added: “Well, when you come to think of it, I don’t suppose there is any Santa for Sammy Pinkney.”
“Oh, Tess!” almost groaned the smaller girl.
“No, I don’t,” repeated Tess, with greater confidence. “Ruthie says if we don’t ‘really and truly’ believe in Santa, there isn’t any—for us! And he only comes to good children, anyway. How could you expect Sammy Pinkney to have a Santa Claus?”
“He says,” said Dot, eagerly, “that they are only make believe. Why, there is one in Blachstein & Mapes’, where Ruth trades; and another in Millikin’s; and there’s the Salvation Army Santa Clauses on the streets—”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Tess, tossing her head. “They are only representations of Santa Claus. They’re men dressed up. Why! little boys have Santa Claus suits to play in, just as they have Indian suits and cowboy suits.”
“But—but is there really and truly a Santa Claus?” questioned Dot, in an awed tone. “And does he keep a book with your name in it? And if you don’t get too many black marks through the year do you get presents? And if you do behave too badly will he leave a whip, or something nasty, in your stocking? Say, Tess, do you s’pose ’tis so?”