“When you went Santa Clausing. Were you very long growing up?”
“’Twas a terrible long spell from the b’y’s ind, an’ a terrible short wan from the man’s,—all av which you’ll undershtand whin your hair is me own color. But ’twas over an’ done wid sooner or late, an’ there I was a man grown, though the heart av me has always been like a child’s because av the shtar—”
“And ’cause you belong to us.”
“’Tis a Solymon King av Sheba ye are, alanna. Well, I wint about me work, an’ I toiled up an’ down the wurrld; but the goin’ was joyful like, ’count av the fun I left in me wake, an’ iv’rywheres folks seemed powerful glad to see me.”
“I tried to keep awake last Christmas Eve,” she broke in shrilly, “after muvver hanged up my stocking, but the sandman would come. I’d been awake so long that when he crept in in his long gray cloak and with his bag on his back, I thought it was truly you, and my heart went thumpety thump. But he shook out the sand—sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle. ‘To-night of all nights you must sleep,’ he said; and I cried ‘No,’ and closed my eyes quick, so’s the sand couldn’t get in; and when I opened them the next minute it was quite morning—not yellow morning, you know, but just the baby light that comes first. Then very soft, so’s not to ’sturb muvver, I crawled out of bed, ’cause it made me incontented to lie still, and there was my stocking, full to the brim. I knew who’d filled it—” She stopped in her recital to smile at him and to pat his arm again. “Then I climbed up on a chair to take it down, and muvver laughed out loud. ‘Come back to bed, dear my little own,’ she said; ‘bring the stocking, and cuddle down warm and snug in blanket land.’ So I did; and she kissed me and I kissed her, and we both said ‘Merry Christmas’ to each uver. She went fast asleep again, but cert’inly you couldn’t expect a little girl could sleep. I felt all my presents; muvver says us little folks have eyes in our finger tips; and every minute the light grew brighter, and then—I really saw! Dear, dear Santa Claus, how could you ’member just what I wanted?” She rubbed her dimpling cheek ecstatically against the old sleeve. “But you didn’t put anything in muvver’s stocking,” she added softly.
He could not meet her reproachful glance.
“’Twas in a hurry I was,” he mumbled, “an’ me bastes shtampin’ widout in the cowld—”
“Oh, she didn’t know,” the child interrupted, “’cause when she was tight asleep I found her stocking, and I put that very rosy-cheeked apple you’d put in mine quite far, far down in hers, and some nuts, too. Cert’inly I couldn’t give her the little doll or the picture book, ’cause grown-ups don’t care for such things, really; but things to eat are different. You don’t mind, do you?”
He did not answer. For the moment it almost seemed as if he had not heard. His head was turned quite away.
“And she was s’prised—oh! you can’t think—and glad, too; so glad her eyes got all shiny and bright. But you can’t guess what happened next. She said, ‘Bless my Santa Claus.’ Wasn’t that funny? And then she kissed me most ’s if she ’spected.”