“That’s so, ma handsome.” Mrs. Tregennis knitted her brow in perplexed thought.
“’ll tell you what, ma lovely,” she said after a few moments’ pause. “We’ll hang a big stocking of your Daddy’s on the rail instead.”
This suggestion brought no comfort to Tommy.
“Then he’ll go ’n think as how ’tis Daddy’s stockin’,” he objected; “’n he’ll be puttin’ in pipes, ’n baccy, ’n things; ’n I don’t want they—leastways, not yet,” he added as an afterthought. “I wants a drum.”
Mammy understood the difficulty. “Well,” she said, after another and a longer pause, “we’ll hang up your Daddy’s stockin’, but we’ll write on a bit of paper ’Little Tommy Tregennis’, ’n pin it on the leg, ’n the old gentleman’ll never know no better.”
Tommy was pleased with this plan. Before going to sleep, however, he stipulated that Daddy’s stocking should be well darned before it was hung up, so that no little gift could escape either by way of the heel or the toe.
Three days before Christmas the children were discussing Santa Claus at school.
Jonathan Hex, who was bigger than the rest, scoffed openly: “There warn’t no Santy Claus,” he said, “it was just fathers and mothers it was, as came in when you were asleep ’n rammed the things in the stockin’ ’n crep’ out again on tippety toes.”
The other children were indignant at such unbelief, and Jonathan was obliged to retract, otherwise he would have been excluded from the circle gathered round the fire.
Jimmy Prynne had a grievance against the size of chimneys in Draeth. Jimmy was six, and easily remembered previous Christmases. Last year, for instance, he found only a tiny box of chocolates in his stocking, and his mother had read him a letter that came along with it; in fact he had the letter at home now: