“Dear Jimmy Prynne (it ran)
“This is only a littel preasant because there ant no room in your chimeney if you want something biger you must have your chimeney widenered before next year.
“From
“Santy Claus.”
David Williams was also six. He was Jimmy Prynne’s cousin and he, too, remembered last Christmas. He had a note from Santy in his stockin’, too, and nothin’ else. Santy had wrote as he couldn’t possibly get down the chimberley because it was such a tight squeeze. He cried, he remembered, and he was cold because they had no fire. His Mammy had said she expected Santy would be thinner next time, and slip down right enough. However they’d gone into a new house now, and the hole was wider for he’d poked up to see.
Tommy went home that evening greatly disturbed. There were so many things he wanted, and he felt very doubtful indeed about their chimney for the bedroom grate was small.
That night when Mrs. Tregennis kissed him and said “Good-night and bless ee” to her surprise Tommy asked for the candle to be left “jus’ a minute or two, Mammy!” The voice was so pleading that she gave way.
Tommy listened to her footstep on the stair and for once was quite glad when he heard her reach the bottom, pass into the kitchen and close the door.
Very softly he then crept out of bed and tiptoed across the room.
Round the fireplace was a high old-fashioned fender. Tommy stretched over this and tried to thrust one arm up the chimney. It seemed to be rather wide but his arm was short, and did not reach very far.
In the corner was Mammy’s best umbrella. Seizing this he returned to the grate and poked the umbrella upwards. Almost at once it came in contact with something soft. Tommy was distinctly alarmed. Could it be some robber-man waiting there quietly, oh, so quietly, until he was asleep; waiting to slip down the chimney quite noiselessly and carry him silently off? He nearly screamed for Mammy in his fright.
After Christmas Tommy would be six, and at six a boy must be brave like David ’n the giant. So Tommy summoned all his courage and again thrust the umbrella upwards. The contact this time partially displaced the obstruction in the chimney, and a piece of sacking slipped into view. Then, indeed, Tommy’s heart stood still. He realized at once what had happened. Santy’s rounds this year were evidently unusually heavy, so he was secretly putting sacks of toys in chimneys beforehand, so that when Christmas Eve came his work would be partly done.
Tommy took hold of the free end of the sacking and pulled gently, but the bag was wedged too firmly to move. He then stepped inside the fender, and this time using both hands he really put his back into the work. The third tug released the sack which burst open as it fell and bits of screwed-up paper were littered in all directions.