"I know what you are thinking," said Uncle Sam, who noticed the smile. "You are thinking that the children could whisper together during the long sermon. That is a great mistake, Joe. There was always a man in the church who looked out for such things. He stood where he could see everything that was going on. He had a long stick with a squirrel tail on one end and a hard knob on the other.
"If he saw one of the older people nodding, softly and quickly the 'tithing man', as he was called, would be at the side of the erring one. Then the furry end of the stick would dance over the sleepy one's face and the eyes would open with a start.
"But if a child began to whisper, he was not treated so gently. The hard knob at the other end of the stick would suddenly come down on his head and make it ache in a very unpleasant way.
"The Pilgrims had no clocks. They used hour-glasses instead.
"The tithing-man watched the hour-glass on the pulpit. The moment the last grain of sand had fallen through, he walked softly up the aisle and tipped the glass over.
"The hours in church must have passed very slowly for the children. The sermon was very, very long, and they could understand little of what the minister said.
"The poor children had no Santa Claus. Worse even than that, they had no Christmas! Thanksgiving was the only great holiday of the year."
"No Christmas!" cried Joe and Lucy together.
"Why, Uncle Sam," Joe went on, "Christmas is the Christ Day. You know what I mean. And the Pilgrims thought so much of the Bible and going to church, and all that! Why, I don't understand."
"They thought it was wrong to make a pleasure of religious things," replied Uncle Sam. "It was many, many years before the fashion of the Dutch people spread over America. It is a grand fashion, too. Well, well, we cannot help it if the Pilgrims didn't celebrate Christmas, so we will turn from that to the brave man whom the children admired so much.