“Well, but I’d like the pink doll—”
“I’ll tell you what,” Santa Claus suggested. “You think things over. Maybe I’ll find that I can spare a pink doll for you, after all. But I want you to help me look out for some of the poor children this year and I want you to buy at least six presents out of your very own money. I want you to find some children that I ought to know about. I want you to help them for me. I’ll telephone you some addresses where there are little poor children and you must write these down and keep them and see that the boys and girls have proper Christmas presents. Will you do it?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Santa Claus, gladly,” returned Mary Louise. “I have nineteen dollars in my bank, I think. My daddy will help me.”
“No, I don’t want your daddy to help you. It’s to be your very own money!”
“All right. I’ll not ask him. Of course I want to help you, Mr. Santa Claus. I’ll love to do it.”
“Well, good-bye. If I can, I’ll come on Christmas eve to your tree. You do the very best you can, Mary Louise, and invite the poor children to share your tree!”
The receiver was hung up at the other end of the line and Mary Louise stood bewildered before the library table where she had just written her long Christmas list. She stood there thinking it all over from beginning to end. She, she had been asked to help Santa Claus! It was a great distinction! Poor overworked Santa Claus had appealed to her as a very rich little girl who already had everything—and she mightn’t get the pink doll at all!
Then Mary Louise could not keep the secret any longer and she dashed up the stairs to mother’s room. She wouldn’t let mother go out of the room till she had told her the whole story and mother had a very important engagement and was all ready to go out in the car. Together they emptied Mary Louise’s bank and counted out exactly nineteen dollars and fifty-three cents. Mary Louise wanted to take it and start right out in the car to buy the presents, but with difficulty mother explained that she had better wait till Santa Claus sent in the names and she had found out what the children wanted.
And Santa Claus did telephone the names. Mary Louise was at dinner and James answered the telephone. Mary Louise felt badly that she had not been called, but there was no need to take her away from dinner; James had the addresses on the telephone pad, mother said. She was sure they were right.
Mary Louise wished daddy were home. It seemed to her that he would never come. As she felt sure she would need to buy a tree for the Christmas party, she got nurse to take her to that shop in the afternoon. But it is wonderful to think that a Christmas tree costs money! Before this, Mary Louise had never considered the subject. It was a very tall tree and it was an expensive tree. The charge for it ate into the nineteen dollars and fifty-three cents considerably. The things that went onto the tree must all be new. Santa Claus must see that Mary Louise had bought new ones to please him. So she bought ever so many-stars and birds, and balls of red, yellow, blue, green, white, silver, gold. And there was need of tinsel. If Mary Louise had had her own way, she would have spent almost all the nineteen dollars and fifty-three cents just on that tree without thinking of the consequences. Why, if she had, how could she have bought any presents for the poor children?