“I have a lot of fur robes,” said Uncle Tom. “And we are going to stop in at The Sign of the Lion on our way home, and get some hot milk for him, and anything else he wants.”
In a very short time little Tommy was riding beside his uncle Tom. He was enveloped in furs. He had a hot brick at his feet. He was happy again, but his rapt ecstasy of the night before, which even without the after-shock of disillusionment had been a strain, had settled down into a deep peace of realization.
Nancy and Sarah were in their mother’s room. They had told her. Nancy was sobbing and Sarah looked sober. Reuben stood in the doorway, looking soberer still.
“I wish he would tell,” sobbed Nancy.
“He never will, and we can’t any of us have the comfort of thinking he is anywhere near as mean as the rest of us,” said Reuben gloomily.
“Don’t you make too much of it, Reuben,” said Grandmother. “You didn’t any of you mean any harm. You couldn’t know that what seemed funny to you—and it was sort of funny—would be taken in dead earnest by a child like that. I could have told you.”
After that Christmas, Tommy lived much of the time in Boston with his uncle Tom and his aunt Annie. He spent the summers with his aunts and uncle on the farm. He seemed as fond of them as ever. Nobody mentioned the stocking.
When Tommy and Cora were grown up they fell in love and were married, and lived in Boston. On Christmas Day Cora asked Tommy a question. “Tommy dear, what was in that stocking you were so mysterious about when you were a little boy?” said she. “Tell me now, please.”
Tommy laughed, but he shook his head. “Just something useful, dear,” said he. The man was faithful to his code of honor of childhood.
Cora, however, remained curious. The next summer when she and Tommy were staying at the farm, she asked Sarah to tell her what had been in the stocking.