But my, how his heart jumped! For there, stretching out and looking very long, was Agnes fast asleep under the stove. He’d somehow forgotten about Agnes today, but he pulled her out and held her tight. How soft and warm and gentle she was!
Katie Duckworth was selling red mittens to a woman who said they were for Christmas, and she bought hair ribbons and handkerchiefs and a lot more presents before she left. Bunny Face saw that his aunt had been putting Christmas trimmings around the store while he was away. It looked quite fine. But it seemed queer, too, that she’d never talked about Christmas.
It seemed to Bunny Face that every single child had money to spend—for presents for other folks, mind you. This was all new to Bunny Face, for he had supposed that Santa Claus brought all the presents to everybody.
So Bunny Face concluded that he must have some Christmas secrets too. He’d give presents to people himself and have surprises and whisper like other folks. But how about the presents—what were they to be? That puzzled him. He sat by the stove and thought and thought. The next day he went for a walk. And after a while he found himself on the last street of the town just where the fields began. Ahead were the snowy woods and the frozen creek.
“Guess I’ll look for the pine trees,” said Bunny Face. This had been in his head all the time, and he only said that to surprise himself. If he could only really find Santa Claus he’d be all right. Then he’d explain that all he had was Agnes, and she wasn’t a Christmas present to be given away. And he knew that there was no other way out of it; he must find him. So that day he visited all the pine trees that were anywhere about. But not under one of them did he find a house, let alone Santa Claus’ house.
He knew that it must be getting late, for the sun was big and red and low down behind things. He was coming to the dump, which was mostly covered with snow, but the janitor’s shanty looked black and gloomy and only a little thin blue smoke was coming out of the chimney.
Suddenly a snowball whizzed past his head, and he saw the biggest dump child duck behind the corner; then snowballs began coming from every way, for the other dump children had come out. After a while they got tired and began to talk. Bunny Face started it by asking if they knew where Santa Claus’ house was. The real little dump children stared, but the big ones looked ugly.
“Santy Claus your granny!” they said. “Who put that in your head? Anyway if there was one, our old man would take his shotgun to him.”
As Bunny Face trudged on, it came to him that there would be other folks beside himself who would not get presents on Christmas. It made him feel a little better to count them.
“First,” he said, “there’s me; second, Agnes; next, the dump children. Let’s see—fourth, the janitor, of course. And fifth?” He might as well use up all his fingers. “Fifth—Madam Iceberg. Yes, that was a good one, for she wouldn’t get presents or give them.”