Mad River Village, N. H.
dere lady I doo want a dol for Christmas orful and mother says that Sante Claws is so busy in the city that she gueses he forgits the cuntry and for me to rite to the city lady who buys our turkey and ask her if she will pleas to ask Sante Claws if he could send a dol way up here in the cuntry to me. I will hang my stockin in the chimly and he cannot mistake the house becaus it is the only house that is black in the hole place. I have prayed to him lots of times to give me a dol but I gues he does not mind prayers much from a little girl so far away so will you pleas to ask him for me and oblige
Lucy Tillage.
P. S.—I hope the turkey will be good to eat, he is our very best one and I was sorry to have him killed, but I never had a dol.
Freddie listened, very much interested, sometimes helping to make out the letters while his mother read this remarkable letter. At its conclusion he dropped upon a chair in deep thought while in his imagination he saw a small black house surrounded by turkeys running wildly about while a little girl tried to catch the largest.
"Oh, mother," at length he sighed, "only think of a girl who never had a doll, and Beth has so many she don't know what to do with them all—shall you ask Santa Claus to send her one?"
"Well," said Mrs. Page, who also had been in deep thought, "do you think we better ask Santa Claus to send her one, or send her one ourselves? You and Beth might send her one for a Christmas present."
At once Freddie became fired with the desire to rush to a store, purchase a doll, and send it off to the little "black house." He seemed to think the house was little because the girl was little.
"No, no, Freddie, not so fast," said Mrs. Page. "I think we better wait till papa comes home and then we will ask his advice about it: first, if he knows of a town in New Hampshire of this name, and then if he thinks there may really be a little girl there who has such an odd name—I shouldn't be surprised if Papa could find out all about her."