—Emily Dickinson.
THE EVE OF ST. NICHOLAS
It was the Eve of St. Nicholas. In Germany St. Nicholas’s Day comes on the sixth of December.
The children were in the nursery. On the hearth before the fireplace, were five little sugar shoes.
Thekla was filling her shoe with oats. Max put rye in his shoe. Hans put an apple in his, and Gretchen filled hers with lumps of sugar.
Betty, the poor little girl who sometimes helped in the kitchen, had only a bit of brown bread to put in her shoe.
The children were expecting St. Nicholas, who always comes on a white horse, and the things in the shoes were for the horse to eat.
As the clock struck six there was a loud knock at the door.