Then there was New Year’s day; but this was of little use. No one paid much attention to New Year’s, and generally the people worked that day the same as any other. Sometimes a belated Christmas present was left over to New Year’s day, and we always had a lingering expectation that we might get something then, although our hopes were not strong enough to warrant hanging up our stockings again. Washington’s Birthday was of no account whatever, and in those days Lincoln’s birthday and Labor-day had not yet been made holidays. We managed to get a little fun out of April Fool’s day, but this was not a real holiday, for school kept that day. But Christmas and Fourth of July were really made for boys. No one thought of working on these days, and even my father did not make us study then. Christmas was eagerly looked forward to while it was still a long way off, and a good many of the boys and girls believed in Santa Claus. All the children had heard the story, but my parents always told us it was not true, and we knew that Santa Claus was really our father and mother, or sometimes our uncles and aunts and grandparents, and people like that. Of course we hung up our stockings; all boys and girls did that. We went to bed early at night and got up early in the morning, and after comparing our presents at home we started out through the neighborhood to see what the other boys and girls had got. Then there was the Christmas-tree in the evening at the church. This was one occasion when there was no need to make us go to church; and we all got a little paper horn of candy, or a candy cane, or some such treasure, plucked fresh from the green tree among the little lighted wax candles stuck on every branch. All day long on Christmas we could slide down hill or skate, and sometimes we even had a new pair of skates or a sled for a present. Altogether Christmas was a happy day to us children. Of course there were some boys and girls who got very little at Christmas, and some who got nothing at all, and these must have grieved a great deal; and I wondered not a little why it was that things were so uneven and unfair. I know now that it was cruel that this knowledge could not have been kept from the little child until he had grown better able to know and understand. I also realize that even to my parents, who were not the very poorest, with so many children Christmas must have meant a serious burden both for what they gave and what they could not give, and that my mother must have denied herself many things that she should have had, and my father must have been compelled to forego many books that would have brought him comfort and consolation for his buried hopes.