Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories, American; Fantasy literature; Short stories, American
So he arranged the toys quietly under the stockings that hung at the
foot of the little white beds, stuffing the stockings themselves with
candies and apples and raisins and other delicious things to eat, and
then sat down by the fire-place to await the return of Santa Claus and
Santa's brother Marmy. As he sat there he looked around the dimly
lighted room, and saw the poor thin white faces of the little sleeping
orphans, and his heart stirred with pity for their sad condition. Then
he looked at the bag again, and saw the extra dozen toys that were so
pleasing to him, and he wondered if it would make the orphans happier
next morning if they should wake and find them there, too. At first he
wasn't sure but that the orphans had enough; and then he thought of his
own hamper full of dolls, and dogs, and tin soldiers, and cars, and
blocks, at home, and he tried to imagine how much fun he could get out
of a single toy, and he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that he
could get much.
"One toy is great fun for an hour," he said to himself, "but for a year,
dear me! I guess I won't keep them, after all. I'll just put them in the
middle of the room, so that they'll find them in the morning, and maybe
perhaps---- Hello!" he added, as he took the extra toys out of the bag;
"they were for me, after all. They've got my name on 'em. Oh, dear!
isn't it love---- I don't know, though. Seems to me I'd better leave
them here, even if they are for me. I can get along without them because
I have a papa to play with, and he's more fun than any toy I ever had;
and mamma's better'n any doll baby or choo-choo car I ever saw. Yes, I
will leave them."
And the little fellow was true to his purpose. He emptied the bag to the
very last toy, and then, hearing the tinkling bells of Santa's sleigh on
the roof again, he ran to the chimney, and was hauled up by his two new
friends to the roof.
"Why, you've left everything except the bag!" cried Marmy, as Jimmieboy
climbed into the sleigh.
"Yes," said Jimmieboy, with a little sigh; "everything."
"But the bag had all your things in it, and we haven't a toy or a
sugar-plum left for you," said Santa.
"Never mind," said Jimmieboy. "I don't care much. I've had this ride
with you, and--al--together I'm--pret--ty well--satis--fi----"
Here the little assistant to the Claus brothers, lulled by the jingling
of the bells, fell asleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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