Chapter XII: Santa Claus Hangs Up His Stocking

1

Pudding Lane was creaking and cracking with snow. Snow, snow, snow! It ground under the heel of Old Mother Hubbard as she went to the butcher’s to buy an especially juicy bone for the poor dog; it crunched under the tread of Mr. Horner as he walked to the baker’s to order Jack’s Christmas pie; it squeaked under the tread of the Town Crier as he trudged up and down Pudding Lane, calling, “Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!”

For Christmas was coming, and although such an announcement was not exactly news to the people of Pudding Lane, still it was pleasant just to hear the Town Crier say it. There’s something about the very word “Christmas” that makes you feel happy and jolly.

And so, since Christmas was so close, everybody in Pudding Lane was as busy as busy could be. The candlestick-maker sat day and night working his copper and brass. The Clauses were up to their eyes in pies and cakes. Even the children had no time for play, but spent all their spare moments gathering holly and mistletoe to deck the windows and fireplaces with. And as for little Santa Claus, nobody saw him these days, for Christmas was his busy season, and many weeks before he had retired to the woodshed and emerged now only for meals and bed.

But this Christmas there was something else going on in Pudding Lane, something exciting and mysterious and very important. It was a tremendous secret. And it was this: the people of Pudding Lane were going to surprise Santa Claus himself; they were going to hang up his stocking and put gifts in it, just as if he were not Santa Claus at all, but a regular little boy like all the others.

It was strange that nobody had ever thought of this before, for Santa Claus was just a regular little boy, after all, and surely all little boys, even Santa Claus, should have a Christmas stocking. But somehow nobody had thought of it, and although Santa Claus, all these years, had been giving Christmas gifts to everybody else, he never had got one himself. He had never hung up his stocking; he had never been surprised on Christmas morning; he had never had any Christmas fun except the fun of surprising other people. The funny part of it was, too, that he had never even thought of such a thing.

But this year, although Santa Claus had not thought of such a thing, the rest of Pudding Lane had, and so the secret had been hatched, and the plans were going merrily on, the plans for surprising Santa Claus on Christmas morning.

It was a good thing that Santa Claus was so occupied, or he surely would have guessed that something unusual was going on. He would have guessed it from the way Simple Simon sniggered every time he came near Santa, or by the way Judy kept asking him over and over what he wanted for Christmas, or by the way everybody nudged everybody else whenever he appeared in public. But luckily for them, he paid no attention to all these hints, being far too engrossed in his own Christmas affairs to notice anything at all.

Indeed, he was so abstracted as to call forth a comment from that plain-spoken woman, his mother.

“Dear me, Santa Claus,” she said one day at dinner, as he sat staring at the wall, “I really think that if a bear should walk in on you, you’d sit there staring just the same,--or indeed, if fifty bears should walk in on you.”

This flight of imagination brought Santa to.

“I was thinking about that little red wagon,” he explained. “Simple Simon wants a little red wagon for Christmas, you see, and it seems like such a queer gift for him.”

“Queer gifts to queer people,” replied Mrs. Claus. “But eat your dinner now, Santa Claus. I don’t intend to cook my life away and have my children starve to death.”

There was a reason why Mrs. Claus wanted Santa Claus to hurry and finish his dinner. The reason was that all the grown-ups of Pudding Lane were coming to the Clauses’ that evening to discuss the final plans for Santa Claus’s surprise. Consequently, Mrs. Claus had a great deal of work to do, and she wanted Santa Claus well out of the way. It was with a great sigh of relief, therefore, that she saw Santa finish his dinner and depart again for the woodshed.

“Well,” said she to Mr. Claus and the twins, “he like to never went!”

“Yes, he did,” replied the baker, meaning, I suppose, that Santa Claus did like to never went, whatever that meant. “Do you think, Nellie, that he guesses the least tiny bit that we’re planning this Christmas surprise?”

“No, he doesn’t guess a thing,” replied Mrs. Claus. “He’s thinking only of little red wagons.”

“Won’t he be surprised, though?” Mr. Claus grinned at the prospect.

“No little boy was ever so surprised in the whole world as Santa Claus will be this Christmas morning,” said Mrs. Claus with conviction. “But look here, baker, this is no time to sit idly in the kitchen. What about Jack Horner’s pie, sir? And the animal crackers. Mr. Claus, I am surprised that you would neglect the animal crackers like this!”

Whereupon, Mr. Claus, much ashamed of himself, departed for the bakeshop and Mrs. Claus began to tear things up in the front parlor for the company that was coming that night.

Santa Claus and the twins and the baby were all in bed and sound asleep that night when Mrs. Claus, attired in her best, and Mr. Claus, attired in his best, sat awaiting their guests. But in spite of their fine clothes, and in spite of the fact that the Clauses’ front parlor was brilliantly lighted with as many as eight or ten candles, in spite of the fact that this was perhaps the most important event that ever was to take place in the humble home of the Clauses, the host and hostess at that moment were a far from lively couple.

For as Mrs. Claus sat there stiffly, she kept opening and closing her mouth in such tremendous yawns that it was a wonder she didn’t swallow herself. And as Mr. Claus stood at attention by the door, he dozed and came to with such lurches and pitches that it seemed as if he must fall down on the floor just any moment, plunged into the deepest of slumbers. Indeed, he would have, I do believe, if Mrs. Claus, between yawns, hadn’t called out: “Look out there, Mr. Claus! Look out!” At which he then would look out from his heavy, half-shut eyes and stop lurching for the briefest while.

The truth was that the Clauses were already so terribly, fearfully, awfully sleepy that it didn’t seem at all possible that they would get through the evening, inasmuch as the evening hadn’t even started yet. Night life in Pudding Lane was not what it might have been and late hours were extremely rare.

Well, there they were, Mrs. Claus one great enormous yawn, and Mr. Claus reeling like a sleepy wooden soldier, when thumpety, thump, came a noise down Pudding Lane. Mrs. Claus heard the thumpety-thump first and sat up straighter than ever.

“Look out there, Mr. Claus, look out!” she warned him, for Mr. Claus by that time was swaying in a most terrifying fashion. Mr. Claus opened his eyes.

“They’re coming!” she told him.

“Who’s coming?” asked Mr. Claus stupidly. He _was_ far gone, wasn’t he?

“They!” cried Mrs. Claus, exasperated. “The company!”

Just at that minute there came a great bang at the door. Mr. Claus jumped a foot high.

“Who in the world can that be?” he cried. “Who are you?” he demanded fiercely. “Who are you?”

“Mr. Claus,” screamed his wife frantically, “will you open that door or won’t you? It’s the company come.”

But Mr. Claus, determined to be a hero at whatever cost, continued to grow more and more heroic, as the banging at the door went on, and striking a warlike pose he thundered, “Who are you, I say, coming to disturb good honest people at such an hour of the night?”

“Oh!” yelled poor Mrs. Claus at this. “What a man!” She flew from the sofa and flung open the door for the crowd of people that was waiting.

Mrs. Grundy, as usual, came strutting in first, ahead even of Old King Cole, which was not exactly according to court procedure.

“Well, I must say, baker!” she said haughtily, though what she thought she must say, she didn’t say, somehow.

“What’s this, Claus?” asked the butcher jovially. “Did you think we were come to steal the silver?”

The Queen of Hearts gave Mr. Claus a playful dig with her elbow.

“Such a man as you are, baker,” she tittered, “to joke with us like that.”

But Mr. Claus, still blinking, did not in the least know what it was all about, and as he looked from one to the other of that vast company of his neighbors and friends, he showed such complete bewilderment and perplexity that they all burst out laughing. All but Mrs. Claus, that is. If looks could kill, Mr. Claus would have been dead on the spot. For Mrs. Claus was a hospitable soul and to have her husband treat company that way was more than she could bear.

It was the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe who finally took pity on him, as the rest of the company just stood there and laughed at his funny puzzled countenance.

“Wake up, Mr. Claus,” she said.

“Wake up and stay awake!” added Mrs. Claus, as the Old Woman continued, “Wake up! We’ve come to talk about the Christmas surprise for Santa Claus. Don’t you remember?”

Then suddenly Mr. Claus did remember, and, oh, how chagrined he was then, how extravagantly he apologized for his rudeness to the company, and how he upbraided himself for being such a dunderhead, as he expressed it.

It was very late in the evening when Old King Cole, rising heavily to his feet, called for a summing-up of the evening’s business.

“Mr. Horner,” said he to Jack Horner’s father, “will you please to summarize the conclusions we have reached this night in regard to Santa Claus’s Christmas surprise?”

Mr. Horner, jumping up, bowed low to the King, cleared his throat, looked uncertainly around him, opened his mouth and began to speak.

“I--sir--I suggest--”

“Oh, no,” Old King Cole waved his hand. “No more suggestions, please. Just summarize, if you will, Mr. Horner, just summarize.”

Mr. Horner tried again.

“Your Majesty, I would remark--”

“Mr. Horner, if you please,” interrupted the merry old soul testily, “I don’t want you to remark. All that I ask of you is that you summarize. Surely a King may ask such a small favor of a loyal subject, Mr. Horner.”

“Your Majesty,” spoke Mr. Horner with dignity, “I’m afraid I must refuse to--to--sum--well, to do as you require.”

With that, Mr. Horner sat down, his face red and his hands shaking. For the trouble with Mr. Horner was that he didn’t know what “summarize” meant, but rather than admit it, he would have gone into a deep dungeon and stayed there the rest of his life, so proud a man was Mr. Horner.

When Mr. Horner refused the King and sat down as he did, everybody, including Mr. Horner himself, expected something calamitous to happen, for that’s what it means to be a King, to have people do as you tell them. They all shivered as they sat there. What would the King say to the disobedient Mr. Horner and what would he do? Only Mrs. Horner did not shiver, for she was too frightened even to shiver, but sat stone-still in her rocking chair, like a rigid, glass-eyed doll.

But what was everybody’s astonishment when Old King Cole began to chuckle, then laugh out loud, and finally so jolly did he become that he rocked and gasped and held his stomach in a perfect storm of merriment. Indeed, it began to look as if he would never recover. He did recover, however, due to the presence of mind of Mrs. Grundy, who fetched a pitcher of water, saying, as she did so, and very truly too, that there’s nothing like water to bring a man to his senses.

“Well, Mr. Horner,” said the King, as he wiped his eyes of their tears of laughter and his face of the deluge of water, “I admire your spirit, sir. But come now, it is growing late. Who _will_ summarize for me?”

Jack Spratt jumped up eagerly. He knew what “summarize” meant and was bursting to show off his knowledge. And here is the speech he made. You will agree, I am sure, that Jack Spratt was a masterly hand at speeches.

“Your Majesty, Your Gracious Beauty,” (this last was meant for the Queen of Hearts who now bowed her head in ill-concealed delight at such praise) “ladies, one and all, and gentlemen:

“We have decided here to-night on these things, namely, and to wit:

“That Santa Claus, being quite the kindest, most generous, most wonderful little boy in Pudding Lane” (you should have seen Mrs. Claus’s face at that) “in fact, the kindest, most generous, most wonderful little boy in the wide world” (look out, Mrs. Claus, you almost fell off your chair then), “that Santa Claus, therefore, shall be surprised on Christmas morning as he always surprises other children;

“We have decided further, sir, that all the children shall make with their own hands gifts for Santa Claus and that Mother Goose shall buy gifts for us in Banbury Cross, as well;

“That then these gifts shall be stored here in Mrs. Claus’s cupboard, shall be locked with a strong key and stay locked until Christmas Eve when, you, Your Majesty, are to get these things, go up to the roof, slide down the chimney, and fill little Santa’s stocking full as it will hold, yes, even fuller, for it is well known, comrades, that a Christmas stocking isn’t much of a stocking if it doesn’t overflow with gifts.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Old King Cole, as Jack Spratt, with one final flourish of a bow, took his seat again, flushed with success.

“Hurrah!” they all cried, “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Long live Jack Spratt!”

But they had cried hurrah one time too many. For upon that last resounding cry, Santa Claus, in his little bed upstairs, had awakened. He did not know what this noise was, having no idea that Mr. and Mrs. Claus were entertaining company that night. And so, since he did not know what the sound was, he thought he would get up and find out. Which he did. He fumbled around in the dark for his slippers, groped for his dressing gown, and upon finding these, hurried into them and ran down the back stairs.

The noise had subsided now, however, and as Santa Claus tiptoed in toward the front parlor, he heard only the low murmur of voices. This surely was a strange thing, thought Santa Claus to himself--people to be talking in the Clauses’ front parlor in the middle of the night. He crept to the parlor door and listened. It sounded as if all Pudding Lane were there, he thought. Buzz, buzz, hum, hum, whisper, whisper! He could hear the deep voice of Old King Cole, rumbling. He could hear Mrs. Dumpty’s high little chirp. He could hear the cackle of the old candlestick-maker. Buzz, buzz, hum, hum, whisper, whisper!

And what do you think they were talking about? Were they still discussing the Christmas surprise? And would Santa Claus hear it all now? Oh, what a disaster that would be. Let us put our ears close to the door, as Santa was already doing. Hark! The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe is talking.

“Well,” she was saying, “I wish I were a child. I’d love to hang my stocking up Christmas Eve, I would.” Whew, that was a narrow squeak, all right. They might still have been talking about the surprise.

“You know,” said Mrs. Spratt, “I’ve often wished that myself. That’s the worst thing about growing up, that you don’t hang up your stocking on Christmas.”

“But we could,” exclaimed Mrs. Peter, Peter Pumpkin-Eater, “we could hang up our stockings on Christmas Eve if we wanted to.”

“Who’d fill ’em?” asked the candlestick-maker bluntly.

“Yes, who’d fill ’em?” demanded every one else. “There isn’t much use of hanging up your stocking, Mrs. Peter, if nobody fills it.”

Mrs. Peter, Peter looked a bit crestfallen. “No, I suppose there isn’t,” she answered. “Still, I think we might hang them up and just see whether they got filled or not.”

“Now, Mrs. Peter, Peter Pumpkin-Eater,” said Mr. Horner, “you surely don’t think that that little boy, Santa Claus, would fill our stockings if we hung them up, do you? Why, Santa’s got his hands full already, attending to the children’s stockings.”

“No, I’m not so foolish as to think that, Mr. Horner,” said Mrs. Peter, Peter, “but some one else might.”

“Who might?” they all asked her. “Whoever would fill our stockings, Mrs. Peter?”

“Mother Goose might or a fairy might,” burst out the little lady triumphantly.

And the grown-ups had to admit to themselves that in truth Mother Goose or a fairy _might_ fill their stockings on Christmas Eve. Mother Goose had been known to do stranger things than that in her day, and as for the fairies, well, nobody can ever tell what they’re going to do.

Supposing, then, that they all should hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve! Supposing somebody did fill them with the gifts of their hearts’ desire! Mrs. Dumpty’s heart fluttered wildly at the thought; the Old Woman had a new strange light in her eyes; and the candlestick-maker fidgeted excitedly in his chair. Foolish grown-ups, to sit there dreaming of impossible things. Or perhaps they were wise. Anyway, they were certainly happy, as they all forgot everything for a moment and pretended that it was Christmas Eve and that they were young again.

Old King Cole finally broke the silence.

“Old Woman,” he said gently, “what would you rather have than anything else in the world? What would you want in your Christmas stocking if you did hang it up, Old Woman?”

The Old Woman began to murmur as if to herself, “Once upon a time when I was a girl, there was a ball given in Banbury Cross, and I was invited. The Prince was to be there, Prince Charming himself, you know, and I had a red dress for it, and a pair of gold slippers. Then I got the measles and I couldn’t go. I’ve never been the same since.”

“Why, Old Woman,” said the King, “you mean to say you want a ball in your Christmas stocking?”

“That’s the only thing I do want,” replied the Old Woman. “Only it would have to be the same ball, you know. No other ball would do at all.”

“Of course not,” King Cole said gravely, “no other ball would ever do. I don’t care much for balls, Old Woman, but I can understand that perfectly.” He sighed heavily. It was sad to hear the Old Woman mourning for that lost joy of her youth, and sadder still, he thought to himself, that things like balls could never, never, never be put into old women’s Christmas stockings. He turned then to Mrs. Dumpty.

“And do you want a ball too, Mrs. Dumpty?”

Mrs. Dumpty looked up at His Majesty timidly.

“No, sir,” she replied, and then she hesitated.

“Well--?” said Old King Cole encouragingly.

“I’m afraid, sir, that you’ll think I’m rather a foolish woman to want what I want,” she told him.

“People aren’t foolish to want things, no matter what they want,” King Cole pronounced sagely. “What do you want in the whole world, Mrs. Dumpty?”

“Well, sir,” began Mrs. Dumpty, “I want--I want--well, I want a lace petticoat, King Cole, a lace petticoat with a thousand ruffles!”

“A thousand ruffles!” repeated King Cole, astonished. “Why, Mrs. Dumpty, I don’t believe there ever was a petticoat with a thousand lace ruffles on it!”

“Maybe there wasn’t, and maybe there isn’t,” answered Mrs. Dumpty doggedly, “but that’s what I want, King Cole. I never had enough ruffles in my whole life, sir. And somehow, there’s nothing quite like ruffles to make a woman happy.”

The women all murmured sympathetically at this, as King Cole nodded next to Old Mother Hubbard.

“Ruffles for you too, Mother Hubbard?” he asked. Women were queer, he was thinking to himself. What on earth did they want of ruffles?

“Ruffles are all very well,” responded Mother Hubbard, “but I know something better even than ruffles, sir.”

“And that is--” King Cole smiled reassuringly at her.

“And that is a--” Old Mother threw a reckless glance around the room, “that is a--hurdy-gurdy!”

A hurdy-gurdy! No wonder they all gasped. Who but Mother Hubbard would ever have thought of a hurdy-gurdy?

“Yes,” she repeated defiantly, “a hurdy-gurdy! You all may think it’s funny to live alone with a dog, with a bare cupboard yawning in your face, but I tell you it’s not a bit funny. No, not funny at all.” Poor Mother Hubbard’s voice choked a bit, but she swallowed hard and went on, “And if I had a hurdy-gurdy--oh, I’ve always longed for music, King Cole, but now more than ever. If I had a hurdy-gurdy--”

“If you had a hurdy-gurdy,” supplied Old King Cole eagerly, “you could play it--”

“And you could sing--” the Old Woman put in.

“And you could dance,” cried Mrs. Flinders.

“And the dog could dance too,” finished up Mrs. Claus.

“And see how jolly we’d all be,” said Mother Hubbard. “Now a hurdy-gurdy would be a good thing for me, wouldn’t it?”

So there they sat, those grown-ups, talking about what they wanted in their Christmas stockings just as Jack and Jill, just as Mistress Mary, just as Polly Flinders, and Simple Simon, and Little Boy Blue talked about what they wanted in their Christmas stockings every single year.

And these grown-ups did want the strangest things. The candlestick-maker, who was the dirtiest and shabbiest old man in Pudding Lane, confessed that he wanted a swallow-tail coat, “with pearl buttons on it,” he added, “and a silk hankersniff in the top pocket.” The candlestick-maker always said “hankersniff” for “handkerchief” and if you corrected him, he would declare emphatically that of course it was sniff--what else was a hanker for?--which seemed to settle the matter.

Mr. Flinders, that citified gentleman who had come to Pudding Lane from London, stated that he desired pigs. For in pigs, said he, he thought a man might find a deal of comfort and a relief from the complexities of this world. The butcher was frank to say that he wanted nothing in this world but a wife. And Old Cross-Patch, who hadn’t said a word all the evening, startled the company by grunting suddenly that she would like to have a baby.

What amazing things! A ball, a thousand ruffles, a hurdy-gurdy, a swallow-tailed coat, pigs, a wife, a baby! As Santa Claus stood there listening behind the door, he thought to himself that no little boy in the world had ever faced such a problem as this was. For, of course, if they wanted these things, it was Santa Claus’s duty to provide them, he thought. That was the kind of boy he was, you know. If anybody in the world wanted anything, he considered it his business to see that it was forthcoming.

Moreover, these grown-ups, Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater, Mrs. Dumpty, the Old Woman, the candlestick-maker, Mr. Flinders, the butcher, Cross-Patch and all the others, had reached such a pitch now that they were actually going to hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve. They were going to do this just for fun, as they said, and yet Santa Claus could tell by the wistful tone of their voices, by the yearning hope in their voices, that they did halfway expect that somebody or other would, after all, make their Christmas wishes come true.

No wonder he didn’t sleep a wink that night, or at least many winks. For this was the greatest dilemma any boy ever was in. Here were people wanting things. Here were people about to hang up their Christmas stockings. And here was he, Santa Claus, without one thing to put in those stockings.

How could _he_ get a swallow-tail coat with pearl buttons and a silk hankersniff in the top pocket? How could he manage a ball for the Old Woman? And how on earth could anybody, even Mother Goose or a fairy, produce a wife for the butcher? Or a baby for Cross-Patch? Santa Claus’s heart was very heavy as he thought of these things and he almost wished, although not quite, of course, that he had never gone into the Christmas business.

But little did Pudding Lane guess what was going on in Santa Claus’s mind these days. They were all too busy attending to his surprise.

The children made presents for Santa Claus. Judy was knitting, with many grunts and sighs, a pair of red mittens, and although the poor little girl had made a mistake and knitted both mittens for the left hand, still they were extremely handsome mittens, red as a holly berry and warm as fur. Humpty-Dumpty carved a whistle for Santa, one that blew so shrill and loud that it sounded like the wind itself whistling around the corner. Jack and Jill had planted an orange seed in a geranium pot and now, bless you, there was growing up in that pot a lovely little orange tree, such as nobody in Pudding Lane had ever seen before. In fact, when they told Mrs. Claus about it, she didn’t believe it.

“Has it got oranges on it?” she wanted to know.

“No,” admitted Jill.

“Has it got orange blossoms on it?”

“No, ma’am,” Jill was constrained to admit. “No blossoms, Mrs. Claus.”

“Well, then,” said that lady, “how do you know it’s an orange tree?”

“Because it grew from an orange seed,” explained Jill; “nothing would grow from an orange seed but an orange tree, would it, Mrs. Claus?”

“That I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Claus, “but it looks to me as though an orange tree ought to have oranges on it.”

It was about this time that Mother Goose sent a big box of gifts from Banbury Cross for Santa Claus’s stocking. It was about this time, too, that Jack-of-All-Trades made a fine new key for Mrs. Claus’s cupboard, so that when the gifts were stored there they might be safely locked up against Santa Claus’s discovery.

But still Santa Claus himself was deeply troubled. He hammered and pounded as usual in the old woodshed, making the children’s gifts, but still he wondered and pondered about the grown-ups’ Christmas, and still he could see no way out of this overwhelming difficulty. The days flew by, Christmas was coming closer and closer, and he had done nothing toward getting the ruffled petticoat, the swallow-tail coat, the wife and the baby and all the other things.

And then, unannounced, Piggy-Peddler dropped in one day and something happened.

Of all the children in Pudding Lane, Santa Claus was Piggy-Peddler’s favorite, and so it was quite natural that Piggy-Peddler should notice how Santa’s little fat chops drooped and how melancholy were his blue eyes. He did notice these things, and he wasted no time in making inquiries, but took Santa Claus off into a corner and said, “Look here, old man, something’s up. Why don’t you tell Piggy-Peddler about it?”

Santa Claus, oh, so relieved now to have somebody to confide in, told Piggy-Peddler the whole story. He told Piggy-Peddler how he had heard the grown-ups talking that night about the things they wanted, how those grown-ups had planned to hang up their stockings just to see if something wouldn’t happen, and how he, Santa Claus, longed to find those things for the grown-ups and put them in their stockings, but couldn’t possibly do it.

Piggy-Peddler listened intently, and when Santa Claus had finished, he spoke softly.

“So that’s it,” he said. “Those dear, funny, grown-up people. They want the things they’ve never had. Of course they do.”

“And they’ve been wanting them ever since they were young,” added Santa Claus.

“Mrs. Dumpty and her ruffles,” said Piggy-Peddler.

“And Cross-Patch,” said Santa.

“And the candlestick-maker!” continued Piggy-Peddler. “Can’t you just see him, Santa Claus, switching those tails around, with a dirty shirt above them, and his rusty boots below?”

“Still, I think he’d look nice,” Santa Claus said.

“Nice! He’d look elegant!”

Santa Claus laughed aloud. It would be such fun, he was thinking, to see the candlestick-maker flourishing happily around in his tails.

“I wonder”--Piggy-Peddler was musing--“I wonder if he would do it, just this once, for these people of Pudding Lane.”

“Who?”

Piggy-Peddler was lost in thought.

“Who, Piggy-Peddler?” persisted Santa Claus. “You wonder if who would do what?”

“Oh!” Piggy-Peddler started and laughed. “Why, I was wondering, Santa Claus, if Father Time wouldn’t, just this one time, let these people have an hour of their youth again. If he would, you know, they could have all their desires. Their wishes would all come true.”

At this Santa Claus could only stare.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Well, it’s just this, Santa Claus,” explained Piggy-Peddler. “Father Time, if he wanted to, could turn the clock back on Christmas Eve. He could let these people fly back to the time when they were young, and he could give them whatever they wanted.”

“He could?” Santa’s mouth was wide open at such news.

“He could,” replied Piggy-Peddler.

“Would they be children again?”

“No, you never can be a child again, quite, you know, after you’ve once grown up,” Piggy said. “But you can feel very young, oh, very young, even as young as sixteen.”

Santa Claus, thinking to himself that sixteen was not what he’d call young, spoke again.

“He could make their wishes come true, you say?”

“For an hour.”

“Only for an hour?”

“Oh, that’ll be long enough. It isn’t keeping things that’s fun, you know. Why, they wouldn’t want these things forever, Santa Claus. The Old Woman can’t jig around at a ball the rest of her life, can she? And that petticoat! Mrs. Dumpty would worry her life out washing the thing! You know what a fussy little lady she is.”

“But the baby for Cross-Patch?” pursued Santa Claus. He was thinking how badly he’d feel if his baby sister should have stayed with them only an hour.

“Well, that is a little different,” admitted Piggy. “But think of the poor baby living with old Cross-Patch. I’ll tell you, Santa, we’ll get her a parrot afterwards. They’re lots better for old cross-patches than babies. Also, the butcher doesn’t really want a wife, you know. He only thinks he does.”

“But they said they wanted these things more than anything else in the world,” said Santa Claus persistently.

“They do!” cried Piggy. “The things you’ve always wanted are the very things you want most. But that doesn’t mean you have to keep them forever. And think how happy they’d all be on Christmas. Why, this will make them happy the rest of their lives, and they’ll never get through talking about it.”

“And Father Time could do this?” asked Santa again.

“He could,” replied Piggy-Peddler. “He’s very powerful, you know. The only question is, would he? That’s what I am wondering.”

“Do you know him, Piggy-Peddler?”

“Very well,” answered Piggy.

“Could you ask him?”

“I could and I will,” came Piggy-Peddler’s reply. “He ought to do it for you, Santa Claus. Father Time thinks very highly of you, you know.”

“He doesn’t know me,” said Santa.

“Oh, yes, he does. He knows everybody. He may be old and his beard may be long and white, but he knows everybody in the world, Santa Claus, and don’t you forget that.”

“And you will go to him, Piggy-Peddler,” begged Santa Claus, “and ask him to turn the clock back?”

“I will,” replied Piggy-Peddler, “this very minute I’ll go, Santa Claus.”

And he did. He left Pudding Lane that very minute, and as Santa Claus went back to his work, his heart beat a little rat-a-tat-tat of joy, as he reflected that maybe, after all, The Old Woman could have her ball, Mrs. Dumpty her ruffles, and Cross-Patch her baby on Christmas morning.

2

Christmas Eve had come. Deeper than ever was the snow. The houses looked as if their mothers had put white hoods on them; the ground was spread as with white fur; and the trees held their burden of snow as lightly as if it were lace.

But nobody had time for scenery in Pudding Lane that night. In every house, lights were burning; in every house, the mothers were flying madly about, the fathers were jumping from room to room, and the children were hopping, shrieking, dancing, as children always do on this best night of the year.

At last, however, the stockings were all up at the fireplaces. At last the children were all in bed and sound asleep. At last it was time for Santa Claus, that fat little boy in a bright red suit, to take his pack, go to the roofs, slide down the chimneys and fill the stockings as he did every year.

But what about the surprise for Santa himself? Wait a bit. It wasn’t time for that yet. And what about the gifts for the grown-ups? Were they to get the things they wanted? Was Father Time really going to turn the clock back, as Piggy-Peddler and Santa Claus had so ardently hoped he would?

Well, whether Father Time was going to make the wishes come true or not, the grown-ups were certainly hanging up their stockings. For there was the old candlestick-maker in his shop, pawing through a drawerful of socks. First he pulled out a white sock, but that one, alas, had a hole in it. Then he found a brown one, but oh, my goodness, that one had two holes in it. Then he found a gray sock, a woolen one that Mrs. Claus, good soul, had knitted for him. But that one had shrunken in the wash, and nobody wants a shriveled-up sock to hang up for Christmas. At last he came upon a fine black affair that looked as if it had been made for a giant, so enormous it was. This was the very thing, and cackling and wheezing, the candlestick-maker hung it up beside Jack-Be-Nimble’s smaller stocking and went to bed.

The butcher hung up his stocking, and lonely it looked too, that stocking, as it dangled from his bachelor’s fireplace. The Flinderses hung up their stockings, one on each side of Polly’s; Mrs. Dumpty hung up hers,--oh, all the grown-ups hung up stockings that night. And although they tried to pretend to themselves that it was all in fun, still they all knew perfectly well that it wouldn’t be a bit funny if they should get up the next morning to find these stockings empty and their wishes still just wishes.

Only Mr. and Mrs. Claus did not join in this great stocking ceremony. Something had happened at the Clauses’, which had turned that humble home almost inside out and left no time for such minor considerations as stockings.

Mrs. Claus discovered it just after Santa had left with his pack.

“Now,” said she to Mr. Claus, “I’ll get out the things for _his_ stocking.”

“But he’ll see ’em when he comes in,” objected the baker.

“Now, Mr. Claus, you ought to know by this time he always comes in by the back door and goes up the back steps on Christmas Eve. What’s the harm, then, of getting out the things now and putting them in his stocking in the front room?”

“No harm, no harm at all,” agreed Mr. Claus hastily.

So Mrs. Claus went to her workbasket to get the key to the cupboard in which Santa’s surprises were hidden. The key, oddly enough, was not there.

“Well, that’s funny,” Mrs. Claus said. Whereupon she went to the kitchen shelf, but the key wasn’t there, either. Nor was it behind the clock on the mantel, or in the best alabaster vase in the parlor, or in the old valise upstairs. And if it wasn’t in these treasure troves, where was it? That is what Mrs. Claus wanted to know.

“Where did you put it?” asked the baker innocently.

“How do I know?” retorted Mrs. Claus. “I seemed to remember putting it in all these places, but I didn’t.”

“Look in the almanac,” suggested her husband.

“The almanac!” repeated Mrs. Claus contemptuously, but she looked there just the same.

She also looked in the woodbox and in the apple barrel and in the cooky jar, where no key ought ever to be and where no key was, either. She ripped open the beds and searched under the mattresses, and the fact that her children were in those beds made no whit of difference to Mrs. Claus. She tore up the carpet from under Mr. Claus’s feet; she scratched in the corners of the room like a cat digging for a mouse; she peered sharply down into the stove, and when the key was not discovered there, shook down the coals angrily. And at last, after tearing up the entire house by its roots, she sat down on a chair and looked at Mr. Claus with a tragic face.

“It’s lost,” she announced hoarsely.

“Never mind,” Mr. Claus replied soothingly, “we’ll get another.”

“But it’s a special key,” she wailed, “made specially for this Christmas Eve. And Jack-of-All-Trades is dead asleep by now, and if he wasn’t, he’d never have time now to make another.”

“Well, then, we’ll have to break the door open,” said Mr. Claus.

“But we have no ax!” Poor Mrs. Claus, she had lost all her old enterprise in that short time.

“We’ll borrow one,” replied Mr. Claus, and with that they both leaped out of the kitchen to borrow an ax from the neighbors.

It was exactly midnight when Santa Claus had finished filling the stockings of Simple Simon, Jack and Jill, little Bo-Peep and all the other children of Pudding Lane. He had just clicked Mistress Mary’s gate behind him, when up popped Piggy-Peddler in front of him.

“It’s all right,” whispered Piggy-Peddler delightedly. “It’s going on right now.”

“Oh!” cried Santa Claus. “It is? He’s really turning the clock back?”

“This very minute,” reported Piggy-Peddler.

“But it’s too early, Piggy-Peddler,” said Santa Claus. “The grown-ups will never be awake at this hour. They’ve just gone to bed.”

Piggy-Peddler laughed.

“Don’t you worry about those grown-ups. They’re worse than children ever thought of being. Mark my word, they’re sneaking down the steps right this minute. Father Time knows them; that’s why he set this hour.”

“Are they really going to get the very things they asked for?” asked Santa Claus.

“The very things,” Piggy told him.

“The petticoat?”

“Oh, such a petticoat! A riot of ruffles!” Piggy-Peddler answered.

“A thousand of them?”

“A thousand, and one for good measure. A thousand and one ruffles, Santa Claus.”

“And the baby?”

“The most wonderful baby,” replied Piggy. “He never cries and never wakes up in the middle of the night and never swallows safety pins.”

“Then he isn’t a real baby,” declared Santa Claus. He knew about babies. There had been five of them in his family.

“Yes, he’s a real baby,” Piggy-Peddler insisted. “For he does fall out of bed, and he does eat old shoes, and he does chase sunbeams all over the nursery floor.”

Santa Claus, however, was not quite convinced.

“Does he go into a rage if he can’t get the sunbeam?”

“The most awful rage, bellowing and roaring.”

“No tears though,” supplemented Santa Claus.

“No tears,” corroborated Piggy. “Too mad for tears.”

“Well, I guess he’s a real baby then,” Santa Claus admitted. “But, oh, Piggy, don’t you wish we could peep in at the windows and see the grown-ups getting their Christmas presents?”

“I never wished anything so much in the world,” was Piggy’s heartfelt reply.

“But it isn’t nice to peep in at windows, is it?”

“Peeping is dreadful,” said Piggy-Peddler.

“So I suppose we’d better go home,” suggested Santa.

“I think that’s all we can do,” Piggy agreed.

So Santa Claus went home, and Piggy went to the Horners’, where he was staying over Christmas.

Piggy did not go straight to bed, however, for not only did he find Mr. and Mrs. Horner up and gloating over the lovely gifts in their Christmas stockings, but he found Jack Horner up too--think of it, on Christmas Eve--and moreover, making a great to-do about his Christmas pie.

“He wants to eat it now,” Mrs. Horner told Piggy.

“Well, let him eat it then,” advised Piggy-Peddler, disgusted.

You couldn’t do anything with a boy like Jack, he was thinking, and there was no use trying.

The rest of the grown-ups, however, had no such difficulties to spoil their Christmas stockings, and right that minute they were all tiptoeing down to their front parlors just as Piggy-Peddler said they would be doing.

Mrs. Dumpty, in her pink flannel nightgown and with her eyes bulging over her sputtering candle, was the first one down. She craned her neck as she got near the stocking, and her eyes, pushing themselves almost out of their sockets, searched the dimness intently. Would the petticoat be there? Oh, beating heart, be still! Supposing it were not--

Ah, but there it was, the petticoat of her heart, lovelier even than she had imagined. Such foamy ruffles! So many of them! Oh, what a petticoat! Suddenly Mrs. Dumpty threw it around her and rushed out. Where was the woman going?

At about the same time old Cross-Patch came shuffling in to her stocking. She hadn’t slept much in her excitement, but had lain there tense and still until at last she could stand it no longer. There she came, shuffle, shuffle. She held the candle high and squinted at the stocking. Was that--could it be--a baby’s fuzzy head poking up out of the top? It was! Oh, happy old Cross-Patch. She pinched the baby to see if it were real; she grunted and chuckled and cackled. She wasn’t a bit cross now. Then, taking the baby under one arm, she too rushed out and away.

And did the candlestick-maker get his swallow-tail coat? He did. Pearl buttons, hankersniff and all? Pearl buttons, hankersniff and all. Did Mr. Flinders find himself possessed of pigs? Most assuredly. Red little pigs, big black pigs, middle-aged speckled pigs, and all grunting and wallowing in a manner to delight any pig-lover’s heart.

But surely the butcher didn’t find a wife in his stocking? Well, he just did. A charming lady with a pink cheek, a high heel, and a mincing step, a woman exactly to the butcher’s taste. Old Mother Hubbard got her hurdy-gurdy too, and you should have seen her and the dog dancing to its music.

But the strange thing was that all of them took their gifts in their arms and rushed out from their homes, just as Mrs. Dumpty and Cross-Patch had done. They all went to the same place too, and that place was--guess where--the Old Woman’s Shoe.

Words fail me as I try to describe the scene they all found in the once humble old Shoe. There was the Shoe ablaze with light and color; there were the ladies and gentlemen of the ball, in satins and velvet, bowing and pirouetting; there was Prince Charming himself, the most agreeable man you ever want to see; and finally there was the Old Woman, gay as a feather, almost unrecognizable now in her fine red dress and her gold, gold slippers.

With great hilarity the Old Woman greeted her friends, and if she kissed Mr. Horner and shook hands with Mrs. Horner instead of the other way around, as she intended, nobody minded, especially Mr. Horner. Indeed, so enlivened became the gentlemen that they all said they wanted such a handshake,--which was certainly a gay turn for the party to take.

So they frolicked on and danced and were merry. Oh, yes, they admired each other’s Christmas presents too. The butcher’s wife was received with great cordiality, Cross-Patch’s baby was declared to be the nicest baby everybody had ever seen; and Mother Hubbard’s hurdy-gurdy rolled out its lovely tunes as Mrs. Dumpty, in her ruffled petticoat and the candlestick-maker, in his tails, stepped gravely through a minuet.

Only the Clauses were not there.

But we know where they were, don’t we? Or do we?

For if Mr. Claus at that moment didn’t come tumbling head-first into the Shoe, and if Mrs. Claus didn’t come falling in after him, and then, right on their heels, if Jack Horner didn’t burst in on everybody.

“We want an ax!” shouted Mr. Claus. “Been all over the whole town and not a soul was home.”

“An ax!” they all shouted back at him.

“But look here!” called out Little Jack Horner.

He was holding up a tiny something in his hand.

“What’s that?” they asked.

“I stuck in my thumb,” began Jack Horner.

“Oh, it’s only that old plum he’s always talking about,” said Mrs. Grundy.

“No, ma’am,” Jack cried excitedly, “it’s not a plum. It’s a key. I stuck in my thumb and pulled out a--key!”

Everybody gasped, Mrs. Claus gave a jump, and as for Mr. Claus, “Great snakes!” he roared. “It’s it!”

And before anybody could say another word, he had snatched the key from Jack Horner’s hands and was gone, leaving Mrs. Claus to explain the whole thing, a feat she accomplished with much hemming and hawing.

For Mrs. Claus, you see, in her excitement had baked the key to the cupboard in Jack Horner’s Christmas pie. Nobody knows how in the world she could have done such a thing, and indeed, to this day she swears she _couldn’t_ have done it, but she did do it, just the same, and everybody knows it.

The people of Pudding Lane were very kind to her about this mistake.

“Never mind, Mrs. Claus,” said the Old Woman comfortingly, “it’s all right now. Mr. Claus has gone home to get the things out of the cupboard and Santa Claus will have his Christmas stocking just the same, even if you did think the key was a plum.”

“I didn’t,” retorted Mrs. Claus. “Whoever could think a key was a plum?”

“Well,” cackled the candlestick-maker, “you put the key into the plum pie, Mrs. Claus.”

Mrs. Claus wrung her hands and could make no answer.

“Shame on you, candlestick-maker,” said Cross-Patch reprovingly. “Your tails have made you cruel, sir. Cheer up, Mrs. Claus,” she went on, “it’s just as the Old Woman said. Santa Claus will have his Christmas stocking, after all, and there’s nothing to worry about now.”

“Well, then,” spoke the Old Woman, “we ought to go on with our party, oughtn’t we?”

“We ought to, I suppose,” said Mrs. Dumpty, smoothing her ruffles, “but--”

“But what, Mrs. Dumpty?” asked Mr. Flinders from among his litter of pigs.

“But--” Mrs. Dumpty hesitated again, “well, the truth is, neighbors, I’ve had about enough of party.”

The candlestick-maker stopped switching his coat-tails to give vent to a great yawn.

“Wouldn’t mind going to bed myself,” he admitted.

“The baby’s asleep,” said Cross-Patch. “I guess I’ll go home.”

The Old Woman rubbed her eyes.

“Balls are all right,” she said, “but bed is the place for old women at this time of the night.”

And that was the end of the lovely Christmas party. It was the end of the pigs and the ruffles and the swallow-tail coat; it was the end even of the butcher’s wife and Cross-Patch’s baby. They had had their wishes, those grown-ups of Pudding Lane, every one of them, and they had enjoyed that Christmas Eve as they had never enjoyed anything else before. But now they were just their old selves again and wanted to go to bed. Father Time had turned the clock up again, you see, and their hour of youth was past.

But Santa Claus’s hour was not past, no indeed.

For the next morning, when he came clattering down the stairs to see his brothers and sister open their Christmas stockings, what should he see but his own red stocking hanging there, with a great sign on it, saying, “Merry Christmas, little Santa, from all your loving friends!”

And what should he find in that stocking but Judy’s mittens, and Jack and Jill’s orange tree (and it did have a tiny white blossom on it, after all) and the whistle that Humpty-Dumpty had carved for him? And what was there all around that stocking but piles and piles and piles of gifts, the nicest things that could be bought in Banbury Cross?

Was he surprised? He nearly swooned, that fat little boy, so surprised was he. Did he like his gifts? You should have heard him chuckle and shout and exclaim. Was he touched at the thoughtfulness of his friends? He thanked them and thanked and thanked them, until they stopped their ears, and he told his mother that night that never in all the world were there any such people as those in Pudding Lane. He was curious, too, to know how they managed it all.

“Who brought the things down the chimney?” he wanted to know.

“King Cole,” Mrs. Claus told him.

“King Cole himself?”

“King Cole himself,” said Mrs. Claus, but she did not add that the King had stuck in the chimney on the way down and had to be pulled through by his feet, although that really happened.

So that’s the way it all came out.

Father Time turned back the clock so that the grown-ups could be young again and have the wishes of their youth. Jack Horner, the glutton, ate his Christmas pie too early, but, by doing so, saved the day. For if he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have found the key, and Santa Claus might not have had his wonderful Christmas stocking. Oh, yes, they would have taken the ax to the cupboard, I suppose, but that’s no way to open a cupboard, after all.

THE END

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.