Middletown Transcript

It was early Christmas morning and Santa Claus was on his way home.

He had had a busier Christmas time than ever. He had visited the shops and had taken some of the toys he had lent to them to decorate their windows and counters with. And he had been to every home where there was a child.

The reindeer weren't hurrying so fast now. Santa was talking half to them and half to himself.

"Oh, my beauties," he said, "what a time it was. And never, never have I seen so many and such beautiful children."

The reindeer looked at each other and smiled, for Santa Claus had said that very same thing every single year that they could remember, and they remembered a good many years.

"Yes," Santa continued, "they were beautiful. There were girls with golden hair and girls with brown hair and girls with black hair and girls with red hair. Some of them wore their hair in curls. Some had their hair done up so it would be curly today, and some had their hair in braids, and some of them had their hair cut off short.

"There were such handsome boys, too. Oh, they were so good-looking, such manly little chaps.

"I've never seen so many fine boys," said Santa Claus.

And once more the reindeer smiled at each other, for they remembered that Santa Claus had said this very same thing, too, every single Christmas.

"They were the sort who wouldn't bully and do mean little things. They were the sort who wouldn't attack a creature younger, smaller or more helpless than themselves. They were fine, perfectly fine. It was all I could do to keep from shouting: "Three cheers; what a splendid lot of boys and girls!" as I went from house to house.

"And so many of them had left sugar for you, my lovely reindeer."

The reindeer nodded their heads.

"It was good of them; so good and thoughtful of them," they said.

"I once," said Santa Claus, "remember when I was out testing the chimneys to see if they were all right hearing a grown person who had come to see a friend who was ill,

"She had bought herself a great bunch of flowers to wear, and she brought the person who was ill a few half-faded flowers, which she bought at a very cheap price because they were faded.

"And she had said that bunch she had bought herself had been so beautiful and sweet to look at she couldn't resist it.

"Yet she had been able to resist something nice for her friend.

"She had been a child once, and when she was a child she had tried to look at the back of presents which her friends sent her to see how much they had cost, and she still did that now.

"And she had always wanted the bigger piece herself. Well, I hadn't seen her since she had been a child when I saw this thing happening about the flowers and heard the talk from a chimney where I was seeing if the chimneys were in good condition for Christmas Eve, as I said.

"Well, she was one of the few children I ever knew like that, and I can tell you she was unhappy. No one likes her, for she is so selfish, and she hasn't any fun, for she is so anxious to see what things cost that she can't get any pleasure out of the things themselves.

I heard her say, too, that she thought Christmas was a great nuisance, when a person was grown-up, for of course Santa Claus only had the time to think of children. Imagine anyone thinking Christmas was a nuisance.

"But, while one comes across this sort of thing once in a while," Santa Claus continued, "it does my heart good to see that each year there is more and more happiness and joy over Christmas, and that the children are getting nicer and nicer and that they have such gloriously generous natures.

"And you know, reindeer, old Santa Claus likes natures that are generous."

The reindeer snorted again and said: "We wish you a merry Christmas, Santa. We haven't had a chance before, but we want to do it now, for it is your day, Christmas day, dear Santa! And we are glad that each year your day is more and more full of joy."