Chapter I: MET a little maid who cried, as though her heart would break; I asked

her why, and she replied, “Oh, Santa is a fake! My teacher says there never was a being by that name, and here I mourn for Santa Claus, and all the Christmas game.”

“Cheer up, my little girl,” I said, “for weeping is a crime; I’ll go and punch that teacher’s head as soon as I have time. Old Santa lives, the good old boy, his race is not yet run; and he will bring the children joy, as he has always done. The pedagogues have grown too smart, and must take in their sails, if they would break a maiden’s heart by telling phony tales.”

The young one, anxious to believe that Santa’s still on earth, looked up and smiled and ceased to grieve, and chortled in her mirth. I have no use for folks so wise that legend makes them sad, who say those stories are but lies which make the children glad. For Santa lives, and that’s the truth; and he will always live, while there is such a thing as Youth to bless the hands that give.

You may not hear his reindeer’s hoofs go tinkling o’er the snow; you may not see him climbing roofs to reach the socks below; and down the sooty chimney-hole you may not see him slide—for that would grieve the kindest soul, and scar the toughest hide—but still he goes his rounds and tries to make the children gay, and there is laughter in his eyes, on every Christmas Day.

You’re Santa Claus, and so am I, and so is every dad, who says at Christmas time, “I’ll try to make the young hearts glad!” All other men may lay them down and go to rest some day; the homes they builded, and their town may crumble in decay; and governments may rise and fall, and dynasties may lapse, and still, triumphant over all, that jolliest of chaps will journey through the snow and storm, beneath the midnight sky; while souls are true and hearts are warm, old Santa shall not die.

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THE MEN BEHIND

THE firm of Jingleson & Jams, which manufactured wooden hams, has closed its doors, and in the mill, the wheels and shafting all stand still.

This mighty business was upbuilt by Humper, Hooperman & Hilt, who kept the factory on the go and made all kinds of fancy dough. Their products went to every mart, and cheered the retail merchant’s heart, and made consumers warble psalms, and ask for more of those elm hams. These owners hired the ablest men that could be got for love or yen; throughout the mill fine workmen wrought; their every motion hit the spot; and expert foremen snooped around, and if some shabby work they found, the riot act they’d promptly speak, in Latin, Choctaw, Dutch and Greek.

The finest salesmen in the land were selling hams to beat the band. Old Humper said, “No ten-cent skate can earn enough to pay the freight; cheap men are evermore a frost—they’re dear, no matter what they cost. We want the ablest men that grow—no other kind will have a show.” And so these owners gathered kale until the game seemed old and stale, then sold their mill and stock of hams to Messrs. Jingleson & Jams.

These were a pair of cautious gents, who had a reverence for cents. They looked around, with eager eyes, for chances to economize. They had the willies when they gazed upon the payroll—they were dazed! “Great whiskers!” Jingleson exclaimed, “this wilful waste makes me ashamed! This salesman, Jasper Jimpson Jones, draws, every month, two hundred bones! Why I can hire F. Flimson Flatt, who’ll work I know, for half of that!”

“And by old Pharaoh’s sacred rams,” remarked his partner, Peter Jams, “it’s that way all along the list; old Humper must be crazed, I wist! We’ll cut these salaries in two—that is the first thing we must do!”

And so the high-priced expert men were told to go, nor come again; and soon the shop began to fill with chaps who’d neither brains nor skill. The payroll slumped—which made Jams glad; but so did trade—which made him mad. The product lost its high renown, and merchants turned the salesmen down, and they sent frantic telegrams to weary Jingleson & Jams.

When things begin down hill to slide, they rush, and will not be denied, and so there came slump after slump until the business reached the dump, and poor old Jingleson & Jams are mournful as a pair of clams.

Economy’s the one best bet—but some kinds cost like blitzen, yet!

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THE BARD IN THE WOODS

ALONG the forest’s virgin aisles I walk in rapture, miles on miles; at every turn delights unfold, and wondrous vistas I behold. What noble scenes on every hand! I feel my ardent soul expand; I turn my face toward the sky, and to the firmament I cry:

“_The derned mosquitoes—how they bite! The woods would be a pure delight, would lure all men back to the soil, if these blamed brutes were boiled in oil! They come forth buzzing from their dens, and they’re as big as Leghorn hens, and when they bite they raise a lump that makes the victim yell and jump._”

What wondrous voices have the trees when they are rocked by morning breeze! The voices of a thousand lyres, the music of a thousand choirs, the chorus of a thousand spheres are in the noble song one hears! The same sad music Adam heard when through the Eden groves he stirred; and ever since the primal birth, through all the ages of the earth, the trees have whispered, chanted, sung, in their soft, untranslated tongue. And, moved to tears, I cry aloud, far from the sordid madding crowd:

“_Doggone these measly, red-backed ants! They will keep climbing up my pants! The woods will soon be shy of guests unless the ants and kindred pests abolished are by force of law; they’ve chewed me up till I am raw._”

Here in these sylvan solitudes, unfettered Nature sweetly broods; she’d clasp her offspring to her breast, and give her weary children rest, and say to them, “No longer weep, but on your mother’s bosom sleep.” Here mighty thoughts disturb my brain—I try to set them down in vain; with noble songs my soul’s afire—I cannot fit them to my lyre, Elysian views awhile I’ve seen—I cannot tell you what they mean; adown the forest aisles I stray, and face the glowing East, and say:

“_It must have been a bee, by heck! that stung me that time on the neck! It’s time I trotted back to town, and got those swellings doctored down! With bees and ants and wasps and snakes these bosky groves and tangled brakes are most too fierce for urban bard—I rather long for my back yard!_”

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VALUES

OLD Hiram Hucksmith makes and sells green wagons with red wheels; and merry as a string of bells in his old age he feels. For over all the countryside his wagons have their fame, and Hiram sees with wholesome pride, the prestige of his name.

He always tells his men: “By jings, my output must be good! Don’t ever use dishonest things—no wormy steel or wood; use nothing but the choicest oak, use silver mounted tacks, and every hub and every spoke must be as sound as wax. I want the men who buy my carts to advertise them well; I do not wish to break the hearts of folks to whom I sell.”

The farmers bought those wagons green, with wheels of sparkling red, and worked them up and down, I ween, and of them often said: “You cannot bust or wear them out, and if you’d break their holt, you’d have to have a waterspout or full-sized thunderbolt. The way they hang together’s strange, they ought to break but won’t, most earthly things decay or change, but these blamed wagons don’t.”

Old Hiram’s heart with rapture thrilled, to hear that sort of stuff; he worked and worked but couldn’t build his wagons fast enough. And now he lives on Easy Street, most honored of all men who toddle down our village street, and then back up again.

Old Jabez Jenkins long has made blue wagons with pink spokes, and once he had a goodly trade among the farmer folks. With pride his bosom did not swell, he knew not to aspire, to get up wagons that would sell—that was his one desire. And so he made his wheels of pine, where rosewood should have been, and counted on the painting fine, to hide the faults within.

And often when this sad old top was toiling in his shed, a customer would seek his shop and deftly punch his head. Wherever Jenkins’ wagons went, disaster with them flew; the tires came off, the axles bent, the kingbolts broke in two. You’d see the farmers standing guard above their ruined loads, and springing language by the yard that fairly scorched the roads.

This Jenkins now is old and worn, his business is decayed; and he can only sit and mourn o’er dizzy breaks he made. Old Hiram’s plan should suit all men who climb Trade’s rugged hill: Give value for the shining yen you put into your till.

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STICKING TO IT