The last house was reached, and Nicholas dropped in the settle by the fire with a deep sigh of relief. It was a long time before he recovered sufficiently to start filling the stockings; even then he did it slowly, reaching painfully down to his sack, and each time straightening himself with growing difficulty. He filled four of the five stockings that were hanging over the fireplace; then, with the fifth one still empty in his hands, the old head drooped drowsily, and Nicholas was fast asleep.
THE OLD HEAD DROOPED DROWSILY.
He awoke with a start an hour later when a man anxiously shook him by the shoulder.
"Are you all right, Nicholas?" asked a worried voice. "I got up to see if the fire had gone out and found you still here, and look, it's almost dawn!"
Nicholas shook himself, then stood up wearily. "Yes, lad, it's Christmas morning, and I haven't finished my work," he said sorrowfully.
"I'll do the last one for you, Nicholas," answered the man kindly. "You just leave the toys and things here and go home to bed. I'll finish it. Go along now, before the children get up and see you."
Nicholas, thinking of his warm comfortable bed, handed the stocking to the man and went out into the gray dawn.
Five minutes later, a little nightgowned boy stood in the doorway of the living room. "Why, Father," he exclaimed in a disappointed tone, "I thought it was Nicholas who gave us the toys, and here you are filling my stocking!"
The child looked ready to cry, but his father, caught with the half-filled stocking in his hand, hastened to reassure him.
"Your Nicholas is getting old, my boy," he said, "and sometimes he gets so tired we parents have to help him in his work. But don't you forget, it's always Nicholas who leaves you the toys."
"That's all right then!" said the little fellow. "It isn't half so much fun when you think your mother and father prepare the gifts."
"I should say not," said the father sternly, "and you must never doubt Nicholas. Why, he might be so hurt at a little boy thinking he didn't fill the stockings, that he might never come to his house again. Think how terrible that would be!"
"Yes," whispered his son in a frightened voice. "What would Christmas be without Nicholas?"
HOLLY was no longer little Holly; she was a lovely slender young girl and led a happy life, her childish terrors long forgotten. She hummed a gay little carol that Christmas morning, as she walked along the road towards Nicholas' cottage, her arms filled with the bright red berries that bore her own name. She still continued the practice of bringing flowers all year round to her old friend, and every Christmas Eve she would go into the Black Forest to gather holly with which to decorate his cottage on Christmas morning.
It was almost noon, and as she approached the house, she noticed how silent and empty it looked without Nicholas' head at the window, bent over his work, and with no smoke coming from the chimney.
"Poor thing," thought the girl affectionately. "He's probably all tired out from his trip last night. I won't waken him. I'll just go in and make his fire and put the holly around."
She stole silently into the cold little cottage, and soon had a warm blaze crackling on the hearth. She cast an anxious glance now and then towards the closed door that led to Nicholas' bedroom; she was so afraid of disturbing his slumber. But she heard no sound and busied herself decking the walls and windows with gay branches. Then, with one spray still in her hand, she looked around uncertainly, and not finding another bare spot in the living-room, she decided to bring it in to place beside Nicholas, so the branch of holly would be the first thing he'd see when he opened his eyes.
She opened the door quietly and stole over to the bed.
"Why, the darling was so tired he fell asleep with his clothes on," she murmured tenderly.
For the fat round figure lay there, still dressed in the bright red suit with the white fur and the shiny black leggings and close-fitting stocking cap.
"Here's your holly," whispered the girl, bending over Nicholas. Then, with a startled exclamation, she dropped the blood-red blossoms all over the still figure and sprang back, frightened.
"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she screamed. "Oh, he's dead! He's dead!"
She ran bareheaded out into the snow, stumbled blindly down the road into the village, and with tears streaming down her face, called loudly for the townsfolk.
They gathered in little groups to listen to her story. The women murmured in broken tones, between sobs, "He's dead!" and clasped their wondering little children closer, as if to comfort them for the loss of their dearest friend. The men looked down to the ground and up at the sky and every place but into each other's eyes, for no man wanted to see the tears that stood there. "Yes, he's dead," they all sighed deeply. "Who's dead, Mother? Is it Nicholas?" asked the children. "Won't he come to us any more on Christmas Eve?"
And the parents had to turn away from the wide childish eyes because they didn't want to say to them that awful sentence, "Yes, Nicholas is dead."
The bells tolled, and the village was in darkness Christmas night. Vixen and his brothers whimpered in their stalls, and the holly glowed red over a still loving heart in a red suit.
IT was a sad year that followed the Christmas morning of Nicholas' death. All through the long cold winter and brief summer the villagers were reminded of the old friend who had left them every time they saw his closed cottage, with a holly wreath still in the window. They had tenderly put him to rest in the pine grove close to the friendly little evergreens and near the spot where the village children came to play. The eight reindeer were no longer in the stalls behind the cottage; they had been taken back to the big stables on the top of the hill by Katje Dinsler. Many a time in the months that passed, a mother would pick up a little carved doll from the floor and gently wipe the dirt from its face, with a suddenly tear-dimmed eye for the generous heart who had given the toy.
It gradually entered even the most babyish mind that Nicholas was dead and would come to fill their stockings no more. They cried a little, then the image of the fat, cheer ful old man faded from their forgetful childish memories, and so the year passed until it was again Christmas Eve.
"Mother, are we going to hang up our stockings?"
"No, no, child. Have you forgotten that Nicholas is dead and can't come to fill your stockings any more?"
This question was asked and answered sadly in almost every house in the village that Christmas Eve, so different from the other years, when every fire in every hearth glowed warmly on happy, expectant little children who were busy choosing their best and longest stocking to hang over the fireplace. This year, the little boys and girls went despondently to bed, and the night before Christmas was just like any ordinary night, with the parents silently banking the fires and bolting the doors that once had been left open to receive a merry, fat figure in a red suit.
And Nicholas might have been forgotten if it hadn't been for one boy, little lame Stephen, who had a still-warm memory of the kind old man and a childish faith that somehow a big heart like his could never die. So Stephen's parents were astonished when he calmly went about hanging up his stocking, just as he had done every Christmas Eve since he could remember.
"But Stephen," his mother reminded him sadly, "you know Nicholas is dead. You saw him carried from the cottage to the little pine grove; you saw his sleigh and reindeer being taken up to Mistress Katje's house. There's no Nicholas any more, child; don't you understand?"
"But I've got to hang up my stocking, Mother; I've got to. I don't believe God would keep him away from the children on Christmas Eve. I believe that he will come back . . ."
"Hush! You mustn't say things like that," exclaimed the mother in a frightened tone. "The dead must rest, my son, and it's not for you to say what God is to do with them. But you may hang up your stocking if you want to," she ended, feeling that even though her son suffered a cruel disappointment, the only way to convince him was to have him find his stocking empty on Christmas morning; then he wouldn't spend the rest of his life thi
nking that his mother might have been wrong.
So that was how, while all the other houses had fireplaces that were growing darker and colder, and the doors were bolted and windows tightly locked, there was one cottage in the village where the latch-string was left out, where the fire still burned warmly on the hearth, and where a lone little stocking was hanging bravely, an emblem of faith in a doubting world.
During the night an old, old woman awoke and moved restlessly in her bed, muttering still half-asleep, "I thought I heard the jingling of silver bells and the tramping of reindeer's hoofs on the snow. No, it must have been a dream," she sighed, and went back to sleep.
Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. It might have been the first Christmas morning of the world, the sun was so warm, the air was so pure and fresh, the snow so virgin-white and glistening as it lay piled up along the fences and doorways. The little village street lay peaceful in the early morning quiet.
Suddenly the tranquillity of the place was broken by a wild shout, the door of one cottage burst open, and the figure of a boy dashed out into the snow, one thin bare leg dragging a little as he limped through the gateway, and one arm waving wildly in the air,—a long, fat, bulging woolen stocking!
"He isn't dead!" shrieked Stephen, his thin face transfigured by a beautiful joy. "Look at my stocking! It's filled, just the same as last Christmas! And there's a big new sled by our fireplace. I knew it! Look, everybody! Wake up, wake up! Nicholas isn't dead!"
Men, women, and children leaped from their beds to see what all the noise was about, and the children leaped right into the largest piles of toys they had ever seen,—all around the fireplaces, on the tables and chairs, and even beside their beds. The entire village opened its doors and poured out into the street, the children dragging handsome new sleds loaded with the most beautiful toys the village had ever seen.
"Did you see this? Look at my boat!"
"He must have come down the chimney when he found the door locked. There was some soot on the floor."
"Isn't it wonderful? It's the happiest Christmas we've ever had!"
"Little Stephen found a fir-tree on his table, decorated with more gifts and fruit and candles, just the way the gypsy children had their gifts, many years ago."
"Yes, and Stephen says there is a big shining star way up on the topmost bough."
"That's because Stephen believed in him," they said, ashamed of themselves. "But now, we believe too. He isn't dead!"
So the bells pealed out on Christmas morning,—a joyful, happy sound, so different from the mournful tolling of a year ago; and the happy villagers almost sang the universal refrain, "He isn't dead!"
The children danced and ran around with their toys; the men looked at each other with solemn, awe-filled eyes; the mothers held their babies close and murmured, "He isn't dead, my pet; you'll grow up and Nicholas will still come to us."
One old woman, she who thought she had heard silvery bells in the midnight air, with her eyes half on another world, said in her cracked old voice, "He's a saint, that's what he is!"
"Yes, he's Saint Nicholas now!" They all took up the shout, and the whole town joined the glad cry, "Saint Nicholas! Saint Nicholas!"
A baby's voice tried to add his stumbling speech to the general shout. "Sant' Clos! Sant' Clos!" he lisped.
"We believe now," the children and the fathers and the mothers all said to each other with the light of faith that little lame Stephen had inspired on their faces. "We believe that Saint Nicholas will always come to us as long as there is one child alive in the village."
"In the village!" echoed little Stephen. "In the whole world!" he shouted triumphantly.
Yesterday's Classics
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Yesterday's Classics republishes classic books for children from the golden age of children's literature, the era from 1880 to 1920. Many of our titles are offered in high-quality paperback editions, with text cast in modern easy-to-read type for today's readers. The illustrations from the original volumes are included except in those few cases where the quality of the original images is too low to make their reproduction feasible. Unless specified otherwise, color illustrations in the original volumes are rendered in black and white in our print editions.
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (Yesterday's Classics) Page 8