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A LITTLE BOOK OF CHRISTMAS




[Illustration: "What are you doing?" he asked, drawing near.
FRONTISPIECE. _See page_ 69.]




    A LITTLE BOOK OF
    CHRISTMAS

    BY
    JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

    WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
    ARTHUR E. BECHER

    BOSTON
    LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
    1912




    _Copyright, 1912_,
    BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

    _All rights reserved_

    Published, September, 1912


    THE COLONIAL PRESS
    C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.




CONTENTS


                                           PAGE

    THE CONVERSION OF HETHERINGTON            5

    THE CHILD WHO HAD EVERYTHING BUT--       47

    SANTA CLAUS AND LITTLE BILLEE            87

    THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN SANTAS           129




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


    "What are you doing?" he asked, drawing near      _Frontispiece_

    She stood with her eyes popping out of her head          PAGE 39

    He thought it very strange that Santa Claus'
    hand should be so red and cold and rough                      91

    One by one the prisoners of the night dropped
    in surreptitiously                                           155




A TOAST TO SANTA CLAUS


    Whene'er I find a man who don't
      Believe in Santa Claus,
    And spite of all remonstrance won't
      Yield up to logic's laws,
    And see in things that lie about
      The proof by no means dim,
    I straightway cut that fellow out,
      And don't believe in him.

    The good old Saint is everywhere
      Along life's busy way.
    We find him in the very air
      We breathe day after day--
    Where courtesy and kindliness
      And love are joined together,
    To give to sorrow and distress
      A touch of sunny weather.

    We find him in the maiden's eyes
      Beneath the mistletoe,
    A-sparkling as the star-lit skies
      All golden in their glow.
    We find him in the pressure of
      The hand of sympathy,
    And where there's any thought of love
      He's mighty sure to be.

    So here's to good old Kindliheart!
      The best bet of them all,
    Who never fails to do his part
      In life's high festival;
    The worthy bearer of the crown
      With which we top the Saint.
    A bumper to his health, and down
      With them that say he ain't!




THE CONVERSION OF HETHERINGTON


I

Hetherington wasn't half a bad sort of a fellow, but he had his
peculiarities, most of which were the natural defects of a lack of
imagination. He didn't believe in ghosts, or Santa Claus, or any of the
thousands of other things that he hadn't seen with his own eyes, and as
he walked home that rather chilly afternoon just before Christmas and
found nearly every corner of the highway decorated with bogus Saints,
wearing the shoddy regalia of Kris-Kringle, the sight made him a trifle
irritable. He had had a fairly good luncheon that day, one indeed that
ought to have mellowed his disposition materially, but which somehow or
other had not so resulted. In fact, Hetherington was in a state of raspy
petulance that boded ill for his digestion, and when he had reached the
corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, the constant iteration
and reiteration of these shivering figures of the god of the Yule had
got on his nerves to such an extent as to make him aggressively
quarrelsome. He had controlled the asperities of his soul tolerably well
on the way uptown, but the remark of a small child on the highway, made
to a hurrying mother, as they passed a stalwart-looking replica of the
idol of his Christmas dreams, banging away on a tambourine to attract
attention to the iron pot before him, placed there to catch the pennies
of the charitably inclined wayfarer--"Oh, mar, there's Sandy Claus
now!"--was too much for him.

"Tush! Nonsense!" ejaculated Hetherington, glowering at the shivering
figure in the turkey-red robe. "The idea of filling children's minds up
with such balderdash! Santa Claus, indeed! There isn't a genuine Santa
Claus in the whole bogus bunch."

The Saint on the corner banged his tambourine just under Hetherington's
ear with just enough force to jar loose the accumulated irascibility of
the well-fed gentleman.

"This is a fine job for an able-bodied man like you!" said Hetherington
with a sneer