Part 2

“Christmas Santa Claus must wear dresses in daytime to keep from scaring children.”

The clerk helped him to remove his ragged clothes, wash his face, wash his hands and wash his feet. He helped Jakie pull on a warm white union suit first. Jakie stared in the mirror at himself all in white. He did not recognize himself. He asked bewildered:

“Is dis me, Mister?”

The clerk smiled at Jakie’s change in looks even from his ragged breeches to white unions and was greatly amused at his asking “is it me.” He answered, “Yes, it is you. Don’t you know yourself?”

“I is never had no store-clothes in all my life,” Jakie explained, admiring himself in the mirror. He started off to go back to Frances with only his white unions on.

“Hold on!” exclaimed the clerk, “that is your underwear! Here is your fine suit, she picked out for you,” holding up a boy’s pretty grey suit, and cap to match.

Jakie’s eyes opened wider than ever in astonishment. The clerk helped him to dress, helped him to put on the new suit, draw on pretty grey socks on his bare-feet, lace up new shoes, comb his hair, and fit a cap to his head. Now Jakie looked like a full-fledged city boy, handsome and up-to-date. He twisted and turned before the looking glass. The clerk watched him. Jakie said:

“Don’t look-y like me--Don’t seem like me! Is it me, sure ’nouf?”

The clerk burst into a merry laugh, assuring him:

“It’s you sure enough. Now go thank your Christmas Santa Claus. She gave you all these nice things.”

Jakie hesitated a moment then said:

“Mister, it don’t seem like me. I just wears what folks give me, and what Mamsy makes.”

[Illustration: “DON’T LOOK LIKE ME.”]

“It’s sure enough you,” the clerk re-assured him, and handed him a bundle tied up neatly, which contained his old clothes, saying again:

“Now go thank your Christmas Santa Claus.”

Jakie marched toward Frances feeling like a king in his new clothes. She did not know him. She thought he was a city boy. He stopped in front of her, taking off his cap as a little gentleman. His clean, handsome face, and happy beaming eyes looked straight at her. He asked shyly.

“Is you Christmas Santa Claus?” She recognized him and laughed:

“Oh no! Santa Claus is a man, old, big and fat.”

“That man say you is!” insisted Jakie pointing back toward the clerk. “Is you Miss Christmas Santa Claus?”

“No indeed! little man,” answered Frances, laying her hand on his shoulder and patting him affectionately. “I am no Santa Claus at all. I love Christmas, and I love little boys like you. You came to town hunting for Santa Claus you saw in a picture. You could not find him. You said I would do. Christmas is Jesus’ birthday and He sent me to act Santa Claus to you. You needed a big friend when you were lonely, cold, and lost behind that door. Jesus sent me to find you. He sent me to be your big friend, and sent you to be my little friend.”

He grabbed her hand and kissed it. Then asked:

“If you isn’t Christmas Santa Claus is you an angel what Mamsy say came to find the shepherds in the dark?”

Frances blushed. Jakie’s compliment flushed her cheeks, a rosy pink. The clerk came to hand her the bill for the suit and outfit, and heard Jakie’s inquiry about an angel.

“Yes, she is your angel, my boy. Watch her pay for all the nice clothes you have on, out of her purse.”

Jakie watched her open her purse and handed several bills of paper money to the clerk. She closed her purse and asked him:

“Little man where do you live?”

“I lives to Clear Creek, it’s a long, long, way. I walked some and rided some.”

“How will you get home in the cold?”

“I is going back in a wagon I comed in, take me to where a picture horse is in a window.”

Frances led him to the toy-counter to select a toy; she knew his boy-heart wanted some happy plaything. How his eyes stared at a whole counter of Christmas toys!

“Pick out what you want,” she said.

Jakie timidly hesitated.

“Pick out what you want,” she urged him.

Shyly he raised his hand, his heart fluttering in wildest joy, and touched a toy-auto.

Frances caught it up and handed it to the clerk to wrap it up, but she spied the wistful look in his face to carry it just as it was, in his own hands. She reached and took the toy from the clerk and placed it in his hands. He looked up into her face, hugging the auto tight, and said:

“Yes, you is a angel.”

Frances thought he was happy over his new clothes but the auto-toy, all his own, was what his little heart wanted! His eyes danced, his mouth broke into a radiant, joyous, laugh. Again he watched her open her purse and take out her money and pay for his toy. She caught his hand, the other hand hugged his auto-toy, and led him out of the store. They passed through the revolving door into the crowded street. Jakie jerked his hand away suddenly from hers and darted away in the crowd. She stood still utterly astonished. He seemed so sweet and truthful it amazed her for him to wildly snatch his hand out of hers, and dart away from her. She watched him shove himself along in the crowd. She saw him grab the dress-skirt in the back of an old country woman wearing a faded, gingham dress, and a country sun-bonnet, with a faded shawl pinned close up around her neck and shoulders. The woman wheeled around astonished, at a little city boy rudely snatching her by her dress-skirt, and holding a new toy in his hand. She did not recognize her little Jakie.

“It’s me!” he exclaimed, laughing at her not knowing him in his new clothes.

Then she grew very pale, almost fainted when she saw her little boy in all the new clothes. She was hunting for a bare-foot, ragged child on the streets. She had borrowed a neighbor’s horse and wagon to come to town to hunt for him. She could think of nothing else but that her little grandson had helped himself to the new toy and to all the new things he wore. But Jakie was too happy, and too innocent, holding to Mamsy’s dress-skirt pulling her along back to Frances, through the crowd, to notice how scared and pale Mamsy was, and called out to Frances:

“Here’s my Mamsy!”

Frances quickly held her hand out to Mamsy. She saw Mamsy was about to faint. She hastily explained to her:

“I found your little Jakie, cold, lost and crying behind a door, on the street. He was hunting for Santa Claus, and could not find him. So I played Santa Claus to him, and gave him all he wears, and gave him the toy-auto too.”

The color came back into Mamsy’s face, Frances handed to her the bundle of Jakie’s old garments. Mamsy’s fears fled; joy and gratitude beamed in her care-worn, wrinkled, face.

“God bless you! God bless you child!” holding Frances’ hand tight in hers, she lifted it and bent over and touched her lips upon it in gratitude. Then she explained:

“I’m old and we are poor but I loves him and keeps him. We got nothing much way out in the backwoods. He wanted some Christmas so bad he come off to hunt a Santa Claus he saw in a picture. I got nothin’ to ride in, and it’s too far to walk. I borrowed a neighbor’s wagon and horse to come hunt him. God took care of him and sent _you_ to him.” Mamsy’s eyes filled with tears.

Jakie was listening and watching them. He broke in:

“Mamsy she say Jesus sent her to me, did He?”

“He sure did!” Mamsy answered. “You would a been frozen by now in this cold wind. Jesus sure did send her to you, for your Christmas Santa Claus!”

Mamsy was shivering, and Frances noticed how thin her shawl and her dress were. Jakie’s upturned face was gazing at Frances. She leaned over and whispered to him:

“Bring your Mamsy into the store and let us make her happy too. I want to be her Christmas Santa Claus too.”

Jakie seized Mamsy’s dress-skirt again and began pulling toward the revolving door, saying:

“Come on Mamsy! come on! She say she wants to be your Christmas Santa Claus too.”

Dazed and reluctant, Mamsy allowed Jakie to pull her on. She was afraid of the revolving door and held back. Frances stepped close beside her, and placing her hand on her back gently shoved her forward, hurrying through.

The beautiful decorations everywhere in the store, for Christmas, made Mamsy feel it looked like heaven. She and Jakie followed Frances to the elevator. They had never seen a box going up and down in the wall, as Mamsy called it. It frightened them both. They clung to each other afraid.

Frances led the way out to the cloak department. Frances picked out a dark-blue, long, warm cloak for Mamsy. She insisted on Mamsy trying it on. But Mamsy protested declaring:

“Honey, I’m nothing but an old country woman. Never worn a city cloak. I always wears shawls.”

But Frances persuaded her to try it on. She stood before one mirror looking at herself in the long pretty cloak. Jakie stood before another mirror admiring himself, twisting and turning. He called out to Mamsy:

“You don’t look like you, and me don’t look like me.”

Mamsy accepted the cloak, and Frances slipped to one side and paid the clerk for it, happy that Mamsy had it to ride the long way back home in the bitter cold.

Mamsy looked as changed as Jakie when they came down the elevator. Frances knew they must be hungry, as it was long past their dinner time. They came out of the store. Frances invited them to go to a lunch counter and get a hot lunch. Mamsy said she must first see if the horse was where she tied him. Frances went with them around the corner to the side street where the horse stood tied to the hitching post, humped and drawn up from the cold. Frances observed very carefully the horse and wagon; she was planning some Christmas fun with it. They went to the lunch counter farther down the street. Their happy faces wore a greater change than they looked in their new clothes.

She saw them seated at the counter, and went to the cash-clerk, paid for their lunch. She bade them good-bye, after she wrote on her card their address.

“You is an angel,” Jakie insisted. He waved his hand to her until she closed the door behind her.

She walked very fast, almost running in such a hurry to get back to the wagon. She entered a grocery store close by. She picked out oranges, apples, cakes, candies, pecans, raisins and bananas, for Jakie’s Christmas. The clerk tied them in separate bags, then put all the bags into a coarse crocker-sack, and tied it.

Frances spied a picture in the store of the same big, fat, old Santa Claus. She begged for it, and wrote in big letters “Jakie which Santa Claus do you like best?” The clerk pasted it on the bag, swung the sack over his shoulder, and hurried out to the wagon; Frances saying, “Hurry quick! hurry before they come back to the wagon.”

She paid for the things in the sack. She stood, then to examine her pocket-book, to count what money she had left. Her purse was empty,--just a few pennies left to buy Christmas love-gifts for her home-folks and friends. Instead, all of her money had been spent on a dear, ragged little orphan boy, hunting for Santa Claus. And upon a dear old country woman to keep her warm.

Her face beamed, for her heart whispered to her that her money went where it gave the greatest joys at Christmas time.

Yes, her purse was really empty,--no money left in it! But unspeakable happiness whispered to her: Jesus’ own words:

“In as much as ye did it unto the least of these ye did it unto me!”

And his birthday is “love-day” of one toward another, all over the world, and among all people and children where the Bible is loved.

JAKIE AT HOME

Jakie’s home in the backwoods, was close to Mr. Cripple Jim’s home. Mr. Cripple Jim was a dear old man seventy years old, who looked for, listened for, watched for, happy little Jakie’s bare-feet to come tripping up the steps, knock on his door bringing the milk which Mamsy sent to him every day.

Just before Christmas, Mr. Cripple Jim listened for, and watched for, Jakie all day long--but Jakie never came! He never missed coming. Mr. Cripple Jim really felt lonesome, for Jakie was full of fun. The sun was getting low in the west. Night was coming on,--and yet no Jakie came.

He heard noisy, stamping shoes coming up the steps--not Jakie’s nimble bare-feet. But the knock was Jakie’s funny bim! bim! bim! on the door.

“Come in!” the dear old man called out.

The door pushed open. Jakie came in closing the door behind him to shut off the cold winter wind. He stood still mischievously staring at him. Mr. Cripple Jim did not recognize him. Jakie burst into a merry laugh bouncing up and down.

“It’s me!”

“Sure didn’t know you!” exclaimed Mr. Cripple Jim, chuckling.

“You look like a city chap. Where you get such fine clothes?”

Jakie put the bucket of milk on the table, laughing gleefully, “Mr. Cripple Jim you didn’t know me!” Jakie stood by his chair telling him:

“My billy goat was scared of me, he run off, he didn’t know me! The chickens cackled and run from me,--they didn’t know me--nuthin knows me!”

It was a great joke to Jakie to be turned into a city boy in store-bought clothes, so nothing knew him. Mr. Cripple Jim laughed too. He loved Jakie and Jakie loved him. He was constantly whittling with his pen-knife, as he sat alone before his fire, some sort of toy a boy likes. Jakie’s tongue rattled on like a victrola-record telling Mr. Cripple Jim about all the wonderful things he saw in town and about the beautiful girl who spent all of her Christmas money on him. He bent over nearer to Mr. Cripple Jim’s chair with a great secret, whispering into his ear:

“Mamsy say I kin hang up my stocking now, cause my Big Friend give me all dese clothes.”

He rubbed his hands proudly over his clothes, “an she give us a big, big, Santa Claus pack in a wagon. Mamsy say she won’t have to buy nuthin for me in a l-o-n-g time. Mamsy say Jesus sent my Big Friend to peep behind de door and find me a freezing.”

Then he laughed out loud telling of the picture of fat old Santa Claus, that fooled him, pinned on top of the sack. “Us is rich now Mr. Cripple Jim!”

Mr. Cripple Jim listened; his eyes fixed on Jakie’s happy, beaming face. His mind and memory flew back over the years when his own happy little children, his own boys and girls, hung up their stockings Christmas Night around his fire-side. He could see their fun and frolic diving their hands down into the mystery stockings Christmas morning. Now he was an infirm, old man living all alone, using crutches to get about. “All gone, singing the songs of heaven now, and he was just waitin’ to go too,” he would say. He sat before the fire in a chair; one crutch lying on the floor beside his chair, and the other crutch lying on the floor on the other side of the chair.

Tears trickled down the old man’s wrinkled face. No one left to live with him; none left to love him; none left for him to love. He was dependent upon very kind neighbors to look after him. The men chopped his wood for his fire. The women kindly cooked his food and brought to him. Jakie was his cheer and his sunbeam. Jakie saw his tears, his tender heart felt sorry for the lonely old man. He wanted to console him. So he asked him what was uppermost in his own happy heart:

“Does you hang up your stocking?”

The dear old man shook his head, sadly:

“No little man. I’m too old now, and I got no little children to hang up stockings to make fun and a noisy Christmas Morning.”

“No you ain’t too old to hang up your stocking. You ain’t old as fat old Santa Claus, what fills up children’s stockings.”

Mr. Cripple Jim stared into the fire, without answering him, tears still wet his cheeks. Jakie still pleaded:

“Jesus will send a big friend to you like he sent Her to me.” He ran to the head of Mr. Cripple Jim’s bedstead. Laying his hand upon the bed post at the head, said:

“Hang it up right here. Won’t you hang up your stocking Mr. Cripple Jim like me, right here?” and he patted his hand on the post.

Mr. Cripple Jim brushed his tears off with his hand. He smiled back to little Jakie whose kind heart was trying to make him forget, trying to cheer a lonely crippled old man.

“All right,” he nodded, “I’ll hang up my stocking right there to please you.”

“Won’t us have fun!” Jakie exclaimed coming back to the fire. “Suppose Santa Claus forgets me. He ain’t a been coming here in a long time,” Mr. Cripple Jim said to tease Jakie.

“Jesus won’t forgit you. I knows. He didn’t forgit me ’hind de door freezing. He sent me all I got on.” And again he rubbed his hands proudly over his new clothes.

Jakie was satisfied. He hurried out of the door. He looked back at Mr. Cripple Jim to remind him before he shut it.

“Don’t you forgit it!”

Mr. Cripple Jim chuckled, “That child thinks I’m the age of him. To please him I’ll hang up my stocking right now,--to keep from forgitin’ it,--cause old folks is powerful forgitful. I got no stocking to hang up, no women here to wear em. My socks will do just the same.” He lifted up his crutches, raised himself up on them. He hobbled to his trunk. He rummaged inside until he found the new pair of socks Mamsy had knitted for him. He hunted for a pin, he could not find a pin. He hobbled back to his chair. He broke off a splinter from the wood, piled beside his hearth. He sharpened it with his pocket knife and stuck it through the upper edges of the socks, pinning them together. He hobbled to the bed post. He straddled the socks across the bedboard like a boy’s legs straddle a pony’s back.

“There!” he said, “I won’t forgit it now. God bless that child he is made me forgit my troubles!”

Through the wind, Jakie raced back home. He rushed into the house, panting:

“Mr. Cripple Jim say he will hang up his stocking like me!”

Mamsy was sitting by the fire very tired, waiting for Jakie. Jakie pulled off his store-clothes for his old clothes. He drew his little stool before the fire. He sat very still staring into the fire. Mamsy sat very still staring into the fire too. The winter wind moaned and whistled outside. Suddenly Jakie looked up into Mamsy’s face, his eyes twinkling. Eagerly he exclaimed, “Mamsy me wants to give my billy goat to my Big Friend cause she give us heaps of things.”

Mamsy felt inclined to laugh outright at the very idea of sending a country-billy-goat to a city girl as a Christmas gift. Jakie was in eager earnest. She kept her face straight lest she hurt his feelings. She said, kindly:

“City folks got no where’s to keep a billy goat in town.”

[Illustration: GOD BLESS MY BIG FRIEND]

Jakie’s billy goat was the only thing of his very own which he possessed. He loved billy. Billy was his only playmate. He was willing to part with billy to his Big Friend who called him her Little Friend, as a Christmas love-gift. He sighed keenly disappointed. Mamsy proposed:

“Send her one of my turkeys. I saved it to buy some shoes for you. She done give the shoes.”

“But Mamsy,” Jakie objected, “I wants to send her what’s mine.”

They both sat very still again. Jakie watching the bright little fire-sparks fly up the chimney.

He called them fire-bugs because they resembled fire flies. He reached over to the pile of wood by the hearth to fling a fresh stick of fat pine into the fire, and make it blaze brightly.

“Oh Mamsy!” he exclaimed, seizing hold of another stick, “I ken send her some fat, lightwood splinters to start her fire. Mr. Lane hauls it to town to sell to folks. They pays him heaps of money for it.”

Mamsy was pleased. Quickly she agreed:

“You send the splinters and I send the turkey.” Jakie was satisfied. He wanted to rush out in the dark to the woodpile to hunt for a fat stick. Mamsy persuaded him to wait until to-morrow. He was sleepy and shed off his everyday clothes for his “nightie” and knelt down at Mamsy’s knee to say his evening prayers. He folded his hands together and bowed his head. His sweet voice said aloud: “God bless my Mamsy, God bless me and make me a good little boy, so I will go to my Mama in heaven. God bless my Big Friend, for Jesus’ sake amen.”

He raised his head. He stared up at Mamsy astonished. Tears were trickling down her cheeks. He could not understand! He was so happy and Mamsy was crying. Mamsy saw the troubled look in his face. She laid her hand upon his head and explained:

“The Lord is been good to us today. This morning we was so po, you run off to town a-huntin’ for Santa Claus to give you a present, cause we was too po fur you to hang up your stocking. The foxes eat up my young turkeys; the hawks caught my little chickens. I had nuthin to sell to git money to buy us things. The Lord is changed it all. He sent that fine, good, city girl when you was lost to find you, like He sent Angels outen the heavens to sing to the shepherds that night, feeding their sheep; that a wee baby had come named Jesus, to show us how to love each other. He come po like us, cause so many po-folks is in the world. He knows how po-folks lives and po-folks feels without money, to buy clothes and nice things.

“You is little and Mamsy is old. He will always take care of you. He will make you a good little boy and make folks love you like he did today.” She pointed to her Bible, lying on the pine-table, which she read every day saying; “It’s all in there--when you gets bigger you will read it for yourself.”

Jakie stood up and ran and jumped into bed, in the very place he had sneaked from under the cover that morning when the roosters were crowing for the dawn of the day. He lay still as he was very tired and fell asleep.