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diff --git a/31996.txt b/31996.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0437250 --- /dev/null +++ b/31996.txt @@ -0,0 +1,663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Is There a Santa Claus?, by Jacob A. Riis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Is There a Santa Claus? + +Author: Jacob A. Riis + +Release Date: April 15, 2010 [EBook #31996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: cover] + + + + +IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? + +[Illustration] + + + + + +IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? + +[Illustration] + +BY JACOB A. RIIS + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +1922 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + COPYRIGHT, 1904 + BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + + SET UP AND ELECTROTYPED + PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1904 + REPRINTED DECEMBER, 1904 + REPRINTED NOVEMBER, 1912 + + + + +IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? + + +"DEAR MR. RIIS: + +"A little chap of six on the Western frontier writes to +us: + + "'Will you please tell me if there is a Santa + Claus? Papa says not.' + +"Won't you answer him?" + +That was the message that came to me from an editor last December just +as I was going on a journey. Why he sent it to me I don't know. Perhaps +it was because, when I was a little chap, my home was way up toward that +white north where even the little boys ride in sleds behind reindeer, as +they are the only horses they have. Perhaps it was because when I was a +young lad I knew Hans Christian Andersen, who surely ought to know, and +spoke his tongue. Perhaps it was both. I will ask the editor when I see +him. Meanwhile, here was his letter, with Christmas right at the door, +and, as I said, I was going on a journey. + +I buttoned it up in my great coat along with a lot of other letters I +didn't have time to read, and I thought as I went to the depot what a +pity it was that my little friend's papa should have forgotten about +Santa Claus. We big people do forget the strangest way, and then we +haven't got a bit of a good time any more. + + * * * * * + +NO Santa Claus! If you had asked that car full of people I would have +liked to hear the answers they would have given you. No Santa Claus! +Why, there was scarce a man in the lot who didn't carry a bundle that +looked as if it had just tumbled out of his sleigh. I felt of one slyly, +and it was a boy's sled--a "flexible flyer," I know, because he left +one at our house the Christmas before; and I distinctly heard the +rattling of a pair of skates in that box in the next seat. They were all +good-natured, every one, though the train was behind time--that is a +sure sign of Christmas. The brakeman wore a piece of mistletoe in his +cap and a broad grin on his face, and he said "Merry Christmas" in a way +to make a man feel good all the rest of the day. No Santa Claus, is +there? You just ask him! + +And then the train rolled into the city under the big gray dome to which +George Washington gave his name, and by-and-by I went through a doorway +which all American boys would rather see than go to school a whole week, +though they love their teacher dearly. It is true that last winter my +own little lad told the kind man whose house it is that he would rather +ride up and down in the elevator at the hotel, but that was because he +was so very little at the time and didn't know things rightly, and, +besides, it was his first experience with an elevator. + +As I was saying, I went through the door into a beautiful white hall +with lofty pillars, between which there were regular banks of holly with +the red berries shining through, just as if it were out in the woods! +And from behind one of them there came the merriest laugh you could +ever think of. Do you think, now, it was that letter in my pocket that +gave that guilty little throb against my heart when I heard it, or what +could it have been? I hadn't even time to ask myself the question, for +there stood my host all framed in holly, and with the heartiest +handclasp. + +"Come in," he said, and drew me after. "The coffee is waiting." And he +beamed upon the table with the veriest Christmas face as he poured it +out himself, one cup for his dear wife and one for me. The children--ah! +you should have asked _them_ if there was a Santa Claus! + + * * * * * + +AND so we sat and talked, and I told my kind friends that my own dear +old mother, whom I have not seen for years, was very, very sick in +far-away Denmark and longing for her boy, and a mist came into my +hostess's gentle eyes and she said, "Let us cable over and tell her how +much we think of her," though she had never seen her. And it was no +sooner said than done. In came a man with a writing-pad, and while we +drank our coffee this message sped under the great stormy sea to the +far-away country where the day was shading into evening already though +the sun was scarce two hours high in Washington: + + + THE WHITE HOUSE. + + _Mrs. Riis, Ribe, Denmark_: + + Your son is breakfasting with us. We send you our + love and sympathy. + + THEODORE AND EDITH ROOSEVELT + +For, you see, the house with the holly in the hall was the White House, +and my host was the President of the United States. I have to tell it to +you, or you might easily fall into the same error I came near falling +into. I had to pinch myself to make sure the President was not Santa +Claus himself. I felt that he had in that moment given me the very +greatest Christmas gift any man ever received: my little mother's life. +For really what ailed her was that she was very old, and I know that +when she got the President's dispatch she must have become immediately +ten years younger and got right out of bed. Don't you know mothers are +that way when any one makes much of their boys? I think Santa Claus must +have brought them all in the beginning--the mothers, I mean. + +I would just give anything to see what happened in that old town that is +full of blessed memories to me, when the telegraph ticked off that +message. I will warrant the town hurried out, burgomaster, bishop, +beadle and all, to do honor to my gentle old mother. No Santa Claus, eh? +What was that, then, that spanned two oceans with a breath of love and +cheer, I should like to know. Tell me that! + +After the coffee we sat together in the President's office for a little +while while he signed commissions, each and every one of which was just +Santa Claus's gift to a grown-up boy who had been good in the year that +was going; and before we parted the President had lifted with so many +strokes of his pen clouds of sorrow and want that weighed heavily on +homes I knew of to which Santa Claus had had hard work finding his way +that Christmas. + +It seemed to me as I went out of the door, where the big policeman +touched his hat and wished me a Merry Christmas, that the sun never +shone so brightly in May as it did then. I quite expected to see the +crocuses and the jonquils, that make the White House garden so pretty, +out in full bloom. They were not, I suppose, only because they are +official flowers and have a proper respect for the calendar that runs +Congress and the Executive Department, too. + +I stopped on the way down the avenue at Uncle Sam's paymaster's to see +what he thought of it. And there he was, busy as could be, making ready +for the coming of Santa Claus. No need of my asking any questions here. +Men stood in line with bank-notes in their hands asking for gold, new +gold-pieces, they said, most every one. The paymaster, who had a sprig +of Christmas green fixed in his desk just like any other man, laughed +and shook his head and said "Santa Claus?" and the men in the line +laughed too and nodded and went away with their old. + + * * * * * + +ONE man who went out just ahead of me I saw stoop over a poor woman on +the corner and thrust something into her hand, then walk hastily away. +It was I who caught the light in the woman's eye and the blessing upon +her poor wan lips, and the grass seemed greener in the Treasury +dooryard, and the sky bluer than it had been before, even on that bright +day. Perhaps--well, never mind! if any one says anything to you about +principles and giving alms, you tell him that Santa Claus takes care of +the principles at Christmas, and not to be afraid. As for him, if you +want to know, just ask the old woman on the Treasury corner. + +And so, walking down that Avenue of Good-will, I came to my train again +and went home. And when I had time to think it all over I remembered the +letters in my pocket which I had not opened. I took them out and read +them, and among them were two sent to me in trust for Santa Claus +himself which I had to lay away with the editor's message until I got +the dew rubbed off my spectacles. One was from a great banker, and it +contained a check for a thousand dollars to help buy a home for some +poor children of the East Side tenements in New York, where the chimneys +are so small and mean that scarce even a letter will go up through them, +so that ever so many little ones over there never get on Santa Claus's +books at all. + +The other letter was from a lonely old widow, almost as old as my dear +mother in Denmark, and it contained a two-dollar bill. For years, she +wrote, she had saved and saved, hoping some time to have five dollars, +and then she would go with me to the homes of the very poor and be Santa +Claus herself. "And wherever you decided it was right to leave a trifle, +that should be the place where it would be left," read the letter. But +now she was so old that she could no longer think of such a trip and so +she sent the money she had saved. And I thought of a family in one of +those tenements where father and mother are both lying ill, with a boy, +who ought to be in school, fighting all alone to keep the wolf from the +door, and winning the fight. I guess he has been too busy to send any +message up the chimney, if indeed there is one in his house; but you ask +him, right now, whether he thinks there is a Santa Claus or not. + + * * * * * + +NO Santa Claus? Yes, my little man, there is a Santa Claus, thank God! +Your father had just forgotten. The world would indeed be poor without +one. It is true that he does not always wear a white beard and drive a +reindeer team--not always, you know--but what does it matter? He is +Santa Claus with the big, loving, Christmas heart, for all that; Santa +Claus with the kind thoughts for every one that make children and +grown-up people beam with happiness all day long. And shall I tell you a +secret which I did not learn at the post-office, but it is true all the +same--of how you can always be sure your letters go to him straight by +the chimney route? It is this: send along with them a friendly thought +for the boy you don't like: for Jack who punched you, or Jim who was +mean to you. The meaner he was the harder do you resolve to make it up: +not to bear him a grudge. That is the stamp for the letter to Santa. +Nobody can stop it, not even a cross-draught in the chimney, when it has +that on. + +Because--don't you know, Santa Claus is the spirit of Christmas: and +ever and ever so many years ago when the dear little Baby was born after +whom we call Christmas, and was cradled in a manger out in the stable +because there was not room in the inn, that Spirit came into the world +to soften the hearts of men and make them love one another. Therefore, +that is the mark of the Spirit to this day. Don't let anybody or +anything rub it out. Then the rest doesn't matter. Let them tear Santa's +white beard off at the Sunday-school festival and growl in his bearskin +coat. These are only his disguises. The steps of the real Santa Claus +you can trace all through the world as you have done here with me, and +when you stand in the last of his tracks you will find the Blessed Babe +of Bethlehem smiling a welcome to you. For then you will be home. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes. + +Every page in this text was decorated with Christmas themes. The +[Illustration] tags were not included in this text version so that +reading might not be interrupted. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Is There a Santa Claus?, by Jacob A. 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