DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? by Lois T. Henderson

The Reverend Paul Edwards stood at the back of the auditorium of the church and looked at the Christmas decorations. The decorating committee had just gone home, and he was alone in the dim sanctuary, alone with the glittering tree and the fragile silver star that hung above the altar.
But, for all the beauty, he was not stirred or moved, and a minister ought not to feel like that, he knew, not when he was only thirty and fairly new to the ministry. He ought to be filled with a fire. Especially when it was Christmas Eve.

But that was the whole trouble. He couldn't get excited about Christmas. He only knew he was tired and let down and maybe even a little disillusioned. He remembered Christmases when he was a theological student, and it had seemed as though all the air were filled with a sense of the miraculous. But now the air was just air, and misery engulfed him to think that it was so.
He sat in one of the pews and slid down on the end of his spine to stare at the artificial star against the darkened windows. That's just it, he thought, everything is artificial. The decorations, the very hearts of people. And mine too.

Suddenly he was frightened. He didn't want to feel the weariness, the artificiality. He wanted to feel as he had once felt, that miracles did happen on Christmas Eve, that animals could talk at midnight, that flowers did bloom out of the snow as gifts for the Christ child. He wanted the feeling so badly that it was like an aching in him.

I'll go home, he decided. Jeannie will cheer me up. He thought of his wife, small and merry and wise, and some of the panic dissolved in him. Jeannie will know what to say, he thought again, and pulled on his coat to go out into the night.

The darkness and the wind struck at him as he opened the church door. The snow drifted against his face to melt into little spots of wetness on his cheeks and lips. Boyishly, he stuck out his tongue to the snow, and it tasted cool and wet. The street lights made little pools of yellow in the dark, and the snow seemed to swirl in miniature whirlwinds under each light.

It looks like Christmas, he admitted to himself, but it doesn't feel like Christmas. And for a minister, it has to. It absolutely has to.

He walked swiftly to his house and came in out of the night and the cold to find light and fragrance and warmth. Jeannie met him in the hall, and her kiss was sweeter than usual.
"Cookie dough," she explained, and rubbed at her mouth.

Her eyes were soft and shining. She gets more beautiful every day, Paul felt, especially with the baby on the way. Her body was large and awkward with the weight of the child she carried but her face was tender and lovely.

As he looked at her standing there, he knew he couldn't tell her. Not on Christmas Eve. He couldn't tell her he was tired and frightened and not so sure of miracles any more. He couldn't transmit his fear to her. She believed in all the magic of Christmas — you could see it in her eyes — and he just couldn't spoil it for her.

So he attempted lightness instead. "How's the little mother?" he asked. "Not you. You're only making promises so far. I mean the real one."

Jeannie laughed with indulgent scorn. "That Hildy!" she said. "You'd think she was the only dog in all the world who ever had puppies. Honestly, she polishes them."

"It's her German heritage," Paul pronounced. "All dachshunds are abnormally clean."

"She's just fussy," Jeannie said, starting for the kitchen. "I hope I'll be a little more casual with our baby."

She leaned over heavily to take a tray of cookies from the oven.

"You're not baking cookies again?" he said. "Not at the last minute?"

She looked apologetic. "Not many. Just some gingerbread men. And these are the scraps. I remembered about six o'clock that I hadn't fixed a single thing for Penny Ellis, and I just had to do something."

Paul thought of Penny with sorrow. Poor little six-year-old Penny who had been desperately ill from polio in the summer and who was just now home from the hospital, facing the long difficult time of learning to walk again — if she ever did.

"Maybe we could have bought her something," he said.

"No, she'll get plenty of dolls and fancy things. But I thought she'd love a gingerbread boy. With lots of icing."

"You!" he said. "You always think of the right things. Every single time."
"I did when I picked you," she said.

And he wondered what she would say if she knew of the thoughts that had tormented him lately. Not doubt — it wasn't that. He still believed in God and in God's plan for him. It wasn't that at all. It was just that all the shine had worn off and he had begun to wonder if even the ministry, which he had thought would always be a thing of wonder and glory, had gotten drab and had lost much of its meaning. He wondered if cynicism, the greatest thief of all, had come into his life and heart.

"You take them over to her," Jeannie said, interrupting his thoughts. "She'll be extra thrilled if the minister comes on Christmas Eve."

"I don't think her Dad will be very thrilled," Paul said.

"Poor Guy," Jeannie murmured. "I feel so sorry for him."

"I feel sorrier for Penny," Paul said.

"No, because Penny still has faith in life. Guy doesn't. He's so bitter and resentful. Can't you help him, Paul?"

Paul's heart cried: How can I help him when I'm so mixed up myself! "I don't know," he answered guardedly. "He's pretty touchy right now, isn't much interested in preaching."
Jeannie laughed. "Oh, heavens, I don't mean preach at him. I mean just show him somehow, some way — you'll know how, Paul — that life is still wonderful. I think he thinks God has a special, personal grudge against him,"

"He isn't the only man whose child ever had to surfer," Paul said.

"But he feels Penny's suffering so intensely," Jeannie answered. "And I'm afraid his bitterness will hurt her. I'm afraid it'll break down her confidence. Aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," Paul admitted. "Well, I'll get along. Want to go along?"

"I'd love to, but I'm going to clean up the kitchen and then lie down on the couch for an hour or two so I'll be rested for the midnight service. This son of yours has been pretty active today," she said smugly.

"Daughter, you mean," Paul corrected her.

He took her in his arms. It seemed he had never loved her more than now. Her face still bore a faint trace of cookie dough, there was flour on her cheek, and her mouth looked tired. He held her gently, sensing the movements of their unborn child. Jeannie, he thought silently, pray for me, help me regain what I've lost.

"I love you," he said, kissing her.

"I love you too," she answered. "Come on now and take the cookies. I don't want you to be out too late."

He took the cookies wrapped in bright paper and went out again in the snow and the wind. In his present frame of mind, he really dreaded going to the Ellises'. He loved Penny, and his heart ached for her, but it seemed to him that he almost bruised himself on the bitterness of Guy Ellis. It was really more than bitterness with Guy, Paul felt; it was lack of belief and faith and hope. It was a sullen sort of despair.

In a few minutes Paul knocked at the door of the Ellis home, and Nancy, Penny's mother, came to let him in.

"Why, Reverend Edwards," she cried. "How nice to see you. Guy, here's Reverend Edwards."
Guy Ellis came to greet the young minister, and his handclasp was cordial enough. Only his eyes showed the defeat and the despair.

"Merry Christmas," Paul said smiling. "I came to see Penny."

Nancy looked pleased. "She's not asleep yet. I was just going to read her a story. She'll be so tickled to see you."

Paul followed Nancy down the hall to the bedroom that had the high plain hospital bed in the center of it. Lying on the bed was a very thin little girl with quick-moving hands and too-still legs. Her light hair was pulled into braids, and her eyes were large from recent suffering.
"Reverend Edwards," she said, and the small pointed face grew bright. "I was just thinking about you."

"Were you?" Paul said. "And I was thinking about you."

"I'll let you talk to Penny," Nancy said, "and I'll go and tend to some secrets."
She winked at Paul and he marveled at her courage in the face of such odds,
"I'm glad she's gone," Penny confided as soon as her mother had left. "I was just layin' here wishin' you'd come, and you did. So now I know the other thing will happen, too."
Paul felt a faint prickle at the nape of his neck. "How — just wishing I'd come?" he said cautiously.

Penny smiled. "I just said a while ago — in a little whisper, you know, so nobody'd hear — I just said, 'Dear God, please let Reverend Edwards come to see me 'cause I just have to tell somebody my secret.' And you came."

Paul's lips felt a little dry. Coincidence, said the cynical part of his heart, and he listened to it,
"So you have a secret?" he said and he tried to sound gay.

But she was very serious. "This is a very important secret," she said. "Very terrible important. I wasn't going to tell anybody. Just God, you know. But then I felt the secret would just bust out of me if I didn't tell someone."

She put her thin little hands on her chest as though the secret were lodged there.
"Then I thought about you," she went on, "and how well you know God, so I knew it would be all right to tell you."

Paul stared at the child. "How well I know God?" he asked, shaken.
She nodded. "You talk to Him in church like — well, kind of like He lived next door to you."
Paul couldn't say anything. There were just no words to say to the child.
"The secret's something I asked God for," Penny said. "For Christmas. Lean down so I can whisper."

Paul felt an agony in him. She has asked God to make her walk, he thought. And she believes it will happen, like a miracle. And I can't stand to see her hurt.
"What did you ask for?" he whispered and bent close to her.
He was so amazed when her soft answer came that for a second he only looked at her blankly. "What?"

"A dog," she repeated. And Paul's heart soared. I have it in my power to work a miracle for her, he exulted to himself. I can bring over one of Hildy's pups and the prayer will be answered.
But then Penny went on solemnly, "A little gold-colored dog with long curly ears. And I'll call him Star. Wouldn't it be beautiful to get a real live golden Star on Christmas?"

Paul stared at the child, feeling utterly cast down. Hildy's pups would never do, for who could possibly explain to Penny that God could make a mistake and send a dark red-brown sleek little dachshund when a gold fluffy-eared cocker spaniel had been requested. No, I won't be able to work a miracle, after all, he thought. It was foolish to believe I could.
"Did you tell your Mommy?" he asked. "Or your Daddy?"

She shook her head against the pillow. "No, just God. And now you. But I know God will give me the dog."

There was such confidence and faith in her eyes that Paul thought he could not bear it. Because where would such a dog come from if her parents didn't know she wanted one? Why hadn't she written it in a letter to Santa like other kids did and then her father could have read the letter? Why had she prayed about it? And in secret? And then, suddenly, Paul knew as plainly as though someone had told him. Penny was testing God. That was it. She was testing the strength and power of God. If He could get her this dog for Christmas, He could make her walk again. Paul felt sick at the pit of his stomach.

Penny smiled placidly. "I feel better now I've told you," she said. "Secrets get too big sometimes, don't they?"

"Yes," he said, "they do." And his mind was filled with whirling thoughts. Where could you get a gold-colored dog with curly ears that could be called Star, especially at nine o'clock on Christmas Eve?

He got up and tried to smile at Penny. "I'm glad you told me," he said. "But I'm going to have to leave, Penny, I've got so much to do. Merry Christmas, sweetheart."
"Merry Christmas," she answered, and her voice sounded relaxed and sleepy.
Paul hurried from the room and went to the living room. Guy and Nancy Ellis looked up from the packages they were wrapping.

"Finished talking so soon?" Nancy said.

Paul nodded. "I've got to talk to you," he whispered, "where Penny won't hear."
Guy regarded him with something like suspicion and Nancy spoke quickly.
"I'll just run in and cover her up," she said, "Then we can go into the kitchen to talk where she can't hear."

Paul and Guy waited without speaking until Nancy came back, and then they went together down the hall to the kitchen.
"Is something wrong?" Nancy asked.

"I'll say something is wrong," Paul said. "That poor little kid has got her heart completely set on something for Christmas that she hasn't told either one of you about."
"Oh, no!" Nancy's hand went to her mouth.

"What is it?" Guy asked. "I'll get her anything. She's had enough of a rotten deal. What is it?"
"She prayed about it," Paul explained. "She asked God to give it to her. It's a dog she wants — and from the description I'd say she wants a gold cocker spaniel and she wants to name it Star because it came on Christmas."

Nancy and Guy stared at him without speaking. He knew they were thinking, as he had, that it would be impossible to find a dog like that now, at this hour, on Christmas Eve.
"Why didn't she tell me?" Guy said, and his voice was savage. "Why did she have to pray about it?"

Paul felt sure the other man's thoughts were bitter ones, that he was thinking he could give to his child the things God would not or could not give. Paul tried to speak gently. "I think she's sort of testing God," he said. "I think she feels if He can get her a dog, He can do anything." He paused. "Even make her walk," he said.

There were tears on Nancy's face.
"The doctors say she might walk," she whispered. "But she'll have to believe it herself."
"How can she believe it when I don't believe it?" Guy said, and the hopelessness was evident in his voice. "She'll never walk again. Never."
Nancy turned on him. "If it weren't for you," she said, but she kept her voice pitched low, "Penny wouldn't have felt it necessary to try God out. It's your lack of faith that has made her afraid."

Guy stared at his wife, and Paul's heart ached for both of them.
"I can't help it," Guy said. "I just can't help it."

"You don't try," Nancy sobbed. "You don't even try. And now, what's going to happen to her? We can't get the dog. You know we can't."

"We can try," Paul interposed. "Come on, Guy. I've got two hours till church service. Let's get going."

While Guy went for his wraps, Paul spoke to Nancy. "Did you know Penny prayed much?" he asked. "I mean, had she ever told you?"

Nancy wiped at tears with her hands. "Yes," she said shakily. "Sometimes I go in and her eyes are shut and her lips are moving, and when I speak to her she looks very reproachful and says she's talking to God. I thought it was all right."

"It is all right," Paul said. "You know it is." In the midst of all his troubled thoughts he remembered Jeannie's voice saying, "I remembered about six o'clock I hadn't fixed a thing for Penny Ellis,"

I'm being foolish, Paul thought, this is crazy. But he stilled the cynicism and forced himself to ask the question. "Nancy," he said, "did you notice Penny praying tonight?"

She thought for a minute. "Why, yes," she answered, "when I took in her supper, about six o'clock. Why?"

"Nothing," Paul said, but he felt a great stirring in his heart, a great trembling.
"Where'11 we start?" Guy said.

"My house," Paul decided. "We can use the phone without Penny hearing, We'll call the owner of every pet store we can find."

"There's only two," Guy reminded him. "It isn't as if we were in a big city."

"We'll call the police," Paul went on. "Maybe they've picked up a stray."
"I don't think it'll do any good," Guy said.

Paul felt a touch of impatience. "Well, at least we can try before we give up."
Guy hunched his chin into his collar. "I guess it's pretty easy for a preacher to have faith," he said, and his voice was filled with mockery, "when he's never had trouble or sorrow."
Paul's impatience died away. "No," he said. "It's not even easy then."

Guy's face jerked toward the minister, "You mean you have doubts, too?"
"I think everyone has doubts," Paul said, "only some of mine are going away." And, on sudden impulse, he told Guy of Penny's praying for him to come to her and of Jeannie's decision to make the gingerbread boy.

"Coincidence," Guy said. "You know it if you're an educated man."
"Maybe," said Paul, because part of him felt that Guy was right and he was weary from the warring in his soul.

An hour and a half later, Guy and Paul were riding hopelessly and almost aimlessly through the snow-filled streets. They had spent half an hour on the telephone and an hour driving around in the cold, but they had been completely unsuccessful.

"Now talk about prayer," Guy said bitterly. "Or haven't you prayed about this dog? Is that too little a thing to bother God about?"

"Of course I've prayed," Paul said. "Because it isn't little. Because I think if Penny could get this dog it would give her all the faith she'd need to walk again."

"I believe that too," Guy admitted, and his words sounded ragged. "Only there isn't any dog."
"Maybe if you prayed too?" Paul suggested, and he knew that Jeannie and Nancy were adding their prayers to his.
"Me?" Guy said. "Why should I? Do you think a God who would let a little kid get crippled would help us find a dog?"

Paul realized the man was crying and he thought, I wish I knew what to say. I wish I had confidence to give him. I wish I could say that it's bound to happen just because it's Christmas. But I can't say that.

The motor coughed and Paul glanced swiftly at the dashboard. He was out of gas, and at this hour! But when he glanced up again, he saw that he was within a block of a gas station and the owner, Dick Hayson, who lived next door to the station, was one of his parishioners. I'm in luck, Paul thought, and let the car drift coughing to the driveway of the station. He stopped by one of the tanks and went to ask Hayson for some gas.

Hayson was obliging and, while he filled the tank, Paul looked at his watch. Only 25 minutes until he had to be in church for the midnight service. And no dog for Penny. And no comfort or peace to offer to the unhappy man in his car. Paul silently pounded one clenched fist into the other hand.

At that moment a sound came through the night, a soft hesitant sound. The whimper of a small dog. Paul looked up, dazed and unbelieving, to see a gold cocker spaniel come toward him across the snow-covered drive. The puppy stopped in front of Paul, and, staring down at the dog, Paul felt himself possessed of the urge to shout with exultation. And at the same instant, he felt a great compulsion to stand in silence and reverence as though this were a holy place.
Dick Hayson looked up to see the dog at Paul's feet. "Well, I'll be darned," he said. "How'd that pup get out? He must have squeezed out right past my feet."

It was almost too much for Paul. His hopes had soared and fallen too many times, and he felt battered from it all.

He wet his lips with his tongue and managed to speak at last. "You mean it's yours?" And what did you think, a tired, bitter voice said in his heart — that God would fashion a cocker puppy out of snow?

Hayson smiled. "Got it for my boy for Christmas. Cute, isn't he?"

Paul nodded humbly. He wanted to weep but he managed to say courteously, "Yes! I hope it will be a happy surprise for your boy "

Hayson laughed, and his laughter had a rueful sound. "It'll be a surprise all right — but I don't know how happy. He wants another kind of dog altogether."

Paul stood very still but he felt a trembling in his body. Again he licked his lips and when he spoke his voice came in a husky whisper, "What kind of a dog?" he asked, but he knew what the answer would be.

"A dachshund. But we couldn't find one anywhere."

The night was suddenly starred with serenity. This was right, Paul knew, not an ethereal, impossible-to-understand miracle, but a practical thing. Coincidence? questioned his heart once more, but his faith was stronger, all at once, than any questioning. This wasn't coincidence, but a Plan conceived in love and executed with mercy.

In a few brief words, he explained the situation to Hayson and promised to come back immediately after the midnight service with a dachshund puppy if he could take the gold cocker spaniel to Penny. Hayson was delighted, handed the little dog to Paul, and went back to his house shaking his head in wonderment at his "luck."

Paul walked to the car, and when Guy Ellis looked up and saw the dog, his face seemed to sag. "Whose is it?" he managed to ask.

"Penny's," Paul said.

"But where'd it come from?"

Paul looked into the other man's eyes. "I think God sent it," he said.
"I don't see — it couldn't — can you explain —" Guy began, stammering.
Paul put the dog into the other man's arms and explained what had happened as he drove along the snowy street.

"It's a coincidence," Guy said at last, but his voice was not steady.
"But a God-given coincidence," Paul said.

"But God didn't just send him through the air," Guy insisted. "If we had just stayed home praying, the dog wouldn't have come floating through a window."

"Probably not. Maybe we have to help miracles happen." And it was a moment of discovery for Paul, too. "But God did answer Penny's prayer, Guy. Somehow, He did."

"Maybe — I guess you're right," Guy said at last, and Paul heard the faint warmth of hope in Guy's voice. Maybe with hope would come faith, the young minister exulted silently, all the faith Penny would need in the days ahead.

After he delivered Guy and the dog, he hurried home to get Jeannie. He was filled with a recurring sense of wonder as he told her about the dog, and she accepted the news with gladness, but he knew somehow that she had never doubted it would happen.
They walked together to the church, and just before they reached the door, Paul turned to Jeannie.

"I didn't believe it would happen," he confessed. "I needed the — the miracle too, Jeannie. Why can't my faith stay strong?"

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "Peter had to have the walking on the water," she said. "Everyone needs something like that once in a while to help him."
"But not you," he protested.

"I have a miracle growing in me," she said. "And I have you. That's all I need."
They walked into the church together, and the night was bright with candles and the sound of the organ and the glimmering of the fragile star above the altar. Paul looked at it and thought of the light that would be in Penny's eyes when she saw her golden Christmas Star the next morning.

A great happiness filled him and his eyes clung to Jeannie's face as he sang with his people, "Joy to the World, the Lord Is Come."

THE MOUSE THAT DIDN'T BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS by Eugene Field

The clock stood, of course, in the corner; a moonbeam floated idly on the floor, and a little mauve mouse came from the hole in the chimney corner and frisked and scampered in the light of the moonbeam upon the floor. The little mauve mouse was particularly merry; sometimes she danced upon two legs and sometimes upon four legs, but always very daintily and always very merrily.

"Ah, me," sighed the old clock, "how different mice are nowadays from the mice we used to have in the old times! Now there was your grandma, Mistress Velvetpaw, and there was your grandpa, Master Sniff whisker — how grave and dignified they were! Many a night have I seen them dancing upon the carpet below me, but always that stately minuet and never that crazy frisking which you are executing now, to my surprise — yes, and to my horror, too!"

"But why shouldn't I be merry?" asked the little mauve mouse. "Tomorrow is Christmas, and this is Christmas Eve."

"So it is," said the old clock. "I had really forgotten all about it. But, tell me, what is Christmas to you, little Miss Mauve Mouse?"

"A great deal to me!" cried the little mauve mouse. "I have been very good for a very long time; I have not used any bad words, nor have I gnawed any holes, nor have I stolen any canary seed, nor have I worried my mother by running behind the flour barrel where that horrid trap is set. In fact, I have been so good that I'm very sure Santa Claus will bring me something very pretty."

This seemed to amuse the old clock mightily; in fact, the old clock fell to laughing so heartily that in an unguarded moment she struck twelve instead of ten, which was exceedingly careless.

"Why, you silly little mauve mouse," said the old clock, "you don't believe in Santa Claus, do you?"

"Of course I do," answered the mauve mouse. "Believe in Santa Claus? Why shouldn't I? Didn't Santa Claus bring me a beautiful butter cracker last Christmas, and a lovely gingersnap, and a delicious rind of cheese, and — lots of things? I should be very ungrateful if I did not believe in Santa Claus, and I certainly shall not disbelieve in him at the very moment when 1 am expecting him to arrive with a bundle of goodies for me.

"I once had a little sister," continued the little mauve mouse, "who did not believe in Santa Claus, and the very thought of the fate that befell her makes my blood run cold and my whiskers stand on end. She died before I was born, but my mother has told me all about her. Her name was Squeak nibble, and she was in stature one of those long, low, rangy mice that are seldom found in well-stocked pantries. Mother says that Squeak nibble took after our ancestors who came from New England, and seemed to inherit many ancestral traits, the most conspicuous of which was a disposition to sneer at some of the most respected dogmas in mousedom. From her very infancy she doubted, for example, the widely accepted theory that the moon was composed of green cheese; and this heresy was the first intimation her parents had of her skeptical turn of mind. Of course, her parents were vastly annoyed, for they saw that this youthful skepticism would lead to serious, if not fatal, consequences. Yet all in vain did they reason and plead with their headstrong and heretical child.

"For a long time Squeak nibble would not believe that there was any such archfiend as a cat; but she came to be convinced one memorable night, on which occasion she lost two inches of her beautiful tail, and received so terrible a fright that for fully an hour afterward her little heart beat so violently as to lift her off her feet and bump her head against the top of our domestic hole. The cat that deprived my sister of so large a percentage of her tail was the same ogress that nowadays steals into this room, crouches treacherously behind the sofa, and feigns to be asleep, hoping, forsooth, that some of us, heedless of her hated presence, will venture within reach of her claws. So enraged was this ferocious monster at the escape of my sister that she ground her fangs viciously together, and vowed to take no pleasure in life until she held in her devouring jaws the innocent little mouse which belonged to the mangled bit of tail she even then clutched in her remorseless claws."

"Yes," said the old clock, "now that you recall the incident, I recollect it well. I was here then, and I remember that I laughed at the cat and chided her for her awkwardness. My reproaches irritated her; she told me that a clock's duty was to run itself down, not to be depreciating the merits of others! Yes, I recall the time; that cat's tongue is fully as sharp as her claws."

"Be that as it may," said the little mauve mouse, "it is a matter of history, and therefore beyond dispute, that from that very moment the cat pined for Squeak nibble’s life; it seemed as if that one little two-inch taste of Squeak-nibble's tail had filled that cat with a consuming appetite for the rest of Squeak nibble. So the cat waited and watched and hunted and schemed and devised and did everything possible for a cat — a cruel cat — to do in order to gain her murderous ends.
"One night — one fatal Christmas Eve — our mother had undressed the children for bed, and was urging them all to go to sleep earlier than usual, since she fully expected that Santa Claus would bring each of them something very nice before morning. Thereupon the little dears whisked their cunning tails, pricked up their beautiful ears, and began telling one another what they hoped Santa Claus would bring. One asked for a slice of Roquefort, another for Swiss, another for Brick, and a fourth for Edam; one expressed a preference for Cream cheese, while another hoped for Camembert. There were fourteen little ones then, and consequently there were diverse opinions as to the kind of gift which Santa Claus should best bring; still there was, as you can readily understand, an enthusiastic agreement upon this point, namely, that the gift should be cheese of some brand or other.

" "My dears,' said our mother, 'we should be content with whatsoever Santa Claus bestows, so long as it is cheese, disjoined from all traps whatsoever, unmixed with Paris green, and free from glass, strychnine, and other harmful ingredients. As for myself, I shall be satisfied with a cut of nice, fresh American cheese. So run away to your dreams now, that Santa may find you sleeping.'

"The children obeyed — all but Squeak nibble. 'Let the others think what they please,' said she, 'but I don't believe in Santa Claus. I'm not going to bed, either. I'm going to creep out of this dark hole and have a quiet romp, all by myself, in the moonlight.' Oh, what a vain, foolish, wicked little mouse was Squeak nibble! But I will not reproach the dead; her punishment came all too swiftly. Now listen: who do you suppose overheard her talking so disrespectfully of Santa Claus?"
"Why, Santa Claus himself," said the old clock.

"Oh, no," answered the little mauve mouse. "It was that wicked, murderous cat! Just as Satan lurks and lies in wait for bad children, so does the cruel cat lurk and lie in wait for naughty little mice. And you can depend upon it that, when that awful cat heard Squeak nibble speak so disrespectfully of Santa Claus, her wicked eyes glowed with joy, her sharp teeth watered, and her bristling fur emitted electric sparks as big as peas. Then what did that bloody monster do but scuttle as fast as she could into Dear-my-Soul's room, leap up into Dear-my-Soul's crib, and walk off with the pretty little white muff which Dear-my-Soul used to wear when she went for a visit to the little girl in the next block! What upon earth did the horrid old cat want with Dear-my-Soul's pretty little white muff? Ah, the ingenuity of that cat! Listen.

"In the first place," resumed the little mauve mouse, after a pause that showed the depth of her emotion, "in the first place, that wretched cat dressed herself up in that pretty little white muff, by which you are to understand that she crawled through the muff just so far as to leave her four cruel legs at liberty."

"Yes, I understand," said the old clock.

"Then she put on the boy doll's cap," said the little mauve mouse, "and when she was arrayed in the boy doll's fur cap and Dear-my-Soul's pretty little white muff, of course she didn't look like a cruel cat at all. But whom did she look like?"

"Like the boy doll," suggested the old clock.

"No, no!" cried the little mauve mouse.

"Like Dear-my-Soul?" asked the old clock.

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed the little mauve mouse. "Why, she looked like Santa Claus, of course!"

"Oh, yes; I see," said the old clock. "Now I begin to be interested; go on."

"Alas!" sighed the little mauve mouse, "not much remains to be told; but there is more of my story left than there was of Squeak nibble when that horrid cat crawled out of that miserable disguise. You are to understand that, contrary to her mother's warning, Squeak nibble issued from the friendly hole in the chimney corner, and gamboled about over this very carpet, and, I dare say, in this very moonlight.

"Right merrily was Squeak nibble gamboling," continued the little mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double somersault without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!' pleaded Squeak nibble. 'No, I'll not hurt you/ said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece o£ savory old cheese, you dear little mousie, you.' Poor Squeak nibble was deceived; a sceptic all her life, she was at last befooled by the most fatal of frauds. 'How good of you!' said Squeak nibble.

'I didn't believe there was a Santa Claus, and —' but before she could say more she was seized by two sharp, cruel claws that conveyed her crushed body to the murderous mouth of the cat. I can dwell no longer upon this harrowing scene. Before the morrow's sun rose upon the spot where that tragedy had been enacted, poor Squeak nibble passed to that bourne to which two inches of her beautiful tail had preceded her by the space of three weeks to a day. As for Santa Claus, when he came that Christmas Eve, bringing cheese and goodies for the other little mice, he heard with sorrow of Squeak-nibble's fate; and ere he departed he said that in all his experience he had never known of a mouse or a child that had prospered after once saying he didn't believe in Santa Claus."