FullReads

When all was made ready, and it was getting near to night in the afternoon before Christmas, Mrs. Livingston sent a messenger for three men from the farm. When they were come, she called in three African servants, and she said to the six men, “Saddle horses and ride away, each one of you in a different direction, and go to every house within five miles of here, and ask: ‘Are any children in this habitation?’ Then say that you are sent to fetch the children’s stockings, that Santa Claus wants them, and take special care to bring me two stockings from each child, whose father or brother is away fighting for his country.”

So the six men set forth on their queer errand, after stockings, and they rode up hill and down, and to the great river’s bank, and wherever the message was given at a house door, if a child was within hearing, off flew a stocking, and sometimes two, as the case might be about father and brother.

Now, in a deep little dell, about five miles away, there was a small, old brown house, and in it lived Mixie Brownson with her mother and brother, but this night Mixie was all alone. When one of the six horsemen rode up to the door, and without getting down from his horse, thumped away on it with his riding-whip handle, Mixie thought, “Like as not it is an Indian,” but she straightway lifted the wooden latch and opened the door.

“There’s one child here, I see,” said the black man. “Any more?”

“I’m all alone,” trembled forth poor Mixie.

“More’s the pity,” said the man. “I want one of your stockings; two of ’em, if you’re a soldier’s little girl. I’m taking stockings to Santa Claus.”

“O take both mine, then, please,” said Mixie with delight, and she drew off two warm woolen stockings and made them into a little bundle, which he thrust into a bag, and off he rode. Mixie’s father was a Royalist, fighting with the Indians for the British, but then Mrs. Livingston knew nothing about that.

It was nearly midnight when the stockings reached Fort Safety. It was in this very room that Mrs. Livingston and Aunt Elise received them. Some were sweet and clean, and some were not; some were new and some were old. So they looked them over, and made two little piles, the one to be filled, the other to be washed.

About this time Santa Claus came down from his locked-up room, with pack after pack, and began to fill stockings. There were ninety-seven of them, beside sixteen more that were hung on a line stretched across the fire-place by the children before they went to bed, so as to be very handy for Santa Claus when he should enter by the chimney.

“What an awful rich lady my fine old Grandmother Livingston must have been, to have goodies enough to fill 113 stockings!” said Carl, his red hair fairly glistening with interest and pride; while Bessie and Dot looked eagerly at the fire-place and around the room, to see if any fragment of a stocking might, by any chance, be about anywhere.

Well, at last the stockings were full. I cannot tell you exactly what was in them. I remember that my grandmother said, that in every stocking went, first of all, a nice, pretty pair of new ones, just the size of the old ones; and next, a pair of mittens to fit hands belonging with feet that could wear the stockings. I know there were oranges and some kind of candy, too.

At last the stockings were all hung on a line extending along two sides of the room, and Mrs. Livingston and Aunt Elise locked the room, and being very tired, went to bed. The next morning, bright and early, there was a great pattering of bare feet and a flitting of night-gowns down the staircase, past the evergreen trees in the hall, and a little host of twelve children stood at that door, trying to get in; but it was all of no use, and they had to march back to bed again.