WHAT SANTA CLAUS BROUGHT TO AILIE McNABB
‘Granny,’ said Ailie, ‘do you think Santa Claus will come here
to-night?’
‘Aye,’ answered Granny, ‘he might.’
‘Will you see him?’ asked Ailie.
‘Not I,’ answered Granny, ‘not a peep.’
‘Will I see him if I stay awake?’ asked Ailie after a moment’s thought.
‘Not if you are canny,’ was Granny’s reply. ‘Santa Claus leaves nothing
for bairns who lie awake on Christmas Eve.’
‘Oh,’ said Ailie, ‘oh, doesn’t he?--Shall I hang up my stocking?’ was
Ailie’s next question.
‘You might,’ was Granny’s reply.
So Ailie hung her stocking, a well-mended stocking, too, from a
convenient nail by the mantel-shelf, and with her head on one side
watched it for a moment as it dangled empty there.
Then she turned to Granny who, well wrapped in her old plaid shawl, sat
rocking to and fro.
‘I hope Santa Claus will bring you something, too,’ said Ailie.
‘I have had my Christmas already,’ replied Granny, ‘a good new friend
round the corner and a cure for my cough.’
‘But perhaps Santa Claus will bring you something more,’ said Ailie
hopefully, as she climbed into bed with Polly in her arms.
‘Snuggle doun,’ said Ailie to Polly, ‘while I tell you a secret. I
told it to the other Polly and now I will tell it to you. This is what
I would like rare fine, though I’m not thinking that Santa Claus will
bring it to me to-night. I would like a mither, a pretty mither, who
would wear a dress made of silk like the one Patty’s mither wore at the
Party to-day. And I would like a father who would put his hand in his
pocket and pull me out a penny just as if it were nothing at all. And
I would like four little brothers and four little sisters to play with
me. I would wash them and dress them and take them all out for a walk.
But if I never had a one of them, Polly, I would not cry, because I
have you, and so long as I have you I will never be lonely again.’
Hand in hand lay Ailie and Polly on the bed. But presently in her
sleep Ailie turned over and burrowed down under the bedclothes until
you couldn’t see so much as the tip of her nose nor one of the sandy
ringlets that clustered all over the top of her round little head. So
far under the bed-covers went she that no doubt that is why Ailie heard
not a sound all the night long.
But Polly, lying beside her on the bed, did not close her pretty brown
eyes the whole night through. So Polly must have seen Santa Claus, for
certainly Ailie’s stocking was filled when she woke in the morning, and
who, may I ask, filled the stocking unless Santa Claus himself had
been there?
Polly, too, through the window, must have watched the moon sail slowly
past in the Christmas sky. She must have seen the stars twinkle and
burn and then grow pale as little by little the light grew stronger and
at last morning came. No doubt Polly saw the great gray snow-clouds
spread and spread until the whole sky was covered over and the first
frosty flakes came softly fluttering down.
Last of all, Polly must have heard the clatter of feet on the stairs, a
clatter that came nearer and nearer to Ailie’s little room at the very
tiptop of the tall, tall building until at last the clatter stopped
just outside Ailie’s own door.
Now Granny was already awake and dressed when the noise came up the
stair.
‘Who can it be so early in the day?’ said Granny to herself.
But when she opened the door and saw who it was standing there on the
little landing, she flung both arms about Aunt Elspeth’s neck--for it
was Aunt Elspeth herself whom Granny saw standing there--and joyfully
brought her into the little room. And behind Aunt Elspeth came Uncle
Rob, carrying a big bag in one hand, and with a white bundle carefully
held in his other arm.
Oh, how glad Granny was to see Aunt Elspeth and Uncle Rob, come all the
way from Scotland over the sea, and, oh, how glad they both were to see
Granny, too!
Then Aunt Elspeth made Granny sit down in the rocking-chair and very
gently she took the white bundle from Uncle Rob’s arms.
She laid it in Granny’s lap, she unpinned a soft white blanket, and
there looking up into Granny’s face lay a little rosy baby with blue
eyes and a sandy curl or two that might have belonged to Ailie McNabb
herself.
‘This is Thomas,’ said Aunt Elspeth proudly,--‘my Thomas. But we call
him Tammus for short.’
‘He is the image of our Ailie,’ said Granny, hugging wee Tammus and
rocking him to and fro and never once taking her eyes off his round
rosy little face.
‘Ailie?’ cried Aunt Elspeth. ‘Where is Ailie?’
There she was, fast asleep, rolled into a ball in the middle of the bed.
Aunt Elspeth took off all wee Tammus’s outside wrappings, and then with
a smile she tucked him under the covers, right down beside Ailie in the
bed.
Now Tammus was wide awake and he didn’t mean to lie still a moment
longer. His fat little legs waved to and fro, his short arms struck out
right and left, and with a mighty thump Tammus turned himself over and
began to crawl up on his Cousin Ailie’s head.
So Ailie woke. And when she saw a real live pink-and-white baby
crawling and tumbling about in the bed, at first Ailie didn’t know what
to think, and then in a moment she understood just what had happened.
‘Santa Claus brought him,’ said Ailie. ‘Santa Claus brought him to me.’
Then Ailie saw Aunt Elspeth and Uncle Rob, and she opened her eyes
wider than ever before.
‘Is it a mither for me?’ asked Ailie in her surprise. ‘A mither and a
father too?’
‘No, Ailie,’ said Granny with a shake of the head, but smiling as Ailie
had not seen her smile in many a long day, ‘but it is almost as good.
It is Aunt Elspeth and Uncle Rob come from Scotland to take care of you
and me.’
When Aunt Elspeth picked up Ailie and hugged her close, Ailie put both
arms about Aunt Elspeth’s neck and felt that this was the very best
present that Santa Claus had ever brought to a little girl.
Then Ailie asked a question that first surprised Aunt Elspeth and then
that made her laugh.
‘Have you a silk dress?’ asked Ailie in Aunt Elspeth’s ear.
‘Yes,’ whispered back Aunt Elspeth, ‘a bright blue silk. Will you like
it, do you think?’
‘Aye,’ answered Ailie, patting Aunt Elspeth’s back in her delight, ‘and
when you put it on you will be prettier than Patty’s mither, for your
cheeks are rosier than hers.
‘I did want four little brothers and four little sisters,’ went on
Ailie, after a bit, ‘but Tammus will do just as well as all of them, I
think.’
‘He will be much easier to take care of,’ agreed Aunt Elspeth. ‘And
then you know Uncle Rob is going to buy a farm, and you and Granny are
coming to live with us there. We will have hens and chickens and ducks,
and a pig, and a cow, and horses, too. You will have plenty of friends
to play with there. You will never miss the four little brothers and
four little sisters, I ween.’
‘Aye, Aunt Elspeth,’ said Ailie happily, ‘’twill be rare fine for Granny
and Tammus and me.’
Uncle Rob proved to be so kind and friendly that Ailie, sitting upon
his lap, went so far as to confide to him ‘her secret,’ her secret wish
for a mother and a father and brothers and sisters, too, and how she
now thought that he and Aunt Elspeth and Tammus would take their places
and answer just as well.
And when, later in the day, Uncle Rob did actually put his hand in his
pocket and pull out a penny for Ailie, ‘just as if it were nothing at
all,’ you couldn’t have found a happier little girl in New York City
than Ailie McNabb.
‘It is a grand Christmas Day, Polly,’ said Ailie as she and Polly
Perkins settled down in a corner for a quiet little talk. ‘Santa Claus
brought me everything. A stocking full of goodies, oranges and nuts and
candies, too. And he brought me Aunt Elspeth and Tammus and Uncle Rob.
‘But I will always love you most, Polly, never fear, because I knew you
first of all. Aye, I will always love you rare fine, Polly Perkins,’
said little Ailie McNabb.