"I used to believe it when I was a girl. I believed it before your
father died, but now--"

"Don't you believe it now?" repeated the first child.

"How can I believe it? You're old enough to understand. That's the last
scuttle of coal we got. We ate the last bit of bread for supper
to-night."

"They say," put in the little boy, "that if you hang up your stockings,
Santa Claus'll fill 'em, 'cause of the Christ Child."

"Don't you believe it, Sonny," said the mother desperately.

"I'm going to hang up mine and see," said the littlest girl.

"He's got too many other children to look after," said the woman, "to
care for the likes of us, I'm afraid, and--"

"But my Sunday-school teacher said He came to poor people special. He
was awful poor Himself. Why, He was born in a stable. That's awful poor,
ain't it?" asked the boy.

"When I was a girl," answered the mother, "I lived on a farm and we had
a stable there that was a palace to this hole we live in now. No, you'd
better not hang up your stockings, none of you."

"And you don't believe in Him, Mommy?"