We always used grandmother's stocking - because it was the biggest one
in the family, much larger than mother's, and somehow it seemed able to
stretch more than hers. There was so much room in the foot, too - a
chance for all sorts of packages.

There was a carpet-covered couch against the flowered wall in one corner
of the parlor. Between the foot of it and the chimney, was the door into
our bedroom. I always hung my stocking at the side of the door nearest
the couch, on the theory, well-defined in my mind with each recurring
Christmas, that if by any chance Santa Claus brought me more than he
could get into the stocking, he could pile the overflow on the couch.
And he always did!

It may seem strange that a lad who seldom heard even the third
getting-up call in the morning should have awakened without any calling
once a year - or that his red-night-gowned figure should have leaped
from the depths of his feather bed - or that he should have crept
breathless and fearful to the door where the stocking hung.
Notwithstanding the ripe experience of years past, when each Christmas
found the generous stocking stuffed with good things, there was always
the chance that Santa Claus might have forgotten, this year - or that he
might have miscalculated his supply and not have enough to go 'round -
or that he had not been correctly informed as to just what you wanted -
or that some accident, might have befallen his reindeer-and-sleigh to
detain him until the grey dawn of Christmas morning stopped his work and
sent him scurrying back to his toy kingdom to await another Yule-tide.

And so, in the fearful silence and darkness of that early hour, with