N ie sed out Santa Sei EE. Jy JOHN KENDRICK PANGS-~ j iorders to carey. you through to New York|[very difficult struggle for existence. I jand I'm practically through this year. I'llfcouldn't blame anybody either, because! tell you about it with pleasure. Just climb|{ I'd made the rules myself, and in refus- back into bed so's you won't catch cold and! ing to answer my summons the gatekeeper ; ll sit down tlongside.of you and tell you | was merely obeying my orders." Hi all about ir" | "I should think you'd be glad to so) | And the dear oid Saint began. [people there--you're always so good na-! Mooyright by the New York Herald Company All rights reserved.) ROM my earliest infaney up-to the present I have always had the good | fortune to beljeve in Santa Clans | Lots of people, old and young--par | ticularly some very wise young peo- | ple that I know---have told me that BE no such person exists, but [ kanow better.| It fer The dear old saint is to my knowledge a © 8Us an ! very beautiful spirit, and every time that] Dumber of babies to be cared for that We work so hard for six months of the * * . % . [tured," said 1. MH all Santa "But you don't quite understand, "That's very true," said Was two years ago," said Santa "There was an unusually large Clans Christmas comes along I see him alwost | To and they were just the goodest log year that we have to rest the other six. | everywhere I tum, among the rich, the|¥0U oVer saw, though between you and While we are sleeping we can't see eo When ble you know-we'd be awfully dull com ! powerful, the fashionable: equally among | M* I think all babies are good. the poor and lonely. I've seen him beam- ing from the comfortable cushions of gu) Might be it almost always means there's i abd 3 £ i v fine electric motor ¢ar speeding along the) Pio sticking into them or their dinner rupted. By the time I got back to Claus| parkways, and perched happily up slong | doesn't agree with them or some other good reason which they always know! pany Hf we did see them--and while we| : i are working we are too busy to be inter | they don't seem to be as good as they s 3 i barg everybody's gone to sleep for the! anaual rest, and I conld have hammered |, 14 gentleman. "Perfectly awful" "Why? I asked. "Didn't you want to give the conductor ten dollars®"' "Oh, it wasn't that," said Santa Claus. It was the quality of my | e for a week until I had earned fifty dol-| side the driver cf a heavily laden truck in the dusk of a bitterly ¢6ld winter's day| They didn't cry much at night and they prompting his companion to deal gently Spent most of their days smiling and coo with his wears horses and under. the spell{ ing and clapping their hands gleefully. | of the hour to forget the dreadful condi | Somehow or other, while I am fond of all tion of the highway, the clogging of the | babies, 1 seemed to be particularly found streeis and his poor frosthitten node and | of them. Your little brother Dick, for cheeks. So no cue need tell me that Santa! instance. and Clans does not exist or try to push the | Pollie~she was just the sweetest littje glorious old _catlemsn back into the | Pollie that ever was" { realm of what the wise people call myth | "Yes," said I, "I know 'eth both 1 shall simply treat all such absurd state] fie's pretty fine" ments a8 that with a broad grin and : wink that shows that I know better. six months at the gate before I could! have wakened any one of them." = 1 "Somebody might have sat up for you, though," 1 added. "It's against the roles to sit up after see," sald 'It wasu't that. six," said Santa Claus, and then he went on, "Well, 1 didn't know what to do." said he, © "1 shout for three or four hours, find then realized it, and I hadn't any other." ! #9 | The old gentleman shook his head sol-| outside |smnly as he recalled the embarrassing in-! Sammy Bronson's sister wandered | ident. { "There I was," he resumed a moment ater. "Put off) the (rain at Kalamazoo that there was only one thing to be done Pol |make the best of it, and go back to earth} living as best 1 could So back with ten thousand dollars in my pocket ard not a penny that was worth a dent." "They didn't put you off the train?' I "Didn't you tell them "Well, there were most a milion babies again and earn my like that that year, and I had something open again ed until the gates were But I bave other rea 'than these for | for every one of them," Santa Claus'con-ito Chicago 1 tru and then bearded believing in years ago--1 (sha date--1 lay in ambush for him oue Christ-| Work all by myself, ras morning dod caught lim jost as he! five Christmas morning came, both my had completed his work upon my stocking, | reindeer and I were dreadfully tired and hanging from the chimney place, dnd made Sleepy. The reindeer were so tired they him talk to me. | became nervous, and while 1 was fixing "Hullo, you!" 1 cried, gs 1 popped out] up the stoekings in a big orphan asylum from bebind the bureau, where I had been! in Chicago they both took fright at a loce- hiding. "You're Mr. Santa Claus, aren't] motive whistle half a mile away and ran you?" | away. They flew back to Clausburg and "You," he said, with a funny little igh) got in all right, but I had to trudge home thet made him shake so that it alse shook °" f00t. I got there at half-past six and the house, "I may us well admit it. Noth-| the gates were closed. It was a fright ing to be ashamed of, oh?' {ful situation, I knocked and knocked : "No, indeed," said I. "Something to be) 20d knocked, but nobody came, and 1 proud of, rather, I should say." {realized that the case was hopeless, 1 "Thank you," said the old gentleman. "It's very good of yon to say so. What ttt LRN REI RR eee terres P0000 00009000000000000 000 'ried indignantly, "It was the busiest night I'd ever & train for New York, making so close a for once, some! tinued not specify the exact! bad, and in those days I was doing the aa "Oh, 1 Clans, shrugging his shoulders, "But they conuection- that 1 hadn't time to buy a We'd got when up comes the conductor So, when half-past ticket, as far as Kalamazoo yes--1 told them," said Santa only grinned. The conductor was one of those funny men who like to make jokes * 'Ticket, please," he said, stopping in front of me and getting his puncher ready "I told him I hadn't one and asked Row [to 'make passengers laugh." I handed me back my toy money. much the fare was To New York, intend 'I'm Santa Claus,' said when he ing to pay in cash. * "Thirtysix dollars,' said the conductor.) 'I haven't a doubt of it. he replied. "I had about ten thousand in my pocket, 'You ought to travel in a sleigh, not in a 80 this did not worry me, Taking out my sleeping car.' wallet I counted out the necessary thirty-| + My reindeer 1: n uway and I've been locked out,' "1 ex lained, } ki 1 i six one dollar bills and added ten dollars "Oh, yes, I know,' said he, with a win 'But more, which 1 told the conductor to keep for himself in hopoer of the season. And said the at the other passengers really, then--oh dear! It was awful! can 1 do for youn?" 3 "I thought 1'd ask you to take me back 3 with you to Santa Clausville," T answered. | + "I'd like to take a peep at those wonderful | § workshops of yours." . : "Hm! Well, that isn't a bad idea," said = . Wd © he, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "But je Ssmriane Highs Beverveds i ~er--what would your family think about it? Wouldn't they Worry over your dis- appearance?' They might think I'd turned kidnapper, and that would never do." i known such a sensation. Al feonductor pounded at his piano while a especially appealing across the footlights. | iblending of meszos and 'yrie sonranos Tall and slender, but of excellen® poise, OT since the Hibernians openedbeat upon his ears. Presently some one she held her head as if u little disdaia- their new ball on the day that sounded an amphibious bigh note that ful. Her arms and shoulders were of | Murphy's horse threw him in the broke. almost before it reached its liberty. snowy whiteness, The complexion was i St. Patrick's parade had the block! The dirgeter 'ceased abruptly and the girlithat of the truest {ype of Irish 'maiden- "E shoukh't be ps ! vn such a Mrs. began to cough, This stopped his on- hood and her well rounded forehead was n Kobe long, I suggested. | * Corrigan's Katie had gone on the staught for a moment, but only for a mo-| veiled in the raven black hair that she "Say, only for awiay. I could get a good stage, and the tenements were wild With mént, for he turned cn Mrs, Corrigan, parted in the centre, allowing it to fall woep'at things in a day, couldu't 17" |the news. More than that, she had moved | shouting :-- | carelessly on' either wide. - So no wonder' #. : a a over on the west side to live with an' "For heaven's sake woman, how arelit became the 'que tion, "Who is the a ] think De vould, Said Santal, np whose husband had made a fortune these girls going to sing in the dust YOU | pretty Irish gil" And there was no 8. ut the way things go in this| with the carts and sand, and ance she had are miking?" janswer, but that she wag Irish, that she world there is pg communication between been down to see her mother in an auto-{ "Faith, an' how are yez goin' to expect was Miss Kompton, ard that she Jived Santa Town, or Clausburg, as some peo. | mobile. It was a sure enough sensation. i people to come into a (heatre if it aif't with relatives on the upper west side, midnight Mrs, Corrigan took it mildly. "Katie i8 clean," retorted Mrs, Corrigan, still sweep-' At all of which Katie laughed merrily as a good girl," she would say, "an' she be!ing, {she told her mother or the visits down *hristmas| doin' much for her mother," and she would! "Now be sensible, woman," said the home, where the boys and girls still! if you went back with me/shake her head and then go aver tp the leader, Ple eall it; except between Christmas Eve and six o'clock ¢ morning. So THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG, SATURDAY, DEC dif {the only ghimbley on the train." i 5 money. It was toy money, every cent off, : - {pase with his thumb nail. {you'll have to get off here. I haven't any|8¢ Valentine's Day. And then I began a A Daughter of Santa Claus | fesse tsssssesssssees PPPPPVP000000 00000000000 00000000000 00000004 PPP PP0000RP00030000000000000000 0000000000000 000000000¢ ¢ ¥ X ' » Ir'sigot a position first on the elevated rail road as a guard, but 1 couldn't keep it because I couldn't make people step lively, : I guess I was too polité Tnstead of call again, ing out, 'Step lively thére! in tones like "Oh, no." seid Santa Claus. "He was|thunder or a cannon going off suddenly only doing his duty. But it was very/and making people so nervous that they bard for me. I got off the train and made Saat pp Jumping fast Tq sor, Bet ups my mind to work until T had earned don't hind accelerating your footsteps enough to pay my way to New York inljust a trifle it would materially aid the engineer of this train in his conscientious efforts to run through to the terminal on : {schedule time. You'd think being polite suid Sania Ons way would bring about the desired only dishonest thing 1 ever did." ey et w, Shite Be rr cSheveling "hi! = a uonesl| stop to listen to what I was sdying, 'and la ie Als E00: pevhlel vie consequence was my train never did 0.11. f roug! ; ways from "That is true," said Santa Claus. "ig [E50 the ng on um, Lt WAS 2'waye the way I did it was mot guite vight.|", 5, they discharged you for being There was not much snow in Kalamazoo! did they?" said I. : | polite, that year and I had to make a little go a . . i 1 shovelled it off one side-| That was the real reason,' said Santa great ways. d - : i . |Claus, "bit the one théy gave was that I walk on to another and then back again wis 'so #6 T't00k 'ip Che Too: of three ars" orflinary passeugers, so that they lost ten "I don't quite understand," said I. |cents at the yery least on each trip. At "It was this way," Santa Claus replied, the end of six weeks I was discharged mapping out a diagram on the counter-| 81d gompelled to look for a pew position. p "Poor old Santa Claus~--it was' out: ~unless you ride in fhe smokestack. "He was horrid!" said 1 indi ntly | i American money." 2 { "What did you do¥" I asked. { v1 shofelléd snow," with a deep drawn sigh. "Here was] number 92 Main street with spow en the rageous!" said I : I shovelled that snow off num-| "Oh, no," said the kind hearted oid ber 92, throwing it upon the walk of saint. "It was just businéss. I am pretty number 94, Then | went to the people big around, you know. Well, the next living in number 94 and was paid for | thing I did was to try being a cab driver. shovelling it off the walk of 91. I tossed I got a position as the driver of a hansom it. back on the walk of 92. Then 1 went|cab, but I soon lost that. My great size to 92 again and was pa'u for cleaning! was against me there, too. You see, every the walk another time, throwing the snow [time I'd get nn into that little seat at the cgain on the walk of number 94. So Ijrear of the hansom I was so heavy 1 kept it up, seesawing that beautifu} snow [lifted thé horse cléar off his feet. Only from one walk to another, backward and! his bind legs could reach the ground. and forward, until I Lad earned all the money | people were afraid to ride with me be I needed." [cause they thought thé horse was too "It was kind of queer," said I. frisky. Anybody would think that to see "Yes," said Santa Claus. "And I've ala horse trotting down the avenue on his ways heen sorry for itt But what could I hind legs and his fore féet waving in the do? I had to earn my living, and really it|air, wouldn't they?" was just ag hard work as if IT had simply! "Yes, I think they would," said IL I've] "I triad qa four wheeler next, with very sidewalk. shovelled the now into the street, {more than made up for it since by leaving similar results,' continued the old gen extra presents at each of those houses at|tleman. "I weighed down the front of Christmas time. too--so in a way I have|the cab so far-that the people inside had all they could do to keep from sliding out the front windows, so my employer called the to him one morning and paid me my wages and sent me off, He gave atoned for my mistake. Anyhow, I earned my fifty dollars and paid my fare to New York with it, reaching that city about By Wells Hawks dream, his friends were overjoyed and! 'Never mind," said Katie; "jump in." Katie was happy. | 'Where shall I go?" asked the boy, tak: The aight before Christmas Spencer's | ing the wheel, : friends' planned to return the bovor and "Down Broadway and across Union give Katie a party of their own that would [Square and down the Bowery. Then I'll outshive 'anything in chorus girl Society, | TR it" Katie was willing and promised to sing. | Ehe ealled on her mother in the afternoon down the Christmas crowded street just gud took her a little present. She noticed 48 Spencer and his friends came from the in the cigar store under the fat that they réstantant, Katie had "fixed" (he stage had cot heér picture out of a paper and doorman and he Knew nothing. pasted it on the "window. Katie swiled! It was s wild ride, but the boy was doing and the boy inside threw her a kiss. well, and they turned into the broad street When she passed through the stage door by the park. at night a group of girls saluted her: -- , "Do you know wheré I can get a Christ. "Hello, Miss Popular!" mas tree?' asked Katie. . Shé did wot understand; but when she, "On First avenue," answered the boy. reached the dressing room she understood! They whirled around to 4 provision store the full meaning of the remark, Her dress. and bad a tree and a lot of wreaths The car shot around the corner and --- - me a letter of recommendation to & friend of his in the coal business, for which I thanked him, little dreaming why he did it and for what reason he thonght the coal dealer would like to employ me. I presented my letter to thie coal man the next morning.' He was delighted with me, apparently, and told me to call around the following Monday and he would give me employment at once. This, of course, I did, but alas! only again to be bitterly disappointed." "Did hie go back on his word?" I asked. "No; indeed; but the work he had for me to do--dear me, I sever could think of such a thing," groaned Santa Claus. "What was it?" I asked. "Shovelling coal?" : "Nothing half so honest," said Santa Claus. "He wanted me to drive his wag- on and to sit in the wagon with the coal 'while it was being weighed." vd "You did have a hard time of it!" I cried, as I thought over the old gentle man's experience. "Yes--and so it went all along" he sighed. "I tried to write poetry for tha magazines, but the only kind I knew how to write was the little things they put on candies--little mottoes like :-- When this you chance to chew 1 Remember I love you, land :-- . A, EI and O are vowels good' snd true, But the one I love the best of all is U, | "I sent a lot of those out fo the maga: zines that print poetry, and they all came back to me by return mail. None of the editors seemed fo eare for them, and when I took them to ~ candy store and tried to sell them there they told me they only sold candy and didn't publish it. I was at my wits' ends to knaw what to do, but fortus nately I met a man one day who owned a restaurant, His attention was attracted by the fact that I was so stout. and he offered me thrée meals a day and a place to sleep beliind his restaurant if I'd be a sandwich man and walk up and down ths street with two big placards on me, one on my back and the other hanging over my chest, with J ~ 1 Eat at Bunkerberry's, 1,015 Canal Street, i written on them. He thought it would be a good advertisement of his place, and I guess it was, for he kept we busy until December. It wasn't pleasant work, but it was honest, and I kept at it steadily until I began to get thin, what with the food they gave me and the exercise I had to take. My clothing hung loosely upon me like Phe £2 iy 4 figally be dis charged me--said I wasn't what he wanted any more." Santa Claus paused for a moment, drew a deep sigh, and h sar "Then came the last," he said. *To keep my clothes from falling off I stuffed them full of old papers and' straw and looked for another place, and a week be: fore Christmas had the good hick fo find one in a toy shop. The owner of it thought I looked so like Santa Ciaus that it would be a first rate thing to have me in bis shop for the last week before Christmas, I never let on that I really was Santa Claus for fear he'd think I wax crasy o. am impostor. | simply went to work and stayed with him for five days, when I was discharged again. You see I never could get used to selling Ohristmas presents, so when people came in to buy things I'd just wrap them up and give Se & h d ight when the head i ) ¢ in the machine, Then Katie t he| them away, and one night when t "- Mrs. Corrigan; was eut of sight, | | ng table, the cha rand all the space about Midi ted bof e took the of the firm came to fount up. the profits i , ; . 4 it were piled high with parcels. Tt looked Wheel and soon arriv Wore the door of rh A R who, now arrayed in a gorgeous stage "Shire an' I am sweepin' many a time! SSmewlere between the footlights and, pp Chitistmas Eve revel in an express her home. The rushing of the machine ang| "© had ® terrible time of it, I'd gives gown, looked the beauty 'that she really' when my Katie is practisin'." the front raw of the orchestra seats there! fo | HE | the sight of Katie brought everybody out|*"87 About eight hundred dollars' worth wud. Katie Corrigan bad always been the| hig evidently settled the matter, for the i§ an invisible line where lurks that mis |" en ' | and aff the heads to the window. 'Grogan of dolls and mechanical toys and Noah's beauty of the ward. It was she all the conductor went back to his piano and Mes, chievous little chap who meddles with our WY' 4 : io {#rks, and when he asked what had be: : dame out of his saloon and waved his boys wanted to dance with the might the! (orriga "Don't you know these girls can't trooped out to meet her and where the to-night it would be a whole year before| Mantel and with her apron wipe the dust sing while you sweep?" Iheads: hung out of 'the windows' until she You, could come home again. I'm afraid from the photograph of a tall, slender gith,! "I do mot." replied you'd be awfully homesick before long, even with me, and your friends would be dreadfully worried." ¥ Oh, my, my!" she exclainted, and "Do you only lave six hours in which to do all your work 1" I asked, "That is all T have here," said Santa Claus. "That is why of late years you find me using the mails and the express companies so much in the delivery of packages. There are so many more ; v n continued her cleaning of the hearts, and many of his well aimed darts 160 her eyes filled with teats au a, big. bite #pron, There were scores of hands|C ™® Of them and I told Nim--oh, dear Hibernians threw their hall open, and iti centre nisle. Later in the day tiie coi. are those that go aver the line from the! e Cverium was current gossip the next day that|guerer came through the lobby and cross bow of a pair of dancing eyes. | Paddy Ryan got one over the head in passed Mrs. Corrigan, who was polishing Katie had these daneing eyes, but if they | Grogan's for calling down Tim Kelly. wholy pagerelief thing tna suggested some- fired the duns it was ail unconsciously | bad taken all the dances away from the | ing about art. He had a memory, for done. At any rate, they had been fired rest of the gang. And it was Katie, too, he' remarked -- (and the girls in 1he company knepr that who had been the soprano in St. Plus'l «86 you have a danghter who sings?" the target was in the front row every from the time she left the parish school, Mrs, Corrigan dropped her rag and night. Katie did wot fully realize jt : and Father Shea had gotten a lot of the plnces to 'be visited now then there used people who had the moliey to. spare 16 '> be at I have been forced to havelmake up a fund for the cultivation of Ber assistance. If I didn't I'd be detmined | voice, fs hiete #0 late that I conldn't get homé &t| Katie was very proud of the day she all for a whale year." * [took her first lesson, and several Sundays, he Ea Ee later, when the choir director gave her a "What!" | cried. "Can't even you get| is ot iio io sing, her sweet voice went! in after pix?" . tirtain of the be way her into every one's'heart and Ler face beamed toqra with a nl ot : "Nope! replied Santa Claus "If 1]¥hile in one of the back pews Mrs. Corti- | goike later a "Misa Katherine Komp 5 ; a 'made her appearance in the chotus, wers one minute late. in driving np te po 1 A the gates of my own country I should bei hundred other events in the life of POPUIAT| progan and Mrs. Cotrigan ih to be § unable to got in." _ | Katie were being discussed when the nEWE ont at K fine debit, "That's queer! Ever been locked out?" queried. : bunch of roses, and the girls laughed at her surprise. She only knew it was from | of a mother's affection. It impressed "Mr. Spencer," and the front row of girls the man of music, for he had Katig/said he was a file fellow and swlully brought to the theatre, and she sang for{rich. Katie told her mother about if! him while Mrs. Corrigan stood behind the and she looked at her for & long time without saying a word. gad! "Pretty girls bave adipirers," Father Shea told Mrs. i. Two bad heard all about Katie and her voice, and it was told with all the enthusiasm of her going on She stage fined dont thet ; © Mrs. Corrigan was a widow, Pat had oF th bor been a good man to her, hut there werd Hitle savi psed AY . : } polish, and before the man had left he until one night there came to her a huge! lump came into her throat. i y came and: then the curtain. 'The girly 10 carry the tree aud the parcels upstairs it up, and such a chorus of went on the stage and she was left alone, | 20d to set Sobbing with joy. and because her heart| AME!" as all' of the beautiful: things beat so fast, she looked over the wonder. | SET¢ spread out. Mrs. Corrigan sat on wl assortment. Such a lot of presents, | 'he sofa and wept and Mrs. Hogan held and all fro Spencer's friends--every. Ver hand. thing in the world a girl would want. Katie opemed # small box and nearly Then there was a silver comb and brush dropped it when she Sw 3 gold bar with from Mrs, Hogau and ber assistants. and, * diamond studded "EK" ouft. Spencer's to prove that all show girls are not jeal- OUx, there were trinkets from her friends Bi S \ in the front row. 'Ihen sbe went on the Scribbled card, "From Tim Keily to Ka. stage and threw every bit of her heart|He&" Bho pressed it to her lips ints ber voice. The énd of the perform: |ipped it on Ber dri. ance came. All of the giris were in a] "Ob, T forgot the auto!" she exeln irry--all had parties and it was the night of Katie's party. She dressed and then Al looked in the e. The! it was 4 simple little bracelet with a and itned. Up & piece of wrapping paper r. Spencer: me for stedling your avto, Ia quick calf to help Sant Bed your soon, uingbe. Tell thon that this is from FER OF SANTA CLAUS. card was on it. She opened another and | me, he was terribly put out, and so was I. I was put out so quick that 1 scarcely knew what bappened until I gathers myself together and took an inventory of ry legs, arms, teeth, eyes and other neces. sities of life. No bones were broken, however, and I was consoled hy the fact that only two days remained before the "It was this thought that carried through, and when, shortly after midnight of Christmas Eve, 1 beard the Jingling bells of reindeers and sleigh fu (he air, you can be sure it was old Banta Claus that waited z I I IF i ij