Johnny Cricket jumped out of the crack into the fireplace and ran out into the great big room so that he might see what the man had pounded.  The light from the lamp was too dim for him to make out the objects hanging from the mantel above the fireplace.  All he could see were four long black things, so Johnny Cricket climbed up the bricks at the side of the fireplace until he came to the mantel shelf, then he ran along the shelf and looked over.  The black things were stockings.

Johnny began to wish that he had stopped to put on his stockings, for he was in his bare feet.  He had removed his little red topped boots when he decided to climb up the side of the fireplace and now his feet were cold.

So Johnny started to climb over the mantel shelf and down the side of the fireplace when there came a puff of wind down the chimney which made the stockings swing away out into the room, and snowflakes fluttered clear across the room.

There was a tiny tinkle from a bell and, just as Johnny hopped behind the clock, he saw a boot stick out of the fireplace.

Then Johnny Cricket’s little bug heart went pitty-pat, and sounded as if it would run a race with the ticking of the clock.

From his hiding place, Johnny Cricket heard one or two chuckles, and something rattle.  Johnny crept along the edge of the clock and holding the two feelers over his back looked from his hiding place....

At first all he could see were two hands filling the stockings with rattly things, but when the hands went down below the mantel for more rattly things, Johnny Cricket saw a big round smiling face all fringed with snow-white whiskers.

Johnny drew back into the shadow of the clock, and stayed there until the rattling had ceased and all had grown quiet, then he slipped from behind the clock and climbed down the side of the fireplace as fast as he could.  Johnny Cricket was too cold to stop and put on his little red boots, but scrambled through the crack in the fireplace and hopped into bed.  In the morning Mamma Cricket had a hard time getting Johnny Cricket out of bed.  He yawned and stretched, put on one stocking, rubbed his eyes, yawned, put on another stocking and yawned again.  Johnny was still very sleepy and could hardly keep his eyes open as he reached for his little red-topped boots.

Johnny’s toe struck something hard, he yawned, rubbed his eyes and looked into the boot.  Yes, there was something in Johnny Cricket’s boot!  He picked up the other boot; it, too, had something in it!

It was candy!  With a loud cry for such a little Cricket, Johnny rushed to the kitchen and showed Mamma, then he told her of his adventure of the night before.

Mamma Cricket called Papa and they both had a laugh when Johnny told how startled he had been at the old man with the white whiskers who filled the stockings in front of the fireplace.  “Why, Johnny!” said Mamma and Papa Cricket.  “Don’t you know?  That was Santa Claus.  We have watched him every Christmas in the last four years fill the stockings, and he saw your little red topped boots and filled them with candy, too.  If you will crawl through the crack into the fireplace you will see the children of the people who own this big house playing with all the presents that Santa Claus left them!”