your eyes all bright and sparklin’, an’ your cheeks as red as apples.  Seems, too, as if I could hear you laughin’ and callin’, jist as you did as I toiled up the old New England hill that Chris’mas mornin’—­a-callin’:  ‘Joel, Joel, Joel—­ain’t ye ever comin’, Joel?’ But the hill is long and steep, Marthy, an’ Joel ain’t the boy he used to be; he’s old, an’ gray, an’ feeble, but there’s love an’ faith in his heart, an’ they kind o’ keep him totterin’ tow’rd the voice he hears a-callin’:  ’Joel, Joel, Joel!’”

“I know—­I see it all,” murmured Santa Claus very softly.

“Oh, that was so long ago,” sighed Joel; “so very long ago!  And I’ve had no Chris’mas since—­only once, when our little one—­Marthy’s an’ mine—­you remember him, Santa Claus?”

“Yes,” said Santa Claus, “a toddling little boy with blue eyes—­”

“Like his mother,” interrupted Joel; “an’ he was like her, too—­so gentle an’ lovin’, only we called him Joel, for that was my father’s name and it kind o’ run in the fam’ly.  He wa’n’t more’n three years old when you came with your Chris’mas presents for him, Santa Claus.  We had told him about you, and he used to go to the chimney every night and make a little prayer about what he wanted you to bring him.  And you brought ’em, too—­a stick-horse, an’ a picture-book, an’ some blocks, an’ a drum—­they’re on the shelf in the closet there, and his little Chris’mas stockin’ with ’em—­I’ve saved ’em all, an’ I’ve taken ‘em down an’ held ’em in my hands, oh, so many times!”

“But when I came again,” said Santa Claus—­

“His little bed was empty, an’ I was alone.  It killed his mother—­Marthy was so tender-hearted; she kind o’ drooped an’ pined after that.  So now they’ve been asleep side by side in the buryin’-ground these thirty years.

“That’s why I’m so sad-like whenever Chris’mas comes,” said Joel, after a pause.  “The thinkin’ of long ago makes me bitter almost.  It’s so different now from what it used to be.”

“No, Joel, oh, no,” said Santa Claus. “’Tis the same world, and human nature is the same and always will be.  But Christmas is for the little folks, and you, who are old and grizzled now, must know it and love it only through the gladness it brings the little ones.”

“True,” groaned Joel; “but how may I know and feel this gladness when I have no little stocking hanging in my chimney corner—­no child to please me with his prattle?  See, I am alone.”

“No, you’re not alone, Joel,” said Santa Claus.  “There are children in this great city who would love and bless you for your goodness if you but touched their hearts.  Make them happy, Joel; send by me this night some gift to the little boy in the old house yonder—­he is poor and sick; a simple toy will fill his Christmas with gladness.”

“His little sister, too—­take her some presents,” said Joel; “make them happy for me, Santa Claus—­you are right—­make them happy for me.”