Nor had Santa Claus forgotten Joel, although Joel thought he had; for now Santa Claus looked kindly at Joel and smiled and said:  “Merry Christmas to you, Joel!”

“Thank you, old Santa Claus,” replied Joel, “but I don’t believe it’s going to be a very merry Christmas.  It’s been so long since I’ve had a merry Christmas that I don’t believe I’d know how to act if I had one.”

“Let’s see,” said Santa Claus, “it must be going on fifty years since I saw you last—­yes, you were eight years old the last time I slipped down the chimney of the old homestead and filled your stocking.  Do you remember it?”

“I remember it well,” answered Joel.  “I had made up my mind to lie awake and see Santa Claus; I had heard tell of you, but I’d never seen you, and Brother Otis and I concluded we’d lie awake and watch for you to come.”

Santa Claus shook his head reproachfully.

“That was very wrong,” said he, “for I’m so scarey that if I’d known you boys were awake I’d never have come down the chimney at all, and then you’d have had no presents.”

“But Otis couldn’t keep awake,” explained Joel.  “We talked about everythin’ we could think of, till father called out to us that if we didn’t stop talking he’d have to send one of us up into the attic to sleep with the hired man.  So in less than five minutes Otis was sound asleep and no pinching could wake him up.  But I was bound to see Santa Claus and I don’t believe anything would’ve put me to sleep.  I heard the big clock in the sitting-room strike eleven, and I had begun wonderin’ if you never were going to come, when all of a sudden I heard the tinkle of the bells around your reindeers’ necks.  Then I heard the reindeers prancin’ on the roof and the sound of your sleigh-runners cuttin’ through the crust and slippin’ over the shingles.  I was kind o’ scared and I covered my head up with the sheet and quilts—­only I left a little hole so I could peek out and see what was goin’ on.  As soon as I saw you I got over bein’ scared—­for you were jolly and smilin’ like, and you chuckled as you went around to each stockin’ and filled it up.”

“Yes, I can remember the night,” said Santa Claus.  “I brought you a sled, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and you brought Otis one, too,” replied Joel.  “Mine was red and had ‘Yankee Doodle’ painted in black letters on the side; Otis’s was black and had ‘Snow Queen’ in gilt letters.”

“I remember those sleds distinctly,” said Santa Claus, “for I made them specially for you boys.”

“You set the sleds up against the wall,” continued Joel, “and then you filled the stockin’s.”

“There were six of ’em, as I recollect?” said Santa Claus.

“Let me see,” queried Joel.  “There was mine, and Otis’s, and Elvira’s, and Thankful’s, and Susan Prickett’s—­Susan was our help, you know.  No, there were only five, and, as I remember, they were the biggest we could beg or borrer of Aunt Dorcas, who weighed nigh unto two hundred pounds.  Otis and I didn’t like Susan Prickett, and we were hopin’ you’d put a cold potato in her stockin’.”