stockings when they are asleep in bed. I
should like very well to be his helper some time."

"You may be," Mother answered; "anyone who really wishes to be Santa's
assistant, may be."

Johnnie Jones was surprised. "Well, I didn't know that," he said.
"Please tell me how."

"Whenever people give Christmas presents to those they love, they are a
sort of Santa Claus," Mother told him. "But this year you may be a real
Santa Claus, if you like, with a real pack of toys, and you may fill
some real stockings belonging to some real children, this coming
Christmas Eve."

"Oh! Mother dear, tell me all about it, quick as a wink," begged Johnnie
Jones, clapping his hands with delight.

"I thought you would be pleased," Mother answered. "Father knows of a
large house in which ever so many children live who have never hung up
their stockings. I suppose no one has thought to tell Santa Claus about
them, and their fathers and mothers are very poor. Father and I want
to make them have a bright, happy Christmas this year, and he has told
them, each one, to be sure to hang up stockings on Christmas Eve for a
Santa Claus to fill. If you like, you may be that Santa, and Father and
I will be your assistants, and we'll go, all three of us, to the house
at night when the children are fast asleep."

Johnnie Jones skipped joyfully about the room. "Shall we go in a sleigh
with bells and reindeer?" he asked.

"We'll go in a sleigh if there is snow," Mother promised, "but I am
afraid we shall have to use horses, and pretend they are reindeer."

Johnnie Jones was greatly excited. He asked Mother every question he
could think of, and wished it were Christmas Eve that very minute.
Mother told him be should be glad they still had several days before
Christmas in which to make their preparations.

That same afternoon they went shopping. Johnnie Jones was allowed to
select the toys for the children, and he chose enough drums and horses,
wagons and cars, dolls and play-houses, dishes and tables, to fill four
very large boxes. Next, they ordered the candy, pounds and pounds of it,
and a big tree with ever so many candles for it. Last of all, they
bought warm coats and shoes.

The next three days was a busy time for Johnnie Jones. After he had
finished his gifts for the family, he went to work on the decorations
for the tree. He made yards and yards of brightly colored paper chains,
and many cornucopias. Every evening before his bed-time Mother