e mantel shelf, every Christmas morning.

Every year Julia thought about it for weeks before Christmas, and
hoped and hoped he would have something different this time, but there
they always hung, and he had to go and kiss his Grandmothers, and
pretend he liked the stockings the best of anything he could have had;
for he would not have hurt their feelings for the world.

His parents might have bettered matters a little, but they did not
wish to cross the old ladies either, and they had to buy so much yarn
they could not afford to get anything else.

The worst of it was, the stockings were knit so well, and of such
stout material, that they never wore out, so Julia never really
needed the new ones; if he had, that might have reconciled him to the
sameness of his Christmas presents, for he was a very sensible boy.
But his bureau drawers were full of the blue stockings rolled up in
neat little hard balls--all the balls he ever had; the tears used to
spring up in his eyes every time he looked at them. But he never said
a word till the Christmas when he was twelve years old. Somehow that
time he was unusually cast down at the sight of the eight pairs of
stockings hanging in a row under the mantel shelf; but he kissed and
thanked his Grandmothers just as he always had.

When he was out on the street a little later, however, he sat down in
a doorway and cried. He could not help it. Some of the other boys had
such lovely presents, and he had nothing but these same blue woollen
stockings.

"What's the matter, little boy?" asked a voice.

Without looking up, Julia sobbed out his troubles; but what was his
horror when he felt himself seized by the arm and lifted up, and
found that he was in the grasp of a policeman in white top boots. The
policeman did not mind Julia's tears and entreaties in the least, but
led him away to the Patchwork School, waving his stick with its blue
ribbon bow as majestically as a drum major.

So Julia had to sit down in a little chair, and sew patchwork with the
rest. He did not mind the close work as much as some of the others,
for he was used to being kept indoors, attending to his Grandmothers'
wants; but he disliked to sew. His term of punishment was a long one.
The Patchwork Woman, who fixed it, thought it looked very badly for a
little boy to be complaining because his kind grandparents had given
him some warm stockings instead of foolish toys.

The first thing the children had to do when