have
such a good name any more if he keeps up doing like this. People likes
the bringing Santy Claus. I guess they don't think much of the
taking-away business. He gets a bad name quick enough if he does this
much."

She turned to bend her head to look into the vacant chicken house and
stood still. She put out her foot and touched something her eyes had
lighted upon, and the thing moved. It was a purse of worn, black
leather, soaked by the drizzle, but still holding the bend that comes
to men's purses when worn long in a back trouser pocket. One end of
the purse was muddy and pressed deep into the soft soil where a heel
had tramped on it. Mrs. Gratz bent and picked it up.

There was nine hundred dollars in bills in the purse. Mrs. Gratz stood
still while she counted the bills, and as she counted her hands began
to tremble, and her knees shook, and she sank on the door-sill of the
chicken house and laughed until the tears rolled down her face.
Occasionally she stopped to wipe her eyes, and the flood of laughter
gradually died away into ripples of intermittent giggles that were
like sobs after sorrow. Mrs. Gratz had no great sense of humour, but
she could see the fun of finding nine hundred dollars. It was enough
to make her laugh, so she laughed.

"Goodness, such a Santy Claus!" she exclaimed with a final sigh of
pleasure. "Such a Christmas present from Santy Claus! No wonder he is
so fat yet when he eats ten chickens in one night already. But I
don't kick. I like me that Santy Claus all right. I believes in him
purty good after this, I bet!"

She went at once to tell Mrs. Flannery, and Mrs. Flannery was far more
excited about it than Mrs. Gratz had been. She said it was the Hand of
Retribution paying back the chicken thief, and the Hand of Justice
repaying Mrs. Gratz for sending toys to the little Flannerys, and Pure
Luck giving Mrs. Gratz what she always got, and a number of other
things.

"'Tis the luck of ye, Mrs. Gratz, ma'am," she said, "and often I do be
sayin' it is the Dutch for luck, meanin' no disrespect to ye, and the
fatter the luckier, as I often told me old man, rest his soul, and him
so thin! And Christmas mornin' at that, ma'am, which is nothin' at all
but th' judgment of hivin on th' dirty chicken thief, pickin' such a
day for his thievin', when there's plenty other days in th' year for
him. Keep th' money, ma'am, for 't is yours by good rights, and I knew
there would some good come till ye th' m