six-by-nine window panes, as well as the goods
therein. Men and women were hastening homeward with well-filled
baskets which they had provided for the festive morrow. All the
ragged, dirty urchins of the village were gathered about the dingy
shop windows admiring, with distended eyes and gaping mouths, the
several displays of toys and sweetmeats.

Their arms buried quite to their elbows in capacious but empty
pockets, they cast longing looks and wondered, as they had no
stockings, where Santa Claus could put their presents when he had
brought them. To all this show and preparation there was one
exception: one place shrouded in total darkness--it was the shop of
Nick Baba, the village shoemaker. That was for the time deserted; left
to its dust, its collection of worn-out soles, its curtains of
cobwebs, and its compound of bad, unwholesome odors. This darkness and
neglect was about to end, however, and give place to a glimmer of
light.

Nick now came hurrying in and, quickly striking a light, placed
between himself and a flickering oil lamp a small glass globe filled
with water. He sat down upon his bench and commenced work in earnest
on an unfinished pair of shoes. He hammered, and pulled, and
stretched, and pegged, and sewed, and all this time, had there been
any one present, they might have observed that, though Nick worked so
diligently, he was unhappy, and a prey to the bitterest reflections.
All in the village had commenced their merry-making, while he sat
there alone, forgotten, and in despair. His neighbors had plenty--he
was penniless, and could take nothing to his home but regrets for the
past. The rickety old door now creaked on its rusty, worn-out hinges,
and admitted a creature as strange looking as it was unexpected. It
moved straight toward Nick, and perched itself upon a three-legged
stool close beside him. This mysterious thing could not be pronounced
supernatural, and yet it was as unlike anything human as is possible
to imagine. It was more like some fantastic figure seen in a
dream--the creation of a disordered brain. It may be that it was a
goblin--Nick thought it one. It was only about two feet high; a mass
of dark-brown hair streamed down its back, partially concealing a
great hump, and thence flowed down to its heels. Its head was round as
a ball and topped out by a velvet cap of curious shape and
workmanship, with a broad projecting front which shaded a pair of
lustrous red eyes, set far back