Claus herself. "And wherever you decided it was right to leave a trifle,
that should be the place where it would be left," read the letter. But
now she was so old that she could no longer think of such a trip and so
she sent the money she had saved. And I thought of a family in one of
those tenements where father and mother are both lying ill, with a boy,
who ought to be in school, fighting all alone to keep the wolf from the
door, and winning the fight. I guess he has been too busy to send any
message up the chimney, if indeed there is one in his house; but you ask
him, right now, whether he thinks there is a Santa Claus or not.

* * * * *

NO Santa Claus? Yes, my little man, there is a Santa Claus, thank God!
Your father had just forgotten. The world would indeed be poor without
one. It is true that he does not always wear a white beard and drive a
reindeer team--not always, you know--but what does it matter? He is
Santa Claus with the big, loving, Christmas heart, for all that; Santa
Claus with the kind thoughts for every one that make children and
grown-up people beam with happiness all day long. And shall I tell you a
secret which I did not learn at the post-office, but it is true all the
same--of how you can always be sure your letters go to him straight by
the chimney route? It is this: send along with them a friendly thought
for the boy you don't like: for Jack who punched you, or Jim who was
mean to you. The meaner he was the harder do you resolve to make it up:
not to bear him a grudge. That is the stamp for the letter to Santa.
Nobody can stop it, not even a cross-draught in the chimney, when it has
that on.

Because--don't you know, Santa Claus is the spirit of Christmas: and
ever and ever so many years ago when the dear little Baby was born after
whom we call Christmas, and was cradled in a manger out in the stable
because there was not room in the inn, that Spirit came into the world
to soften the hearts of men and make them love one another. Therefore,
that is the mark of the Spirit to this day. Don't let anybody or
anything rub it out. Then the rest doesn't matter. Let them tear Santa's
white beard off at the Sunday-school festival and growl in his bearskin
coat. These are only his disguises. The steps of the real Santa Claus
you can trace all through the world as you have done here with me, and
when you stand in the last of his tracks you will find the Blessed Babe
of B