he jonquils, that make the White House garden so pretty,
out in full bloom. They were not, I suppose, only because they are
official flowers and have a proper respect for the calendar that runs
Congress and the Executive Department, too.

I stopped on the way down the avenue at Uncle Sam's paymaster's to see
what he thought of it. And there he was, busy as could be, making ready
for the coming of Santa Claus. No need of my asking any questions here.
Men stood in line with bank-notes in their hands asking for gold, new
gold-pieces, they said, most every one. The paymaster, who had a sprig
of Christmas green fixed in his desk just like any other man, laughed
and shook his head and said "Santa Claus?" and the men in the line
laughed too and nodded and went away with their old.

* * * * *

ONE man who went out just ahead of me I saw stoop over a poor woman on
the corner and thrust something into her hand, then walk hastily away.
It was I who caught the light in the woman's eye and the blessing upon
her poor wan lips, and the grass seemed greener in the Treasury
dooryard, and the sky bluer than it had been before, even on that bright
day. Perhaps--well, never mind! if any one says anything to you about
principles and giving alms, you tell him that Santa Claus takes care of
the principles at Christmas, and not to be afraid. As for him, if you
want to know, just ask the old woman on the Treasury corner.

And so, walking down that Avenue of Good-will, I came to my train again
and went home. And when I had time to think it all over I remembered the
letters in my pocket which I had not opened. I took them out and read
them, and among them were two sent to me in trust for Santa Claus
himself which I had to lay away with the editor's message until I got
the dew rubbed off my spectacles. One was from a great banker, and it
contained a check for a thousand dollars to help buy a home for some
poor children of the East Side tenements in New York, where the chimneys
are so small and mean that scarce even a letter will go up through them,
so that ever so many little ones over there never get on Santa Claus's
books at all.

The other letter was from a lonely old widow, almost as old as my dear
mother in Denmark, and it contained a two-dollar bill. For years, she
wrote, she had saved and saved, hoping some time to have five dollars,
and then she would go with me to the homes of the very poor and be Santa