The Surprise Book. Patten Beard
she guessed Santa Claus didn’t know what he was talking about—she guessed not. Mary Louise insisted, but all in vain. Santa Claus had told her what the children’s ages were and left the gifts to Mary Louise’s selection.
When daddy had taken the letters to the poor children in his overcoat pocket to mail, Mary Louise fell to planning about the gifts. Only one little girl—all boys! How dreadful! But mother helped Mary Louise by suggesting things that little boys might like. From her own playthings Mary Louise selected her biggest doll for Lily and would have given her ever so many other dolls, had not mother thought that Mary Louise might add other little girls to her Christmas list of poor children and make the helping of Santa Claus more equally distributed among those who might otherwise be forgotten.
How fast the nineteen dollars and fifty-three cents did go—just buying the tree and the fixings, and the sled and the overcoat and mittens, and skates, and carts, and baseball bats! It was a tragic moment when Mary Louise suddenly discovered that Benny had been neglected and didn’t have as many gifts as the others. She consulted daddy, as there were no boys’ toys among her playthings and nothing seemed right. Daddy said—well, he said she might work and earn the money to buy Benny a present.
Never in her life had Mary Louise worked to earn money! “How can I earn money?” she asked.
Daddy thought. “If you will learn the seven times seven table, and the eight, and the nine and any of the others, I’ll give you a dollar for every one you can say perfectly. That’s very special, Mary Louise, because it’s Christmas, you know.”
Dear me! To think of having to sit down quietly in all the excitement of Christmas rush and learn horrid multiplication tables! If anything was work, that surely was!
But where there’s a will there’s a way and Mary Louise did it. She did it so well that she remembered all of the seven table perfectly. She also went on and learned the eight and nine table and the ten table—that was easy. Then, being quite enthusiastic, she tried hard at the others and mastered the twelve table after keeping at it a steady day. With the proceeds of these earnings, paid gravely by daddy, she was able to buy Benny a game, and when she went to buy it and found some little poor children right by the car that stopped at the entrance of Bunty’s Department Store, she was able to invite them then and there and go right in and buy presents for them. They needed woolen scarfs and mittens, and Mary Louise had found presents on the toy shelf among the toys kept for very special occasions. These would do for them.
When once Mary Louise had started to help Santa Claus, there was no knowing where she would end. Whenever she went out, she saw little children whom she was sure Santa Claus had forgotten because they looked so wistfully in at shop windows. Some of them nurse let her speak to and she added these to her list for the party. There seemed to be no table of thirteens to learn but daddy gave a dollar for every poem she could recite and Mary Louise knew ever so many and it was easy to learn short ones.
Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How the time did fly! Before Mary Louise knew it, Christmas Eve was there! There had been all the fun of fixing the tree and daddy and mother had helped. Mary Louise hoped Santa Claus wouldn’t disappoint her! She hoped that he surely would come! She was very much relieved when James came in and said that he had just been asked to deliver a message that came from Santa Claus over the telephone. It was a telegram and it said:
Will be at your Christmas party Christmas Eve eight o’clock.
Santa Claus.
After that, Mary Louise didn’t worry. She let Marie take the tangles out of her hair and help her into her very best pink silk dress and then she dashed downstairs to wait for all the guests who had been invited to come. She wanted to play games with them and she wanted to tell them all about Santa Claus and she hoped they would like to sing carols and dance around the tree—but most of all she hoped that they would like the presents she had arranged for them at Santa Claus’ suggestion. Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to see Santa Claus give out the big white Teddy bear and the big brown fuzzy bear and the pink doll and the cart and the skates and—and—
But here the doorbell rang and there was a scuffle of happy feet. It was Lily and Benny and Tony and all the rest. They were as happy as happy could be. Mary Louise greeted them all and then they beamed upon her almost as if she were Santa Claus herself, but I just wish you could have heard the shrieks of delight when the front doorbell rang and James ushered in Santa Claus himself! It was just too bad that daddy wasn’t there to see all the fun, though mother did hope that maybe he might be able to come later. Oh, what a good time they all did have! It was the very best and happiest Christmas that Mary Louise had ever, ever, ever had! It was wonderful!
Why, Mary Louise had such a good time that she forgot all about the pink doll till Santa Claus came and gave it to her, after giving out all the other gifts. It was the very doll that Mary Louise had wanted, but she asked Santa Claus to be sure he could spare it and that he had neglected nobody else to give her the doll. He said he guessed not—at least he hoped not, and then they sat on the sofa and ate ice cream together while Santa Claus joked and told stories. But he couldn’t stay very long, he said, and he had to go. Then just afterwards, alas, in came daddy, who might have met Santa Claus, if only he had got there a wee bit sooner! And the children danced around the tree and sang carols. And then they all wished Mary Louise a Happy Christmas and went home with arms laden with packages that they hugged tight and smiled and chuckled over.
After the children went, there was just mother and daddy left. They both kissed Mary Louise and vowed that they’d have another party again next year, maybe. Then daddy took Mary Louise upon his knee and put a little blue ring upon her finger. It was the kind of a ring that Mary Louise had wanted—one just like mother’s, only little. And mother told Mary Louise that her Christmas present was the doll house. It was coming as soon as possible. It was so big that one could play inside and it was to be placed right close to the garden greenhouses.
It was a Christmas that Mary Louise never forgot and couldn’t forget, even if it had not been for the blue ring and the multiplication tables!
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