John Bangs - Half-Hours with Jimmieboy

It had been a long and trying day to Jimmieboy, as December 24th usually is to children of his age, who have great expectations, and are more or less impatient to have them fulfilled. He had been positively cross at supper-time because his father had said that Santa Claus had written to say that a much-desired velocipede could not be got down through the chimney, and that he thought Jimmieboy would have to wait until the chimneys had been enlarged, or his papa had built a new house with more commodious flues.

"I think it's just too bad," said Jimmieboy, as he climbed into bed an hour later. "Just because those chimneys are small, I can't have a philocipede, and I've been gooder than ever for two weeks, just to get it."

Then, as his nurse extinguished the lamp and went into the adjoining room to sew, Jimmieboy threw himself back upon his pillow and shed a tear. The tear crept slowly down over his cheek, and was about to disappear between his lips and go back again to where it had started from, when a voice was heard over by the fire-place.

"Can you get it down?" it said.

Jimmieboy sat up and peered over toward the spot whence the voice came, but could see nothing.

"No. The hind wheels won't go through the chimney-pot, and even if they would, it wouldn't do any good. The front wheel is twice as big as the hind ones," said another voice, this one apparently belonging to some one on the roof. "Can't you get it in through the front door?"

"What do you take me for – an expressman?" cried the voice at the fire-place. "I can't leave things that way. It wouldn't be the proper thing. Can't you get a smaller size through?"

"Yes; but will it fit the boy?" said the voice on the roof.

"Lower your lantern down here and we'll see. He's asleep over here in a brass bedstead," replied the other.

And then Jimmieboy saw a great red lantern appear in the fire-place, and by its light he noticed a short, ruddy-faced, merry-eyed old gentleman, with a snowy beard and a smile, tip-toeing across the room toward him. To his delight he recognized him at once as Santa Claus; but he didn't know whether Santa Claus would like to have him see him or not, so he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, and pretended to be asleep.

"Humph!" ejaculated Santa Claus, as he leaned over Jimmieboy's bed, and tried to get his measure by a glance. "He's almost a man – must be five years old by this time. Pretty big for a small velocipede; still, I don't know." Here he scratched his beard and sang:

Then he walked back to the fire-place and called out, "I've measured."

"Well, what's the result?" queried the voice on the roof.

"'Nothing,' as the boy said when he was asked what two plus one minus three amounted to. I can't decide. It will or it won't, and that's all there is about it."

"Can't we try it on him?" asked the voice up the chimney.

"No," returned Santa Claus. "That wouldn't prove anything; but we might try him on it. Shall I send him up?"

"Yes," came the voice from above, much to Jimmieboy's delight, for he was quite curious to see what was going on up on the roof, and who it was that owned the other voice.

In a moment Jimmieboy found himself in Santa Claus's arms, cuddled up to the warm fur coat the dear old gentleman wore, in which position he was carried up through the chimney flue to the roof. Then Jimmieboy peeped out between his half-opened eyelids, and saw, much to his surprise, that instead of there being only one Santa Claus, there were two of them.

"Oh dear!" he said in astonishment; "I didn't know there were two of you."

Both the Santas jumped as if some one had let off a cannon cracker under their very noses.

"Well, I declare!" said the one that had carried Jimmieboy up through the chimney. "We're discovered. Here I've been in this business whole centuries, and I've never been discovered before."

"That's so," assented the other. "We know now how America must have felt when Columbus came sailing in. What'll we do about it?"

"We'll have to take him into partnership, I guess," rejoined the first. "It'll never do in this world not to. Would you like to be one of our concern, Jimmieboy?"

"Oh, indeed I would," said Jimmieboy.

"Well, I say we let him help us this time anyhow," said the roof Santa Claus. "You're so fat, I'm afraid you can't get down some of these small chimneys, and Jimmieboy is just about the right size."

"Good scheme," said the other; "but he isn't dressed for it, you know."

"He can get a nice black soot down in the factory chimney," said the roof Santa Claus, with a wink.

"That's so; and as the factory fires are always going, it will be a nice warm soot. What do you say, Jimmieboy?" said the other.

"It's lovely," replied the boy. "But how did there come to be two of you?"

"There had to be," said the first Santa Claus Jimmieboy had seen. "The world is growing so fast that my work has nearly doubled in the last twenty years, so I had to get an assistant, and he did so well, I took him into partnership. He's my brother."

"And is his name Santa Claus, too?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Oh no, indeed. His name is Marmaduke. We call him Marmy for short, and I can tell you what it is, Jimmieboy,

"And that's a recommendation that any man has a right to be proud of," said Marmy Claus, patting himself on the back to show how proud he felt. "But, Santa, we must be off. It would not do for the new firm of Santa, Marmy, and Jimmie Claus to begin business by being late. We've got to leave toys in eighteen flat-houses, forty-two hotels, and an orphan asylum yet."

"That's a fact," said Santa, jumping into the sleigh and grasping the reins. "Just help Jimmieboy in here, Marmy, and we'll be off. We can leave his things here on our way back."

Then, before he knew how it happened, Jimmieboy found himself wrapped up warmly in a great fur coat, with a seal-skin cap on his head, and the dearest, warmest ear-tabs over his ears, sitting in the middle of the sleigh between the two huge, jolly-faced, members of the Claus family. The long lash of the whip snapped in the frosty air, at the sound of which the reindeer sprang forward and dragged the toy-laden cutter off on its aerial flight.

At the start Santa drove, and Marmy prepared the toys for the first little boy they were to visit, handing Jimmieboy a lot of sugar-plums, to keep him from getting hungry, before he began.

"This is a poor sick little fellow we are going to see first," he said. "He wanted a set of choo-choo cars, but we can't give them to him because the only set we have is for you, Jimmieboy. Your application came in before his did. I hope he won't be disappointed, though I am afraid he will be. A fish-pond isn't half so much fun as a set of choo-choo cars."

"That's so," said Jimmieboy. "But, Mr. Marmy, perhaps, if it's going to make him feel real bad not to get them – maybe – perhaps you might let him have the cars. I don't want them too much." This wasn't quite true, but Jimmieboy, somehow or other, didn't like to think of the little sick boy waking up on Christmas day and not finding what he wanted. "You know, I have one engine and a coal car left of my old set, and I guess maybe, perhaps, I can make them do," he added.

Marmy gave the little fellow an affectionate squeeze, and said: "Well, if you really feel that way, maybe we had better leave the cars there. Eh, Santa?"