Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/762



HE great hall clock, stationed opposite the foot of the stairs, struck two. From his bed above the Littlest Boy listened with a sense of awe. Never before had he heard it strike so late an hour. Once, indeed, he had heard it strike ten, but usually it had struck eight—and when next he was awake it was striking six and morning had come.

This was a very valuable clock, so the Littlest Boy had been given to understand. It was much taller than himself, and it had so much to say,—striking, as it did, every quarter hour,—and said it in such measured, solemn tones, that he always paid it profound respect.

Now there it was, evidently sleepless, even in the middle of the night keeping watch upon the household affairs!

The Littlest Boy lay and listened. The house was impressively still. The only sounds audible were the stately ticking of the monitor clock below, and the regular breathing of the Biggest Boy and the Biggest Girl in the room adjoining.

The Littlest Boy's eyes were wide open and gazing into the velvet blackness close above his face. When he had gone to bed it had been Christmas Eve. He was not fully certain as to the line of demarkation, but it occurred to him that now it was Christmas Day! Then he began to blink and think.

He wondered if Santa Claus had come yet. Before the grate-fire, down in the library, were ranged three chairs: a rocking-chair for the Biggest Girl, a straight-backed, ordinary chair for the Biggest Boy, and a huge, roomy arm-chair for himself. In addition, he had hung up his stockings to the mantel.

The Littlest Boy considered this quite a clever idea. He hoped that Santa Claus would appreciate the conveniences offered: the chair into which to dump the bulky articles, and the stockings into which to stuff the smaller ones.

He tried to picture to himself how, if Santa Claus had been and gone, that chair and those stockings must look. At intervals, as some particularly alluring fancy stood out before him, he gave an ecstatic wriggle and a few blinks extra.

Oh, the red wagon! And the silver napkin-ring! Supposing he got them both! It did not seem to him possible that he could exist without either, and yet—and yet —he mustn't exact too much.