he gate and peeped into the room between the
broken slats of a shutter.

It was a mean little place, quite what might be expected from its
exterior. A cook stove sat in the middle of the floor with a smoky fire
in it, and about it were clustered four or five black children ranging
from a toddler of two to a boy of ten. They all showed differing degrees
of dirt and raggedness, but all were far and beyond the point of
respectability.

One of the group, the older boy, sat upon the bed and was holding forth
to his brothers and sisters not without many murmurs of doubt and
disbelief.

"No," he was saying, "I tell you dey hain't no such thing as a Santy
Claus. Dat's somep'n dat yo' folks jes' git up to make you be good long
'bout Christmas time. I know."

"But, Tom, you know what mammy said," said a dreamy-eyed little chap,
who sat on a broken stool with his chin on his hands.

"Aw, mammy," said the orator, "she's jes' a-stuffin' you. She don'
believe in no Santy Claus hersel', less'n why'nt he bring huh de dress
she prayed fu' last Christmas." He was very wise, this old man of ten
years, and he had sold papers on the avenue where many things are
learned, both good and bad.

"But what you got to say about pappy?" pursued the believer. "He say
dey's a Santy Claus, and dat he comes down de chimbly; and----"

"Whut's de mattah wid you; look at dat stove pipe; how you s'pose
anybody go'n' to git in hyeah th'oo de chimbly?"

They all looked up at the narrow, rusty stove pipe and the sigh of
hopelessness brought the tears to Arabella's eyes. The children seemed
utterly nonplussed, and Tom was swelling at his triumph. "How's any
Santy Claus go'n' to come down th'oo that, I want to know," he repeated.

But the faith of childhood is stronger than reason. Tom's little sister
piped up, "I don't know how, but he comes th'roo' that away anyhow. He
brung Mamie Davith a doll and it had thoot on it out o' the chimbly."

It was now Tom's turn to be stumped, but he wouldn't let it be known. He
only said, "Aw," contemptuously and coughed for more crushing arguments.

"I knows dey's a Santy Claus," said dreamy-eyed Sam.

"Ef dey is why'n't he never come here?" retorted Tom.

"I jes' been thinkin' maybe ouah house is so little he miss it in de
night; dey says he's a ol' man an' I 'low his sight ain' good."

Tom was stricken into silence for a moment by this entirely new view of
the matter, and then finding no answer to it, he said