r, and Mr. 'Possum looked over all his
stockings to pick out the biggest one he had, and Mr. Crow made himself
a new pair on purpose. Mr. 'Coon said he never knew Mr. Crow to make
himself such big stockings before, but Mr. Crow said he was getting old
and needed things bigger, and when he loaned one of his new stockings to
Mr. 'Coon, Mr. 'Coon said, "That's so," and that he guessed they were
about right after all. They didn't tell anybody about it at first, but
by and by they told Mr. Dog what they were going to do, and when Mr. Dog
heard it he wanted to laugh right out. You see, he knew Santa Claus
never went anywhere except to Mr. Man's house, and he thought it would
be a great joke on the Hollow Tree people when they hung up their
stockings and didn't get anything.

[Illustration: MR. CROW MADE HIMSELF A NEW PAIR ON PURPOSE]

But by and by Mr. Dog thought about something else. He thought it would
be too bad for them to be disappointed that way. You see, Mr. Dog liked
them all, now, and when he had thought about that a minute he made up
his mind to do something. And this is what it was--he made up his mind
to play Santa Claus!

He knew just how Santa Claus looked, 'cause he'd seen lots of his
pictures at Mr. Man's house, and he thought it would be great fun to
dress up that way and take a bag of presents to the Hollow Tree while
they were all asleep and fill up the stockings of the 'Coon and 'Possum
and the Old Black Crow. But first he had to be sure of some way of
getting in, so he said to them he didn't see how they could expect Santa
Claus, their chimneys were so small, and Mr. Crow said they could leave
their latch string out down stairs, which was just what Mr. Dog wanted.
Then they said they were going to have all the folks that had spent the
summer with them over for Christmas dinner and to see the presents they
had got in their stockings. They told Mr. Dog to drop over, too, if he
could get away, and Mr. Dog said he would, and went off laughing to
himself and ran all the way home because he felt so pleased at what he
was going to do.

Well, he had to work pretty hard, I tell you, to get things ready. It
wasn't so hard to get the presents as it was to rig up his Santa Claus
dress. He found some long wool out in Mr. Man's barn for his white
whiskers, and he put some that wasn't so long on the edges of his
overcoat and boot tops and around an old hat he had. Then he borrowed a
big sack he found out there, too