DE HIMSELF A NEW PAIR ON PURPOSE.]

Well, the Hollow Tree people had never heard of Santa Claus. They knew
about Christmas, of course, because everybody, even the cows and sheep,
know about that, but they had never heard of Santa Claus. You see, Santa
Claus only comes to Mr. Man's house, but they didn't know that, either,
so they thought if they just hung up their stockings he'd come there,
too, and that's what they made up their minds to do. They talked about
it a great deal together, and Mr. 'Possum looked over all his stockings
to pick out the biggest one he had, and Mr. Crow he 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.

But by and by Mr. Dog thought about something else. He thought it would
be too bad, too, 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 b