days. In this part of the country he is very well known. One has regular applications on Christmas-eve for permission to hang up stockings about the chimney for Santa Claus to fill; Sunday-scholars and other little folk come stocking in hand as a matter of course, and occasionally grown persons follow their example. It seems at first rather singular that Santa Claus should especially favor stockings and chimneys; one cannot easily account for the fancy; but a notion of this sort has spread far and wide. In France the children put their shoes on the hearth Christmas-eve, with the hope that during the night they will be filled with sugar-plums by the “Bon-Homme Noel,” who is evidently a twin brother of Santa Claus. But these are matters in which experience sets reason at defiance. The children will all tell you that Santa Claus comes down the chimney—in this part of the world he will even squeeze through a stove-pipe—and that he fills stockings with good things, always looking after that particular part of their wardrobe, though why he should do so remains a mystery yet unfathomed. It seems a silly notion, perhaps. If you belong to the wondrous-wise school, you will probably despise him for it; a sensible man, you will say, would put the sugar plums in the child's pocket, or leave them with the parents. No doubt of it; but Santa Claus is not a sensible man; he is a funny, jolly little old Dutchman, and he and the children understand each other perfectly well. Some of us believe that he comes down the chimney expressly to make wise people open their eyes at the absurdity of the thing, and fills stockings because you would never dream of doing so yourself; and there cannot be a doubt that the little people had much rather receive their toys and sugar-plums by the way of the chimney than through the door,
