Pebbles and Shells (Hawkes collection)/How Santa Claus Came Down the Chimney

by Clarence Hawkes

HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME DOWN THE CHIMNEY

Last Christmas eve, when we were snug in bed,
And all the lights were out, Tommy, he said,
"I'd like to know how 'tis, with pack and all,
That Santa Claus gets down the chimney hole."

"Let's lay awake and see and then we'll know;
Won't it be fun to see him squeezed up so?"
And so we laid awake, but by and by,
I got to sleeping some with my left eye.

But still I saw the chimney with my right,
And by and by there came the queerest sight,
A little man no bigger than Tom Thumb,
With a little pack no bigger than my drum

Came sliding down the chimney more and more,
Until he went kerbump upon the floor;
And then he looked around the room a spell,
But very soon his pack began to swell.

It kept a swelling, more and more and more,
Till it was bigger than the parlor door;
And then I saw that it was full of toys
And books and dolls, and things for girls and boys.

And soon the little man had grown so tall
He didn't seem to be a dwarf at all;
And then he took some things out of his pack
And filled my stocking till I thought 'twould crack.

And then the pack grew small, and small and small,
Until it wasn't bigger 'n' nothin' 'tall,
And Santa Claus he was a dwarf once more,
And climbed up back as he had come before.

Then just as Santa Claus got out of sight
I opened my left eye and it was light,
And there were all the things for Tommy 'n' me,
A-bursting out just as I knew they'd be.

But when I told him, Tommy laughed, and said,
I was a foolish little sleepy head,
But by and by, he said, "It must be so,
For Santa Claus had left the things, you know."