“Yes,” replied Flop Ear.  “I want a toy steam engine, and Curly wants a toy automobile.”

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Santa Claus, and his voice seemed rather sad.

“Why, what is the matter?” asked Curly.

“Alas,” said Santa Claus.  “This year I have only one toy engine, and a poor little lame boy has asked for that in a letter he sent to me up the chimney the other night.  And I have only one toy auto, and a little boy who has no papa or mamma, and who is very poor, has asked for that.  I was going to give the toys to them, but since you have met me in the woods I must grant your request, since whoever meets Santa Claus face to face, can have just what they ask of him.

“But I know the little lame boy and the other poor little boy will be much disappointed.  Still it can’t be helped.  I will grant your wishes, Floppy and Curly, but—­”

“Stop!” suddenly cried Flop Ear.

“Hold on!” exclaimed Curly Tail.

Then, somehow, into their hearts there came a feeling of sadness, and yet not so much sadness as gladness and happiness.

“I—­I guess I don’t want a toy steam engine,” said Flop Ear.  “Give it to the lame boy.”

“Good,” cried Santa Claus.

“And I don’t need the toy auto very much,” went on Curly Tail.  “Give it to the poor little boy.”

“Good!” cried Santa Claus again, and then his face seemed to shine like the sun, and there seemed to be wreaths of holly and bunches of mistletoe sticking all over him, and he sprang into his sleigh, the reindeer shook their horns, making the bells jingle like anything, and then, off on top of the snowflakes rode Santa Claus, calling back: 

“All right, piggie boys, I won’t forget you, or any of the earth children.  It will soon be Christmas, and if you don’t get autos or steam engines you’ll get something else,” and then he vanished from sight, and Flop Ear and Curly Tail went home, wondering very much at what had happened.

And in the next story, in case the telephone man doesn’t crawl through the water pipe and scare the window shutter so that it goes bang-bang all day, I’ll tell you about Flop Ear and the stockings.

STORY XXX

FLOPPY AND THE STOCKINGS

“Flop Ear,” said Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, to her son one afternoon, “I think you will have to go to the store for me now.”

“All right, I’m ready to go,” said Flop Ear, “only I thought Curly Tail just went, and that I could stay home and read my picture book.”

“He did go,” said the pig lady, “but after I sent him for the cocoanut to make the Christmas cake, I happened to remember that I needed some chocolate to make a chocolate cake, so I think you will have to go for that.  I could send Baby Pinky, only she is over at Jennie Chipmunk’s, playing with her dolls.”

“Oh, I’ll go!” said Flop Ear, and he laid aside his book, and got ready to go to the store.  It was getting nearer and nearer to Christmas every day, and, though the piggie boys hadn’t seen Santa Claus himself since that one time in the woods, they had seen a lot of people dressed up like him.