The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1885-12-20
He STILL BELIEV Els.

The street Arabs and are having
tussle for the control of Wallie's faith. He
is the dimpled-cheeked, laughing eyed, tow
headed six-year-old that gives light and
life to the household. / would fain pre-
serve in him the unquestioning faith in
Santa Claus that gives poetic radiance, in
the childish imagination, TO the Christmas
festival that for season lifts him above
his everyday world of bread and molasses
and putty blowers, into the delightful.
realm of dream-land, and bids him hold
out his chubby hand to the fairies that
fitted the glass slippers to Cinderella's
feet, for his little Christmas remembrance.
st. Nicholas Is, to be sure, high old kind
of a fairy, with his coarse red face, and IL
favored clay pipe, and little round belly,
and his dirt begrimed coat of fur but he
poses for one in the imagination of the
youth, who do not stop to think of the very
material character of his appearance and
attire and they feel, when they look upon
his work of the night, as if the same kind
of fairy scene had been enacted on the
hearth over which their stockings hang,
while they slept Who would break the
beautiful dream None but the little street
Arab. He would break anything. He can
not even contemplate whole window pane
with any degree of satisfaction and, when
he discovered Wallies faith in the old time
legend intact, he felt it to be his bounden
duty to assault it at once. Not entirely
intact, either, was Wallis faith. He has
grown into brooches, looks with
mingled amusement and scorn upon the
ease with which the credulity of the kids,
as he calls his timer brothers and sisters,
is hourly imposed upon, and takes an in
tellectual pride in learning for himself how
these things can be. No The street Arat 8
scarcely put him on the enquiry !; but they
have perctptibly reinforced his misgivings.
He has been suspecting for himself that
Santa Claus ia not within the range of ord
nary probabilities. Their assurances we;e
building his suspicious into conviction.
At every eyen-tide for week, he has come
TO US with puzzling questions that riddled
the legend, through and through, and his
skepticism was growing apace with wond
rous strides,
Till his teacher babe him o day or two
ago to learn little piece to recite to the
school. His mother thought nothing could
be prettier than the rhymed story of cd
Santa Claus himself; and she read it to
him He was absorbed from the moment
the CHATTER s'arose out on the lawn" The
approach OF the great gift bearer with his
81 Ugh full of toys entranced him. He
heard the hearty old driver shout his
bidding to his eight tiny rein-dee -Wallie
counted the names as he heard them, to
see if there wers just eight yes, Dasher
and Dane er, Prancer and Vixen, Come
and Cupid aad Dunder and Elixen, they
were all there He saw them sweep. to the
house-tops, as leaves in gale; listened for
the prancing and paving on the roof, and
all but turned to the fireplace 10 give old
Santa greeting as he slid down the CHM
ney to the niantel.
The smothered spark of faith had broken
into fresh fame.
s.There," he cried, at the end Of the re-
cital, his ruddy face aglow with the ell
thusiasm of restored belief, 81 knew there
was Santa Claus. The boys don't know
anything about it, do they? Here it all is
and there's the picture of him. I thought
the boys were fooling me. No one ever
saw Santa Claus, they say. But you have
seen him. haven't your"
His mother was forced to confess that
she hadRt. No one had seen him.
A thoughtful shade sobered the boys
face. He was evidently tackling the prob
lem of real existence that no one had ever
seen. But in moment his face was all
abeam again.
'sWe can't see God either, can we?' he
| asked, as though the onl answer that
could be made to the question explained
the whole phenomenon.
Wallie will hang his stocking on the man
tel this Christmas with the same fervent
faith in Santa Claus with which he has
done it for the years gone by. Els faith
in the old myth stands side by side with
| his faith in God w E. SACKETT