The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-12-25
TOLD BY OLD CIRCUS MAN.
The Great Giants Only Appearance
as Santa Claus.

Perhaps you remember my telling
you,' said the old circus man. about
the political folks getting the old man
to let the greatest of all giants carry
a torch in their political procession?
But they were not the only local people
by all means that called for the giant.
I'VE had this season request from
one of the biggest churches in town to
let the great giant play Santa Claus
and give out the presents from a Christ
mas tree to be set up in the church
Good idea? Why, / thought to myself
that the circus business didn't include
all the Shrewd people in the world. But
the giant was willing and the old man
couldn't refuse, and so we told 'em they
could have him.
well, they sent up and measured
him for his Santa Claus suit-the coat of
an ordinary Santa Claus suit wouldn't
have been much too big for a hat for
the giant-and had 1t made for him in
good shape, and a wonderful figure he
made in it.
They set the Christmas tree up in
the church this year. not in the Sunday
school room-the giant couldn't have
begun to stand up straight in that-but
in the body of the church. The tree
they set up was much the biggest one
they had ever had.
The children were to sit in the gall
leries. The giant. walking along one of
the side aisles, would have clear and am
front of and just off the front of the
gallery, all of which the church folks
had thought out well in their plan.
What troubled us most was how to
get the giant into the church in a digni-
ned manner; it wouldn't do to have San
ia Claus creeping into church on his
hands and knees. as this Santa Claus
would have had to do if he had come in
at one of the doors; that would have
spoiled the whole business. But we got
him in through a side window-the church
had along the side tall windows that
reached up from the ground floor to the
space above the galleries, windows that
would nave been tall enough for the giant
to step through erect. if the gallery hadn't
been IN the way We got him in through
the lower part of one of those windows.
pack at the corner of the church, and
back of a tall curtain that had been hung
there, and when the tree and the people
behind it.
IF it hadn't been for his kindly face
ne would have frightened many of them.
old and young ] had seen the giant my
self in pretty much every ronceivaDIe
sort of costume, in which his height had
Deen heightened by the wearing of tall
bearskin hats and that sort of shine: but
he had never looked so big to me as he
did now as jolly Santa Claus; but his face
made him all right, though there were
some children who trembled STILL as lie
approa ched them.
Whoever it was who was giving. out the
glfts would call out the names Of the chill
dren and then the giant would take the
things with those names on off the tree.
reaching without any difficulty or any
stretching whatever things that man
of ordinary stature couldn't have reached
standing on chair, or on a step ladder
for that matter.
And then the giant would take these
things around and distribute them to the
children in the galleries. walking along the
aisle and calling the children'5 names.
His head and shoulders and the upper
part of his body in fact, were Well above
the top of the gallery rail; he could have
reached pretty wei over toward the back
But the children were all in the front
rows, and the giants. reached them all
without any trouble. And so it went
When the things had all been distribut-
ed, so Enthusiastically kind and gentle was
the great giants bearing that everybody
had come to feel like friends with him and
the whole business was a tremendous
overwhelming success.
But nobody ever asked us for him for
a Santa Claus again. I don't know Just
why-perhaps they thought he was too
great a success: that it made too much of
a show Of it all; and mebbe, that wasn't
something like that, and I reckon other
people didn't ask him. very likely for fear
he might scare the children So the great
giant never played Santa Claus but once.
but he was no doubt the greatest ever in
the part. New York Sun.