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Then, when she ladled us a bowl full, she dropped in a big glob of real butter. Good? You betcha. Cholesterol? Never heard of it.

After supper, Dad got out his James Whitcomb Riley book and read us some poems like Little Orphant Annie and the one that said "Granny's come to our house to stay and ho, my lawsey daisy, all the chillen on the place is just a runnin' crazy." We sang "Silent Night' and "Little Town of Bethlehem" and Dad taught us to recite "The Night Before Christmas," and then we got out our Sunday best stockings and we pinned them together and dragged three chairs in from the dining room and set them before the fireplace, and then we hung our stockings over their backs. We even hung a pair of Dad's socks on a chair for our little baby sister, and got a saucer with some of MaMa's sour cream cookies and a glass of milk, 'cause she said Santa just might be hungry by the time he got to our house. And then MaMa said it was time to go to bed. When she tucked us in the big bed at the head of the stairs, she had us fold our hands and I said the Lord's Prayer like Grandma Piper had taught me, and then Lewie said his "Now I lay me down to sleep..." prayer. MaMa reminded us to ask the Lord to bless all the little children everywhere and we did, and then she wished us a "Merry Christmas" as she closed the door and went back downstairs.

I can't truly say that visions of sugar plums or anything else danced in my head, but pretty soon it was daylight and it was Christmas.

I shook Lewie and we tiptoed down the stairs, past MaMa and Dad's bedroom, and into the men's room, and there, right in front of the still red-glowing fireplace was a bright red wagon with yellow wheels. Santa had found us, we knew it; Santa never lets you down. Hooray! We hurried into MaMa's room to show her that Santa had read our letter.

Now one thing is certain: Santa had to have brought that wagon because we had checked out Dad ever time he had come home for the whole month and there was just no other way that wagon could have got all the way from Sears and Sawbuck unless Santa had brought it. Just you wait till I show those doubters at school; just you wait.

Perry E. Piper's recollections of his childhood on Muddy Creek - "which lies astraddle of the Indian Boundary Line that old Chief Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison laid out back in 1803" - have appeared in newspapers in Illinois and Indiana for the past 12 years. He has collected the columns into two volumes of memoirs, available from him at 71 Concordia Drive, Paris, III, 61944. FC


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