From the Children’s Friend, December 1960 –
Plympton’s Christmas
By Jane Dalton Weinberger
Only five days ‘till Christmas but there was no merriment in the big white house on the top of Beach Street hill. All the Hathaways were sad, very sad.
True, they went about the business of wrapping and decorating and bringing in pine boughs. The Hathaways love holidays and have many family traditions. Each year they like to do the same special things in the same special ways, but this year John, Joel, Jerry, Jane, Jean and Judy had little heart for the preparations. There was none of the usual hilarious gaiety to make the old house ring with the happiness of the six Hathaways. And no joyous barks of Plympton joining the fun, because Plympton was missing.
Plympton, their dog, was lost. Practically everyone in the whole town was looking for him; still he stayed lost.
Every year the Hathaways visited the Santa Claus in the window of Macy’s big department store. They lined up with the other children to tell him what they wanted for Christmas. Every other year they had a long list of dolls, jackknives, books, sleds and such, but this year they all wanted the same thing, Plympton.
“Just find Plympton,” said John.
“Bring Plympton back,” pleaded Joel.
“Plympton,” said Jerry.
“Plympton,” said Jane, Jean and Judy.
Poor Santa looked more and more puzzled. “Plympton, Plympton? What is a Plympton?” he wondered.
But the Hathaways went by so fast that he had just time to call. “Write me a letter.”
Each of the Hathaways wrote Santa a letter and John sent a picture of Plympton.
They felt better after that and took more interest in the holiday trimmings. They tied pine boughs over the mantle and decorated them with cones painted silver. They fixed a bowl of shiny red apples and striped peppermint canes for the kitchen table. Judy tied her drum with a big red ribbon bow to the front door.
Together they made a cooking plank for Mother. John bought a two-inch-thick slab of oak wood. Joel,. and Jerry borrowed Father’s wood gouge and very carefully dug two little gutters and a well, so that the juices would stay on the plank when Mother cooked meat on it. John and Jane bought sandpaper and sanded the plank until it was nice and smooth. Jean and Judy got salad oil and oiled it and baked it and oiled it again. They knew Mother would love it.
For Father, they painted the shortening cans they had collected. They painted one red and in black letters on the side painted NAILS. Another was black with TACKS in red. There was even one marked ODDS AND ENDS. An d on each cover John made a knob from a flat spool with a screw through it and a nut to hold it securely.
And all the while they wished for Plympton.
They painted his house and washed his blanket and kept fresh food and water ready for him.
Then three days before Christmas Father called them to see the evening paper and there on the front page was a picture of Plympton and the letters they had written to Santa Claus.
Father and Mother felt sure that whoever had found their dog would see the picture and would bring him back, because, said Father, “Who would want to keep Plympton?”
John, Joel, Jerry, Jane, Jean and Judy were not so sure because they said, “Anyone would want to keep Plympton.”
Christmas Eve came at last and the six Hathaways carefully hung their stockings over the mantle in the exact same spots that they always did. They cleared the same corner of the living room confident that it would hold a large well-laden Christmas tree by morning. It always did.
As they knelt by their beds each small Hathaway prayed that Plympton was somewhere warm and well-fed this Christmas Eve. Maybe Santa would see him and bring them news of him. They could hope, this magic Eve.
Six small Hathaways soon slept. The night passed in silvery silence without their knowing it. And the glorious morning came. According to family tradition, the six Hathaways lined up at the top of the stairs while Mother and Father went down and pushed open the large living room doors. There, bigger than ever, beautiful, dazzling in its many-colored lights, was the Christmas tree. Pausing for a moment, overcome once more with the beauty and mystery of this morning, six small Hathaways let the love that is Christmas fill them through and through.
Then, pell-mell, helter-skelter, down the stairs they went but they stopped short before the door for there, curled up before the fireplace was PLYMPTON. Or, he was there one minute, and the next he was at the bottom of a heap of hilarious Hathaways.
It was hard to tell which was happier to see the other: the Hathaways, Plympton, or Plympton, the Hathaways. He even allowed himself to be brushed and petted and tied up in red ribbons. He objected not at all to the extr4a tidbits he was fed. He jumped about in tissue paper and joined all the delighted squeals of Hathaways finding their dreams come true beneath the Christmas tree, but he never said where he had been or how he had returned, or even, why he had not come sooner.