From the Children’s Friend, December 1942 –

Present for Santa Claus

By Helen Cheever

Bobby looked up from the letter he was writing to Santa Claus. “What’s the matter?” Nancy asked “Can’t you think of anything to ask for?”

Bobby scratched his head with the top of the pencil. “Yes,” he said “There are lots of things to ask for. But I’ve been thinking; it’s awfully selfish to keep asking for things and never giving anything back to Santa Claus.”

Nancy laughed. “Why, Santa Claus doesn’t expect anything. I just start my letter, “Thank you, Santa Claus, for all of the things you brought me last year.’”

“As a matter of fact,” Father said, putting his newspaper on the table and reaching into his inside coat pocket, “Nancy is wrong. I got a letter from Santa Claus the other day.”

“What did Santa Claus write?” Bobby demanded, standing first on one foot and then the other in his excitement.

“I’ll read it,” Father answered. He looked over the top of his glasses at Milton and Marie, who were studying their school lessons. “And I want you all to listen.”

“All right, shoot,” Milton said, putting his finger in his book to keep the place.

Father read:

“Dear Boys and Girls:

“This is a letter to all of the boys and girls in America. You may expect Santa Claus to call on you this year, as usual. My store house is filled with gifts for good girls and boys. But Mrs. Santa Claus and I are unhappy. We have an order from one very good man that we can’t fill. We haven’t the things he wants in our store house.”

“Who could that be?” Nancy wondered out loud.

“Wait a minute,” Father advised. He went on reading the letter.

“You all know the person that I am speaking of. He is a tall, thin man with a little beard. He wears a top hat, and trousers that are striped red and white. We call him –”

“Uncle Sam!” Nancy cried. “But what would Uncle Sam be writing to Santa Claus for? Why he’s an old man!”

“He isn’t a man at all,” Milton said wisely. “He is just a picture that stands foe the United States.”

Father frowned at Milton and went on reading. “Uncle Sam has written me asking me for tons and tons of scrap. He says that if he doesn’t have scrap he’ll just have to close down the factories and –”

Marie nodded. “We’ve hard about that at school.”

Father went on reading.

“So I am asking all of the boys and girls in America to help me. You’ve never thought of giving anything to Santa Claus before, but this year is going to be different. When I stop in at your house on Christmas Eve, I’d like to see a great big pile of scrap right there by the side of your Christmas tree. I’ll pick it up and give it to Uncle Sam.

“Yours truly,

“Santa Claus.”

“Now what do you think of that?” Father asked, folding the letter and putting it back in his pocket.

“I know what I’ll say to Santa Claus in this letter,” Bobby said, picking up his pencil. “I’ll tell him that I’m going to do what he wants me to do.”

Father looked at Milton and Marie. “How about you, twins?”

“Count us in,” Milton said. “It sounds like fun.”

“It’s only fair,” Marie said. “Santa Claus has been bringing me gifts for thirteen years now. I should be able to do something for him.”

“And for Uncle Sam,” Nancy added

Bobby finished his letter, gave it to Mother to read, then went and climbed on Father’s lap. “Tell me more about scrap,” he said.

“In every home,” Father explained, “there is something that is no longer good, but which can be used to make something new.” He turned to Milton. “Let’s have a guessing game. Let’s see if each of you can name –”

“I can,” Nancy said. “There’s everything that is made of metal, like old cooking dishes, pipe, curtain rods, and –”

“Keys,” said Bobby. “In school they told us about keys that didn’t have any doors to them.”

Milton guessed next. “Well, there’s old rubber, like tires and hot water bottles and things.”

Marie said, “It isn’t fair. You’ve named all the easy ones.” She thought for a few minutes before she said, There’s old clothes. Uncle Sam can use old cotton clothes for rags if we take off the buttons. Wool ones can be ground up and made into new cloth.”

“It’s your turn, Mother,” Bobby said.

Mother thought for a minute. “I’ll name phonograph records. They can be melted down and new ones can be made from them. There is cooking grease, too. Uncle Sam can use any that isn’t good to use for food.”

“Your turn, Father, Bobby said.

Father thought until his forehead wrinkled. “Well, I give up. But here’s what I’ll do. Christmas Eve I’ll give a nice surprise to the one of you that can collect the best present for Santa Claus.”

The next day was Saturday. “I’ll start finding that present for Santa Claus today,” Bobby thought to himself. “All the others will wait until the last minute.” Quietly he slipped down into the basement, so that nobody would see him going and be reminded of the scrap.

But when he got down to the foot of the stairs there was Marie, sitting on the floor in front of the stair closet. When she looked up and saw Bobby she threw something she was holding in her hand back into the closet and moved her skirt so that it would cover something by her side. “Scram,” she said. “I started on this closet first.”

“Well,” Bobby said to himself, “I might have known that Marie would start today. Anyway, I can get ahead of Milton and Nancy. I’ll go out to the garage and tool house and take a look around.”

He opened the garage door a crack and slipped in. Milton’s voice stopped him. “Who’s that?” the voice said.

“I just thought I’d –” Bobby began.

“Well, I got the garage and tool house first. You’ll have to look someplace else.”

Bobby was disappointed enough to cry. He went into the kitchen. Mother poured him a glass of milk and as he drank it he tried to think of some place else to look. Suddenly an idea came to him. He’d look up in the attic. It was hard to get into the attic. There weren’t any steps. You had to carry Mother’s kitchen ladder into the back hall, stand on top of it, slip back the cover that was over the hole in the ceiling that led to the attic, then pull yourself up in the same way you climbed the bars at school. The attic was just the place! Nobody would go to all that trouble just to find a present for Santa Claus.

He looked in the kitchen for Mother’s ladder, but it wasn’t there. He went into the back hall. There it was. it was standing directly under the hole in the ceiling, as if someone had put it there for him. He climbed up the ladder and pushed the cover to one side. It wasn’t easy to swing himself up into the attic, but after several tries he did so. The gray half light that filtered into the attic through the wooden shafted ventilators on the side made it hard to see. He shut his eyes, waiting to get used to the darkness. When he opened them he saw Nancy sitting in front of an old trunk.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “Mother gave me permission to hunt things here. She said I had to show her what I took so I wouldn’t give away things that were keepsakes, but that I could have everything else I could find.”

“Where am I going to look?” Bobby asked her, his voice doleful. “Marie’s in the cellar, Milton has the garage and workshop, and you have the attic.’

Nancy didn’t give him any help. “You should have got here first,” she said.

“I’m not even going to try,” Bobby said to himself. “What’s the use?” He went outdoors to play.

It was the middle of the next week before Bobby thought of scrap for Santa Claus again. He was coming home from school when he saw old Mrs. Peterson working hard to get a little, worn-out, rusty old stove out of her door. She called to him. “Give me a hand here, will you, Bobby?”

Bobby ran up the sidewalk. Mrs. Peterson went on talking. “I wish I had a way to get this old stove over to the Pine Street station. I want to give it to Uncle Sam’s scrap pile.”

Bobby offered at once, “I’ll go get my wagon if you’d like me to, Mrs. Peterson. I think both of us together could get it on my wagon and I’d be glad to pull it over there for you.”

“That’s fine, Bobby,” Mrs. Peterson said. She stood on her front porch while Bobby ran down the block to his home and came back with the red wagon. Together they pushed and lifted the stove onto th wagon. “Wait a minute, Bobby.” Mrs. Peterson went into her house and came out with two sugar cookies. “Just tell them to give the money to the Red Cross,” she said as she gave him the cookies.

Bobby started down the street toward the Pine Street station and then suddenly the idea came to him. He’d just pull the wagon home. He’d hide the old stove away until Christmas Eve and then he’d have it for his gift to Santa Claus. He told his conscience that it would be all right. “See here,” he said out loud as if his conscience were another person. “Mrs. Peterson wants this stove to go for Uncle Sam’s scrap pile. She said so herself.”

Then he thought, “But what about the Red Cross? Mrs. Peterson said the money was to go to the Red Cross.” Bobby spoke out loud. “Well, the Red Cross has got plenty of money. All the boys and girls in the school brought money for the Red Cross.”

But try as he would he couldn’t feel right about taking the stove home. Finally he turned around and hurried back to the Pine Street station. He was glad to have a man unload the stove from his wagon. “The money is for the Red Cross,” Bobby told him and the man made a note of it in his book.

On the way home, his little wagon pulling light at his heels, he thought, “Now I won’t have a present for Santa Claus. I surely am dumb!” But in his heart he knew he had done the only right thing.

Three more days passed. It was only two days before Christmas. Nancy and Milton and Marie were always hurrying to their rooms with things hidden under a sack or wrapped in a great paper. They were always giggling and trying to find out from each other how much the other had collected. Bobby felt left out of the whole beautiful activity. Santa Claus would come and find some fine heaps of scrap. But one of them wouldn’t be Bobby’s.

Just when he had made up his mind that there really wasn’t anything he could do about the present for Santa Claus, another opportunity came his way. There was a great rattling and banging on the sideway in front of his house. He hurried out to see what it was. Kelvin, a boy who lived down the street a ways, was dragging a worn-out bed springs after him.

Where are you going, Kelvin?” Bobby asked.

“Over to the Pine Street station,” Kelvin answered. “Want to go with?”

“How much’ll they give you for that thing?” Bobby asked.

“’Bout thirty-five cents, I guess. I had another one. Bigger than this. I got fifty cents for that.”

Bobby thought of his Christmas money. Tomorrow Mother was going to take him down town to buy gifts for the family and candy stockings for the children in the neighborhood. “Now” Bobby thought, “if I just buy presents for Father and Mother and Milton and Marie and Nancy that will take – I won’t buy anything for the neighborhood boys and girls. Then I’ll have fifty cents I don’t need to spend.” He said to Kelvin, “I’ll give you fifty for that one and you won’t have to drag it all the way over to the station.”

“You haven’t got fifty,” Kelvin said in a voice that showed he’d be willing to make the bargain.

“I have so.” Bobby started to the house to get fifty cents of his Christmas gift money. Suddenly he stopped short. Why, buying this present for Santa Claus wouldn’t be a bit different from having kept Mrs. Peterson’s stove. Uncle Sam was going to get this scrap anyway. It wouldn’t really be a present to Santa Claus at all – and besides, how selfish it would be not to have a gift for his little friends

If Kelvin hadn’t already said “You haven’t got fifty,” it wouldn’t have been so hard, but Bobby faced it. “I have got fifty,” he said, “but I’ve changed my mind. I’ll help you drag it over to the Pine Street station, though.”

The next day Bobby went shopping with Mother, but it wasn’t as much fun as usual. All the time he kept thinking about Santa Claus’s letter. He saw several of Santa Claus’s helpers in the stores, all dressed up like the old man himself, but he didn’t want to talk to any of them. He kept worrying and worrying about having no present to leave under his empty stocking. Suddenly he thought of what he might do.

Then it was Christmas Eve. “One at a time,” Father said. “And it isn’t fair for any of you to poke into another’s pile until we are ready to hang up our stockings. You may have first turn, Bobby.”

Bobby felt like crying “Please Daddy, may I have my turn last?” he said

Father didn’t ask any questions. “All right, Nancy,” he said. Nancy hurried to her room. It seemed to Bobby that she made a dozen trips. Then Marie took her turn; then Milton. Finally Mother went into the kitchen and hastened to the living room with something under her apron. And Father brought a large paper bag in from the car.

“Now we’ll have supper,” Mother said. “Then we’ll take a look at those presents you have ready for Santa Claus to take on to Uncle Sam.”

Bobby couldn’t eat. There was a lump in his throat that the food couldn’t be swallowed past. “Excuse me,” he said, and slipped down from his chair. He had made up his mind.

“There’s desert,” Mother said, but Bobby went to his room. He opened his clothes closet door. There stood his play chest filled with his toys. He shook his wooden blocks out of their burlap bag. He tried hard to remember all of the things that were good for scrap. Then he went to work. In a few minutes his little bag was filled.

Christmas Eve was always the best evening in the year, but this year it was something special. Everybody was more interested in the gift for Santa Claus than they were in the beautifully wrapped gifts for each other that they had sneaked under the lighted tree.

Father showed his gifts for Santa Claus first, because he was the oldest. “These are things I had at my office,” he said. There was a big brass paper weight with the head of an Indian on it, a little rubber tire with a glass tray inside of it where the wheel should be – Father had kept thumb tacks and paper clips in this – some book ends that matched the head paperweight, and a big box of snappy rubber bands.

“Why, Father,” Mother said, “I thought those Indian –”

“I was fond of them,” Father said, “but Uncle Sam –”

Mother showed her gifts next because she was next to oldest. She had brought in a whole pile of pots and pans. “I can do without these,” she said.

Milton said, “Nothing special in my heap. Just things anybody can pick up around a garage.” There were worn out tools, a piece of an old metal tire rim, a rake with the handle and three teeth gone, and the metal parts from the discarded lawn mower.

“I used more imagination,” Marie said. She had a bi sack full of rubber heels and soles from old shoes. “I remembered that we had tossed all of our old tennis shoes and saddle oxfords into that cupboard under the stairs.”

Father said, “Before Uncle Sam needed the rubber we kept them there to burn to clean out the chimney.”

Everybody laughed at what Nancy had found. She had brought down from the attic several arm loads of old, old dresses and window curtains. “I had some of those dresses before I was married,” Mother said.

Marie and Nancy tried on the dresses; then Milton took an old white curtain and hung it on his head. He began to sing, “Here comes the bride.”

“A good present,” Father said. “Clean rags make good scrap.”

Then they all looked at Bobby. He hadn’t brought his present for Santa Claus into the living room – it looked so small. Now he went and got the sack. The first thing he took from it was a soft white rubber lamb. Everybody laughed but Mother. “Why, Bobby,” she said, “that’s the lamb that Uncle Nathan sent you from Norway when he was on his mission there.”

“I’m too big to play with it now. And I don’t care if it’s a – a – keepsake.”

Next he took out his train – the engine and all the cars. “I don’t need these,” he explained. “I can play with something else.”

They all looked at him in wonder. Bobby said, “Wait just a minute.” He hurried out to the garage. He brought back with him his red wagon.

“Why, Bobby!” Nancy gasped. Everybody looked astonished. They all knew that Bobby loved his red wagon more than anything that he owned.

Bobby wanted to say, “I’m too big for my wagon,” but the words wouldn’t come. He knew they wouldn’t be true words.

“Well,” decided Father. “I know who is going to get the prize.”

“It ought to be Bobby,” Nancy said, and Milton and Marie clapped their hands. “It ought to be Bobby,” Mother agreed.

“It is Bobby,” Father said. “It isn’t hard to give away things you don’t want – or things that you can easily do without. But when a boy gives away the toys he plays with every day –!”

Father gave Bobby a clean new defense stamp book. In it he had pasted ten ten-cent stamps.

“Well, I got to thinking about Jesus,” Bobby explained. “Our Primary teacher told us about how He gave everything – even His life – and that is why we give presents at Christmas time. And I tried to think what He would do.” He didn’t tell them about Mrs. Peterson’s old stove or Kelvin’s bed springs. He was glad now – very glad – that he hadn’t decided to give either of these to Santa Claus.

In the morning the tree was piled high with gifts and the stockings were lumpy with surprises. The gifts that they had left for Santa Claus to take on to Uncle Sam were all gone. Santa Claus had left another neatly typewritten letter,

“Dear Children:

“I am very glad to have such a fine big gift for Uncle Sam. Thank you so much. I wish that every boy and girl in America could do as well.

“With love,

“Santa Claus.”