The following is a seasonal piece written sometime around 1890. Hope you enjoy it.
“I fink Santa Claus lives way up in the noon”
(That was Anna’s opinion- aged four).
“So far,I’m af’aid he can’t come pretty soon-
Don’t you wis’ he was staying next door?”
“Pshaw! He lives just back of the toy shop in town”
(So said Willie, and he had turned nine);
“I see him most every time I go down-
How the things in his windows do shine!”
But Ethel, tall Ethel, had grown overwise
(“Fourteen years” has no need of a nurse);
She said, with a twinkle of fun in her eyes,
“Santa lives in our dear papa’s purse!”
Wide Awake, 1891