“I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.
Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.
Whenever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.
Christmas Eve was the time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.
“If everybody wanted everybody else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?” Laura asked, and Ma said, “Yes, Laura.”
Laura thought about that. So did Mary. They thought, and they looked at each other, and they knew what Ma wanted them to do. She wanted them to wish for nothing but horses for Pa. They looked at each other again and they looked away quickly and they did not say anything. Even Mary, who was always so good, did not say a word.
That night after supper Pa drew Laura and Mary close to him in the crook of his arms. Laura looked up at his face, and then she snuggled against him and said, “Pa.”
“What is it, little half-pint of sweet cider?” Pa asked, and Laura said:
“Pa, I want Santa Claus—to bring—”
“What?” Pa asked.
“Horses,” said Laura. “If you will let me ride them sometimes.”
“So do I!” said Mary. But Laura had said it first.
Pa was surprised. His eyes shone soft and bright at them. “Would you girls really like horses?” he asked them.
“Oh yes, Pa!” they said.
“In that case,” said Pa, smiling, “I have an idea that Santa Claus will bring us all a fine team of horses.”
That settled it. They would not have any Christmas, only horses. Laura and Mary sob
erly undressed and soberly buttoned up their nightgowns and tied their nightcap strings. They knelt down together and said,
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take,
and please bless Pa and Ma and Carrie and everybody and make me a good girl for ever ’n’ ever. Amen.”
Quickly Laura added, in her own head, “And please make me only glad about the Christmas horses, for ever ’n’ ever amen again.”
She climbed into bed and almost right away she was glad. She thought of horses sleek and shining, of how their manes and tails blew in the wind, how they picked up their swift feet and sniffed the air with velvety noses and looked at everything with bright, soft eyes. And Pa would let her ride them.
Pa had tuned his fiddle and now he set it against his shoulder. Overhead the wind went wailing lonely in the cold dark. But in the dugout everything was snug and cosy.
Bits of fire-light came through the seams of the stove and twinkled on Ma’s steel knitting needles and tried to catch Pa’s elbow. In the shadows the bow was dancing, on the floor Pa’s toe was tapping, and the merry music hid the lonely crying of the wind.
Chapter 13
A Merry Christmas
Next morning, snow was in the air. Hard bits of snow were leaping and whirling in the howling wind.
Laura could not go out to play. In the stable, Spot and Pete and Bright stood all day long, eating the hay and straw. In the dugout, Pa mended his boots while Ma read to him again the story called Millbank. Mary sewed and Laura played with Charlotte. She could let Carrie hold Charlotte, but Carrie was too little to play with paper dolls; she might tear one.