The Christmas children’s story below was originally printed in 1904.
For many cycles after old Kris Kringle began to carry gifts at yuletide to little boys and girls, he pondered and pondered on Christmas morn as to why the little girls sighed. Then he laughed and said: “Perhaps it will be different next year.”
When he told Dame Kringle that the little girls sighed, she smiled, in that dear motherly way of hers and told old Kris the reason – that he failed to gladden there wee mother-hearts.
“But, dame, how can I do it? Tell me, please.”
“So like a man,” said Dame Kringle, “for a man never seems to know, and I will tell you the secret. The little girls sigh for a dolly – not the kind i used to play with, away up here at the north pole; but the kind the girlies resembled when the stork took them to the land of sunshine. And that recalls,” continued the dame, “that only yesterday I saw an old stork out in the firs, where he was paused to rest, and with him one of the dearest little babies imaginable, such as little girls love. He told me that other storks with other babies would soon pass this way. Now, Kris, were i you and sought to please the little maids who sigh, i would watch, there in the firs, and when I saw the little dears, I would hurry back to the old workshop and model from my choicest wares, one like they – a model for other dollies, to be carried next year to the little girls who sighed.”
“Well said, good dame,” replied old Kris, “and ere I sleep again the storks and i shall meet.”
Then out among the firs, garbed in their green and snow, old Kris Kringle waited.
“Hark! What noise is that?” exclaimed the good old man. “It’s like the flute of wings.” And down through the frost laden boughs came a stork carrying a tiny bundle. Just once there was a whimper, but the old stork cooed as he loosened the cords, and the sprite went back to dreams.
All that night in the workshop old Kris Kringle moulded the clay, spun the flax, hammered and laughed, and when dawn came, the model was done.
Then summer days came, but old Kris Kringle sought no rest, and when yuletide arrived once more, he carried with him the special dollies. They were the most wonderful dollies in the world and the little girls sighed no more.
And this is how the first dollies came to be made, as told by old Kris Kringle and the stork.
