Samuel Clemens, known for his pen name Mark Twain, wrote a letter to his daughter, Susie Clemens. Susie lived a short life of 23 years. She was a sickly girl and during one of her bouts of sickness, her father wrote a letter from Santa Claus.
Palace of St. Nicholas
In the Moon
Christmas Morning
MY
DEAR SUSIE CLEMENS:
I
have received and read all the letters which you and your little sister have
written me by the hand of your mother and your nurses; I have also read those
which you little people have written me with your own hands--for although
you did not use any characters that are in grown peoples' alphabet, you used
the characters that all children in all lands on earth and in the twinkling
stars use; and as all my subjects in the moon are children and use no character
but that, you will easily understand that I can read your and your baby sister's
jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But I had trouble with
those letters which you dictated through your mother and the nurses, for I
am a foreigner and cannot read English writing well. You will find that I
made no mistakes about the things which you and the baby ordered in your own
letters--I went down your chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered
them all myself--and kissed both of you, too, because you are good children,
well trained, nice mannered, and about the most obedient little people I ever
saw. But in the letter which you dictated there were some words which I could
not make out for certain, and one or two small orders which I could not fill
because we ran out of stock. Our last lot of kitchen furniture for dolls has
just gone to a very poor little child in the North Star away up, in the cold
country above the Big Dipper. Your mama can show you that star and you will
say: "Little Snow Flake," (for that is the child's name) "I'm
glad you got that furniture, for you need it more than I." That is, you
must write that, with your own hand, and Snow Flake will write you an answer.
If you only spoke it she wouldn't hear you. Make your letter light and thin,
for the distance is great and the postage very heavy.
There
was a word or two in your mama's letter which I couldn't be certain of. I
took it to be "a trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it? I will
call at your kitchen door about nine o'clock this morning to inquire. But
I must not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the kitchen
doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to open the door. Then
he must go back to the dining room or the china closet and take the cook with
him. You must tell George he must walk on tiptoe and not speak--otherwise
he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery and stand on a chair
or the nurse's bed and put your car to the speaking tube that leads down to
the kitchen and when I whistle through it you must speak in the tube and say,
"Welcome, Santa Claus!" Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you
ordered or not. If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the
trunk to be. Your mama will help you to name a nice color and then you must
tell me every single thing in detail which you want the trunk to contain.
Then when I say "Good-by and a merry Christmas to my little Susie Clemens,"
you must say "Good-by, good old Santa Claus, I thank you very much and
please tell that little Snow Flake I will look at her star tonight and she
must look down here--I will be right in the west bay window; and every fine
night I will look at her star and say, 'I know somebody up there and like
her, too.' " Then you must go down into the library and make George close
all the doors that open into the main hall, and everybody must keep still
for a little while. I will go to the moon and get those things and in a few
minutes I will come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is
in the hall--if it is a trunk you want--because I couldn't get such a thing
as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know.
People
may talk if they want, until they hear my footsteps in the hall. Then you
tell them to keep quiet a little while till I go back up the chimney. Maybe
you will not hear my footsteps at all--so you may go now and then and peep
through the dining-room doors, and by and by you will see that thing which
you want, right under the piano in the drawing room-for I shall put it there.
If I should leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into
the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not use a
broom, but a rag--else he will die someday. You must watch George and not
let him run into danger. If my boot should leave a stain on the marble, George
must not holystone it away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; and
whenever you look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to
be a good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and somebody points to that
mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble, what will
you say, little sweetheart?
Good-by
for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen doorbell.
Your
loving SANTA CLAUS
Whom people sometimes call "The Man in the Moon"
 |
| Clemens as St. Nick |
No comments:
Post a Comment