I send you a letter for New Year’s Day, just such as they sell at the Post Office for ten cents, and you must ask Sister Ellen to read it to you, and let her pay the postage for the pleasure of looking into it.

  When we arrived at Concord we found the snow in the same state in which we left it, a foot and a half deep; still sticking to the trees and houses; the face of the clock upon the Meetinghouse being entirely covered with it. Should you not think it pretty strange to get into a stage at Scituate where there was not enough snow for your Donkey, and after riding a little while step out where the snow was too deep for the largest carts?

  We learned that Sammy Black had acted rather queerly during our absence, for the day before we got home, being in a fit, and anxious to get out of the room, he did not wait for the opening of a door, but dashed through a window, breaking a pane of glass without injuring himself at all; pretty nimble fellow, don’t you think he was?

  Our boys have amused themselves for a few days past with snowballing matches, and grand sport they made of it. The little fellows attacked some of the largest boys, and the giants were very tender to the small ones, and strove not to hurt them. The snow was very hard and the balls flew fast, and sometimes a little captain got a thump with a huge lump of it, but no one was foolish enough to get angry, and they had a fine time. The School went out Christmas day upon the river to skate, and played with some sticks bent up at the end which they call “Hawkies”, knocking a rubber ball about upon the ice. The boys here sometimes have bonfires while skating; the fire resting upon small hillocks sticking up in the meadows, and they gather around to warm themselves with great satisfaction, but if they are pretty lazy, and stand long in one spot, they are quite apt to get into the cellar; as in the story I told Edmund.

  Did you and Edmund hang up your stockings the night before Christmas? Perhaps you don’t know what I mean, but when I was a little boy I was told to hang my clean stocking with those of my brother and sister in the chimney corner the night before Christmas, and that “Santa Claus”, a very good sort of sprite, who rode about in the air upon a broomstick (an odd kind of horse I think) would come down the chimney in the night, and fill our stockings if we had been good children, with dough-nuts, sugar plums and all sorts of nice things; but if we had been naughty we found in the stocking only a rotten potato, a letter and a rod. I got the rotten potato once, had the letter read to me, and was very glad that the rod put into the stocking was too short to be used. And so we got something every year until one Christmas day we asked a girl at school what “Santa Claus” had left her the night before, but she did not understand us, and when we told her about all the nice things which he had left us, and showed her some candy, she said she did not believe it; that our mother had purchased the candy at her father’s shop the night before, for she saw her. We ran home as fast as we could scud to enquire about it, and learned that what the girl had said was true, that there was no “Santa Claus”, and that our mother had put all those good things into our stockings. We were very sorry, I assure you, and we have not hung up our stockings since, and “Santa Claus” never gives us anything now. If they tell you any stories about “Santa Claus” at Scituate, I advise you Master George to hang up the longest stocking you can find.

  I determined one night to sit up until morning that I might get a sight at him when he came down the chimney. I was just about your age George; I got a little cricket and sat down by the fireplace looking sharp up into the chimney, and there I sat about an hour later than my usual bed time, I suppose, when I fell asleep and was carried off to bed before I knew anything about it. So I have never seen him, and don’t know what kind of a looking fellow he was.

  I am glad to hear that you are studying Geography; you must dig away hard at it and I think you will like it very much. Here is a picture of Master George Sewall studying Geography. [ drawing ]

  I send Miss Ellen some Opals, from South America, for her Cabinet, a couple of books for Edmund, the larger I give him; the smaller I throw in but will not recommend it. You must give my love to Father and Mother. I send you Sir nothing but a letter, and now if sister has read it through to you very carefully you may give her a kiss for me and wish her a Happy New Year!!

So much from one who loves little boys but not brats.

John Thoreau Jr.