PICCOLA.
Fred and May lived one winter in a country where the sun was always bright and warm.
What good times they had playing in the garden!
One day they saw a queer little girl watching them. She did not look like the little girls they played with at home.
She wore a long red dress. On her feet were little wooden shoes.
She said that her name was Piccola. She told them that she was alone all day, because her mother went out to work.
Fred and May asked her to come and play with them in the garden.
One day the children were talking about Santa Claus.
“Who is that?” asked Piccola.
“Why, Piccola!” said May. “Did you never hear of Christmas?”
“Yes,” said Piccola. “We go to church on Christmas Day, and hear beautiful singing.”
Then the children told her all about Santa Claus.
“Hang up your stocking on Christmas Eve,” said May. “He will come down the chimney and fill it with toys.”
Piccola could hardly wait to tell her mother about Santa Claus.
“I wonder what he will give me,” she said.
“Do not look for him this year, little daughter,” said her mother. “I shall be thankful if we have enough to eat.”
But Piccola knew that Santa Claus would not forget her.
On Christmas Eve Piccola did not have any stocking to hang up. So she put her little wooden shoe in front of the fireplace.
“I’m sure Santa Claus will not care if it is a shoe,” she said.
The next morning Piccola awoke before it was light. She ran softly to the fireplace to see what was in her shoe.
“Oh, Mother, Mother!” cried the happy little girl. “See what Santa Claus has given me!”
She ran to her mother with the shoe in her hand.A little bird had come down the chimney. There it lay in the shoe, looking up at her with its two bright eyes.
Piccola fed it and warmed it. Then she carried it into the garden to show it to Fred and May.
They gave her candy, and toys, and a doll. But Piccola liked the gift of Santa Claus best of all.
Suggested byCelia Thaxter’sPoem, “Piccola.”