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Show TWO TOTS IN A TOY SHOP Little Denny Was Almost Beyond Hope in the Eyes of His Older Sister, Aged Six. She was six if she was a day; she had a little fat back in a little black coat and her wisps of red hair matched her red tam-o'shanter. In her firm hand she held a struggling boy about a year younger, and they wfcre getting into the elevator at a big department store and making for "toys." Children are not allowed, unaccompanied unaccom-panied by guardians, in most large shops, but such was her air of responsibility, re-sponsibility, of decorum, that it would have been a bold floorwalker who dared to question her. Nor, evidently, was it her first visit The boy, still held in leash, ran in front and made straight for the space devoted to Santa Claus, his reindeer and his sleigh, piled with toys. There was a background of fir and cedar and a huge Christmas tree, but the pair sat down before the fascinat-. fascinat-. ing old fellow in his red robe, his long white beard, holding his big whip, and from his face the small boy did not turn from worshiping in solemn sol-emn adoration. Across the room was a creche; also a wonderful and beautiful thing. The infant Jesus in the manger, the mother moth-er in her blue robes, St. Joseph, with his staff, the three kings resplendent. The children had been perfectly still for fifteen minutes looking at ' Santa Claus, when the littje girl whispered whis-pered to the boy. He squirmed, struggled, strug-gled, but she was too much for him. She dislodged him from his seat, ' dragged him to the creche, and with motherly, Irish piety, pressed him on his knees. Reverently she described the holy group, then would incite devotion from a more human motive. "See the cow, Denny; you mind tne ' cow we used to milk last summer at ' the farm when we went on the fresh ' air? See the goat, Denny; you mind ' the goat in our alley? It's his pitcher." ' But Denny whined and pulled and pulled to be back again to his idol. 1 The little girl looked up. Her sigh 1 was that given by every woman since ; the beginning, for every man for ' whose soul she holds herself respon-1 respon-1 sible. "Denny," she said, "Denny likes Santa Claus better than he likes God." |