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Show MICIIAKL I'AHKI'Ift slid Into hill Santa Clans suit with a groan. It had been a long, hard day and the si retell ri oni seven o'clock to nine renin ined before Ihe big department de-partment store would close. I Sealed on his throne, lie glanced ! resignedly down Ihe long line up- preaching ruin. It wsis llien that he saw her. 'the sight inadii him choke with emotion and his v.iice tivin- bled when he spoke to the youngsters. young-sters. Her turn came at last and be took her on bis knee ha he hail done the others. "What's your name, little girl'.'" he asked in his grulfest voice. "Marianne Parker, " she answered sortly. "What would you like for Christmas?" Christ-mas?" The answer was given Instantly. "A doll and a carriage and . . . uh . . . " Marianne hesitated and poked a linger in Santa's padded stomach ". . . Is it real?" she asked. Michael Parker had no answer to this and she looked up into his face. Suddenly she burst into tears!. He longed to tear off bis false whiskers an 1 tell her that everything would be all right now'. Hut Instead he said. "What's the matter, Marianne?" Mari-anne?" "I want my daddy to conic home," she sobbed. "I want that more than a doll or anything." "Well, that's a pretty large order," or-der," said Santa, "but I'll see what I can do." Out in the brisk night air Michael Parker regretted having fought with Wilson. The incident paraded across TOYs!,lllr,:SJTUS',,,, "What would you like for Christmas?" Christ-mas?" his memory, as it had a thousand times in the past few weeks. After months of studying and planning, he had gone to Wilson, the plant manager, man-ager, with a scheme that was surefire sure-fire for speeding up plane production. produc-tion. Wilson was brusque. "You stick to your engineering," he said, "I'll worry about production." After telling Wilson, among other things, that he was the plant's biggest big-gest bottleneck, Parker angrily went home. Bitter and restless, he had gone away three weeks ago, telling Elsie, his wife, that he was out to get a real job. But no one would take him without $l release. As the days passed he longed intensely to be with his family fam-ily again but pride would not let him return a failure. Finally, funds running run-ning low, he took the job as Santa Claus for the Christmas holidays. Snow was beginning to fall. Last minute shoppers were thinning out. He walked aimlessly among them, wondering where he could go, knowing know-ing that home, tonight of all nights, was out of the question. Suddenly he remembered the words of a child who had sat on his knee that afternoon. When MichaeL ss Santa Claus, had asked him what he wanted for Christmas he had replied, re-plied, "It doesn't matter. Even Christmas doesn't seem to matter any more. I just came here to keep up my mom's spirit." He paused. "There won't be any real Christmas for me until my pop comes home. He's in Africa, you know." All at once Michael Parker realized real-ized that he, not Wilson, was the bottleneck. With Elsie in his arms he murmured, mur-mured, "I've come back the same as I left a fool, a complete fool." "Well, not a complete fool," she countered with a smile. "Wilson telegraphed. He wants to know if you can be in Monday morning to supervise the setting up of your new system." "But how did you know that I'd be here?" Marianne ran out from her bedroom bed-room and threw her arms around his waist. "I told Mother," she announced. an-nounced. An amused twinkle came into Michael Parker's eyes.. "Oh, I see. I suppose you asked Santa Claus to send me home?" "No." "Well, that's strange. That's exactly ex-actly what happened." Marianne giggled. "Daddy," she said, "the next time you try to fool anyone you had better cover up that funny little molt between your eyes. I could tell that anywhere." Releace4 try WMtan Nemraper Uataa- |