That was the way the villagers found him next morning when they brought the sad news that his father had been drowned in the storm. To make things even worse they also had to tell him that his poor mother had been killed by a tree falling on her on the way to fetch the doctor. Now of the once happy family of four, there was only Nicholas. He was an orphan.

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2b

Chapter Thirteen

Santa Claus Is Born

      The year that followed Nicholas’ death on that Christmas morning was a very sad one for all the villagers. They had tenderly put Nicholas to rest in the pine grove near the spot where the children had played with him in the past. The eight reindeer were no longer in the stall behind the empty cottage, but had been taken by Kathy to the stables at the big house up on the hill. In the months that passed, many a mother would pick up a little doll from the floor and gently wipe the dust from its face with a suddenly tear dimmed eye for the generous heart who had made the little toy with so much love. It gradually entered even the youngest mind that Nicholas was dead and would no longer fill their stockings at Christmas. They cried a little, but gradually the image of the fat, cheerful old man faded from their memories and so the year passed until it was again Christmas Eve.

      "Mother, are we going to hang up our stockings?"

      "No child. Have you forgotten that Nicholas is no longer here and can’t come to fill your stockings?"

      This question was asked and similarly answered in almost every house in the village on that Christmas Eve. All over the village, children went sadly to bed without hanging up their stockings, except for one little boy, Stephen, who refused to believe that Nicholas wouldn’t come. He astonished his parents when he calmly went about hanging up his stocking just the way he had done every Christmas Eve since he could

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