PAGE MAKING THE BEST OF IT 497 SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES HAVE ALWAYS STOPPED AT THE FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL 499 PEACE IN UNION. THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX, APRIL 9, 1865 546 548 66 WHEN REFERRED TO AS THE LATE THOMAS NAST ACKNOWLEDGMENT, CAPT. SLOCUM'S "SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD" 551 552 553 554 ORIGINAL STUDY FOR "THE IMMORTAL LIGHT OF GENIUS A SKETCH FOUND IN NAST'S DESK AT MORRISTOWN 580 583 Th: Nast. HIS PERIOD AND HIS PICTURES A WORD OF INTRODUCTION It is nearly forty years ago that a boy of five, whose home was a square, white farm-house on one of the big bleak prairies of the middle West, was lying flat on the rag carpet before the open wood-fire, poring over a wonderful double-page picture in Harper's Weekly. It was really a combination of several pictures, each of which depicted some important scene in the daily life of the merry old fellow whose home is at the North Pole, and who toils busily all the year through that good children everywhere may be made happy on Christmas Day. The little boy had the firmest faith in Santa Claus, and this picture, coming as it did just before the holidays, was of immense value. There was the interior of Santa Claus's shop, with the old chap busily at work and about him a number of finished toys. The little boy had tried to imagine this scene. Now here it was, all truly set down, and he found a deep and lingering joy in wondering which of the articles might be intended for him. Then he looked at the other pictures-the one where Santa Claus is starting off with his loaded sleigh-another where he is filling the stockings, and still another-perhaps the most valuable of all-Santa Claus leaning over a high battlement of his icy home, sweeping the world below with a long spy-glass. The boy knew about spy-glasses, and he understood now how it was that Santa Claus could tell the good children from the bad. Just opposite, there was a companion picture which showed Santa Claus looking through a huge book wherein the names of all the children are kept, with good and bad marks carefully set down. The boy could not read, but his mother had assured him that his name did not appear. Perhaps it would be on the next leaf. He tried to lift the edge of the pictured page with a pin. It was no use. He turned the paper over and looked through from the other side. Then once more he spread the paper before the fire that shone bright in the dim winter afternoon, and forgot everything else in the world in them. Indeed, he scarcely realized that they were merely pictures. The Santa Claus they presented henceforth became his Santa Claus through all the coming years. One remains a little boy such a brief time. Santa Claus becomes careless as we grow older, and the picture, though never forgotten, was laid away. The boy became interested in other things, even in politics, or at least in such politics as caused him to hurrah wildly for Grant and Colfax when a schoolmate sent up a shout for Seymour and Blair. Also, he found new pleasure in the pages of Harper's Weekly, for there were humorous pictures of these and other public men which his father helped him to identify when they looked through the paper together. And by and by some of the pictured men were evil-doers who needed punishment and quite often were getting it. The boy and his father laughed together at the mishaps of these wicked ones, and the boy learned that the caricature pictures which he could tell as far as he could see them, and recognize the different faces, were the work of a wonderful artist-the great cartoonist, |