=HarleyMole and his son =Delver did straight mole work. They tunneled and
they dug and they brought home the groceries. =Harley and =Delver wore
overalls and thick boots and heavy work gloves. They wore thick glasses,
because the whole =Mole family was very nearsighted, and they had little
lanterns in their caps, because they tunneled in the dark. They tunneled
in the springtime and the summer. They tunneled through the fall and through
the winter, while =Harley's wife =Emma cooked and cleaned and washed the
overalls. All three of them worked every single day, and all days were the same for them.

In the evenings =Emma mended overalls and work gloves while =Harley and =Delver
cleaned the lanterns and scraped the mud from their boots and rubbed them down with tallow.

When =Delver's chores were done he polished up and sorted his collection of
good-shaped stones and marbles and bits of colored glass that he had found
while tunneling. And sometimes he just sat around and thought.

"=Delver is a brooder," =Emma used to say to =Harley.

"=Delver is a thinker," =Harley always answered. "There's no telling what that
boy might do when he puts his mind to something."

The =Mole family's home was under the lawn of a house that had been empty for
a long time. But that fall a family of people moved in. And that winter, very
early one morning when everyone was still asleep, =Delver tunneled up through
the earth and snow to have a look around.

At the back door of the house he found a house mouse looking at a calendar
the milkman had left with Season's Greetings from the dairy. "Christmas is
coming," said the mouse, and ran into his hole.

=Delver thought about it day, and at dinner he asked his mother and father, "What is Christmas?"

"I have no idea," said =Harley. "No idea whatever."

"Neither do I," said =Emma. "Perhaps it's a people thing."

=Delver thought about it some more, and that evening when his chores were done he went up to the people house. 

There he found the mouse again, dining on birdseed that had fallen from a feeder.

"What is Christmas," =Delver asked him?

"Several different flavors of paper and cardboard," said the mouse. "Fresh paste sometimes, and
no end of ribbon, string, and nesting materials. Constant footsteps overhead, and no rest for
anyone until he's come and gone." 

"Until who's come and gone?" said =Delver.

"Fat man in a red suit," said the mouse. "White beard. First there's a lot of stomping and
snorting and jingling up on the roof. Then he comes puffing and wheezing down the chimney,
puts knickknacks and candy in stockings, leaves all kinds of packages around, says 'Ho ho ho,'
and goes huffing and puffing up the chimney again. It's quite an odd thing, really, but he does
it only once a year, and nobody seems to mind."

"What's in the packages," said =Delver?

"Skates and trains, dolls and whatnot," said the mouse. "The people children write
letters, and if they've been good the fat man brings them what they ask for."

"Does he bring you anything," asked Delver?

"No," said the mouse. "But then it's not my chimney, and I don't
write letters. It's late," he said, "And I've got to be getting
home before =EphraimOwl comes by on his evening rounds. Lovely
night, isn't it? Look at all those stars!"

"Where," said Delver?

"Up in the sky," said the mouse. "Where else?" He shook his head and ran back into the house.

=Delver looked up, but he was too nearsighted to see the stars. When he squinted
hard he could just barely make out a blurry brightness here and there, but that
was all. He was still squinting up at the sky when a lady mouse came to nibble
at the birdseed. "The stars are especially fine tonight, aren't they," she said?

"They certainly are," said =Delver.

"Indeed," said the lady mouse, "it's almost like singing, you might say, the way they
glimmer and shine, isn't it?"

"Yes," said =Delver. "I think it is," and he went on squinting while the lady
mouse went on nibbling. After a while =Delver said, "Do you have any particular
way of looking at the stars?"

"I just look up," said the lady mouse. "Of course I have seen people looking at them
with telescopes, which is, I supposed, a particular way of looking. Look out,"
she cried, and dove into the shrubbery, pulling =Delver with her as old =EphraimOwl
swooped down upon them!

"Hoo hoo," said =Ephraim as he flew up with nothing in his talons!
"If not this time, then some other time," and he flew away, hooting and chuckling.

"You'd better keep your eyes open," said the lady mouse to =Delver. "He almost caught you."

"I was thinking," said =Delver. "What's a telescope?"

"I believe that a telescope is something like an extra, very far-sighted eye," said
the lady mouse, "which would undoubtedly be helpful to anyone who might be somewhat
nearsighted." 

"Undoubtedly," said =Delver. "Thank you very much. Goodnight." And he tunneled slowly
home, thinking about the stars.

All the next day as =Delver worked with his father he thought about the stars he
could not see, and after a while he began to cry. "What's the matter," said =Harley,
and =Delver told him about the stars? "I went above ground a time or two when I was
young," said =Harley. "I heard about stars too, and I know how you feel."

"There are telescopes," said =Delver, and he told his father what the lady mouse
had told him. "I wish I had a telescope," said =Delver.

"So do I," said =Harley. "It would be nice to see a few stars, just for the experience of it, you know."

"Maybe if we had a chimney," said =Delver, and he told =Harley about the fat man in the red suit.

"Ah," said =Harley, "but that's a people thing. I never heard of a red-suited fat man giving
anything to animals."

"And anyhow, we haven't got a chimney," said =Delver.

"We've got a stovepipe," said =Harley, "same as any other animals."

"You've got to have a chimney," said =Delver.

"A people-sized chimney?" asked =Harley.

"Well," said =Delver, "it would have to be big enough for his hand with the telescope, at least."

"all right," said =Harley, taking a deep breath and drawing himself up to his full
height, "we'll make a chimney."

When =Emma was told about the project she had many doubts. "I'd like to see the stars as much
as anyone else," she said, "but we mustn't get our hopes too high." Nevertheless, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the work.

The =Mole family made many nighttime trips above ground for sand and cement for their mortar.
=Harley and =Emma and =Delver carried pieces of broken brick and heavy stones, always watching
and listening for the owl. =OldEphraim failed to catch them night after night, but vowed that
he would soon or late dine upon them. "The longer it takes," he said, "the better you'll taste."
But the =Moles kept working on their chimney in spite of =Ephraim, and every night it grew higher.

The mouse who had told =Delver about Christmas showed him how to spell out the words for his
letter, and by the time the chimney was half built he was ready to mail it. The question was
where to? "I know he comes down," said the mouse, "so he must come from up. If I were you
I'd send the letter up."

So the =Moles found a very long stick and stuck it straight up in the snow, with the letter
in a cleft at the end of it. The letter said:
To the fat man in the red suit:
&&000
[rest of letter omitted]
&&001

That night the moles stopped work before =OldEphraim made his rounds, so they
were in bed when he passed overhead on silent wings. =OldEphraim saw the letter
on the stick, snatched it up in his talons, stuck it in his back pocket, and flew away with it.

When the =Moles came out the  next night and saw that the letter was gone they were all
very pleased. "Well," said =Delver, "now that it's been picked up, it's just a matter of
time till the telescope comes." 

Then all the =Moles worked very hard every night to finish their chimney. All of them hoped
very much that the fat man in the red suit would come, but each of them thought that perhaps
he might not come.

So just to make sure that =Delver and =Harley would have something for Christmas, =Emma
knitted new mufflers for them. =Harley made a pair of pretty slippers for =Emma and a pair
of moccasins for =Delver. =Delver made a sewing box for his mother and a reading lamp with
a green ginger-ale bottle glass shade for his father.

Then all the =Moles wrapped their presents and hid them. "Even if the fat man doesn't
bring the telescope," said =Emma to =Harley and =Delver, "he may leave some other little
presents, you know."

"Just what I was thinking," said =Harley.

"So was I," said =Delver, and all three of them smiled to themselves.

When the =Moles finished the chimney by the light of the moon on Christmas Eve they were all exhausted.
They sat on top of their chimney and sighed happily, smiling up at the stars they could not see, and
they were so tired that they all fell asleep sitting there in a row.

They were still sitting there asleep when old =Ephraim flew over. "Hoo hoo!" said =Ephraim.
"There they are like a three-course dinner, all ready and waiting for me. I'll just swoop
down, and they'll jump up and run -- but they won't be fast enough."

=Ephraim swooped down, but the tired =Moles stayed fast asleep. "This doesn't seem quite
right," said =Ephraim, and he flew up again. "I'll hoot very loudly and count to ten to
give them a heard start and then I'll catch them."

"Hoo," he hooted! "Wake up!" But the =Moles would not wake up.

"Silly things!" said =Ephraim. "They write letters about telescopes and stars and they sleep
out in the open by the light of the moon. They certainly deserve to be eaten!"

Just then the midnight bells rang out in all the churches in the town, and the sound floated
on the still air over the sparkling snow. Then from high up under the silent-singing stars
there came a faint jingling of sleigh bells, and all at once old =Ephraim felt very jolly
and full of life. "Wouldn't those =Moles feel foolish if they woke up and found themselves
not eaten," he chuckled! "And maybe just for fun I'll give that letter to whoever it is way
up there in a sleigh. Maybe he knows the fat man in the red suit."

So it was on Christmas morning the =Moles woke up feeling very foolish for having fallen
asleep out in the open, and found themselves not eaten. And there beside them on the
chimney was a beautiful, shining telescope.

"You see," said =Delver, "all it took was a chimney, and I didn't even have to swap my stone,
marble, and glass collection!"

But the joke wasn't only on the =Moles, because when =OldEphraim woke up that afternoon
he found a nicely wrapped package inside the door of the hollow tree where he lived.
Inside the package was an elegant striped necktie, and a card that said:
Season's Greetings to a jolly good fellow from the fat man in the red suit.
Best regards,
=SClaus

So that was the =Mole family's first Christmas, and they were very pleased with it. On top of
the chimney they made an owl-proof observatory out of an upside-down flower pot, and then they
were able to look at the stars in perfect comfort. "I think =Delver did very well to find out
about Christmas as he did," said =Emma.

"Yes," said =Harley, "you never can tell what will happen when a boy like =Delver puts his
mind to something. Here am I, who never expected to see a single star, looking at all of
them. I call that impressive."

"It really is like singing, the way they glimmer and shine," said =Delver.

Even =Delver's mouse friends, who were not at all near-sighted, found that they enjoyed viewing
the stars through a telescope, and now they visit the =Moles' observatory often.

=OldEphraim wears his necktie constantly, and although he still hunts the =Moles
regularly he has not yet managed to catch them.

There had been talk of using the =Mole chimney next Christmas for all of the local animals, and
the mice are already at work on their letters to the fat main in the red suit. So is =OldEphraim,
who - being somewhat more knowledgeable - will address his letter to =SClaus.
The End.