I’ll stay here with you just as long as you want me to.”
So every winter evening saw two heads bent over the workbench. A grey head with thick, shaggy hair, and the smooth yellow head of a boy. They worked feverishly during the weeks before Christmas and with the old man helping with the carving, Nicholas was able to add delicate little touches to the toys, which made them far more handsome than any he had made before. He painted the dolls’ faces so that their eyes were as blue and their cheeks and lips were as rosy as the little girls who would soon clasp them in their arms. The little chairs and tables were stained with the same soft colours that Mars-den used on his own work; the little boys’ sleds and boats were shiny with bright new paints, red, yel-low, blue and green
Only two nights before Christmas, everything was finished. Although a toy for every child in the vil-lage was packed onto the sled with metal runners, Nicholas and the old man were still working at the bench. This time, they were desperately trying to finish a chest, which had been ordered by a wealthy woman in the next village twenty miles away. It was late on Christmas Eve when it was eventually finished. “I’m sorry,” said old Marsden reading Nicholas’ thoughts. “You’ll have to take it over tomorrow. I’d go myself, but I’m not as strong as I used to be. It’s an all day trip, twenty miles over, then you’ll have to wait a few hours to rest the horses, and then the twenty long miles back. “If only she didn’t want the chest tomorrow,” said Nicholas. “Well,” answered his master, “We did promise it, and it has to be delivered on time. Now the toys weren’t promised...”
“No, but I have given them,” interrupted Nicholas.
“I was going to say lad, that they weren’t promised for Christmas day. Now you know that little children go to bed early. Why can’t you...”
“Why of course!” Nicholas jumped to his feet shouting, “Where’s my list? Where’s my sled? I’ll have to hurry.”
Outside, the village was asleep. No one saw the lone figure, wrapped up against the crisp icy air, dragging a sled from house to house, leaving a small pile of toys in each doorway until it was empty. It was three o’clock on Christmas morning when Nicholas turned away from the last doorway. His sled was now much lighter to pull, but his feet were tired from trudging through the heavy snow, but he was happy it was Christmas and once again he had kept his unspoken promise to the children of the village.