from Good Housekeeping
What I Don't Want
by Ellis Parker Butler
I don't want a set of triplets. Not that I do not love children, but because I received a pair of twins last Christmas. One was a girl, and the other was a girl. That made two girls. And before that I had one girl. That makes three girls -- three of the sweetest, prettiest girls I ever saw in my life.
If I should receive triplets this Christmas, and they should be girls, that would make six girls, and while I love girls, I don't want the girl business overdone. I have to draw the line at triplets for this Christmas.
I don't want that old stork to get the habit. One girl was all right, and last Christmas two girls were all right, but it he should bring me three girls this Christmas, and I pretended to be pleased, there might be no stopping him. It would be four girls next Christmas, and five girls the next Christmas, and six girls the next Christmas, and seven -- No! No triplets this Christmas!
That is the worst of this Santa Claus business. He starts by giving a present, and the next Christmas he has to give something a little better, and the next Christmas something a little better, and as those twins are just about as good as anything could be, the only way he can better his gift is by increasing it. But I don't want him to get into an arithmetical progression habit.
But if it is too late, and he has the habit already, I want him to skip this Christmas. I am willing to get along with no present at all, or a polka-dot necktie, or a pair of boy's size suspenders. I'll accept a couple of doglets or catlets, or a bracelet, or an emerald doublet, or amulets, or violets, or epaulettes (though I don't know what I would do with them) or any kind of -lets, but I don't want triplets.
