The Giltons are next door neighbors to the Biltons. The houses are exactly alike and adjoin each other; the back yards are not even separated by a fence. Gilton is a crabbed old money-maker and childless, while his wife has grown submissive through years of continual nagging. The Biltons are a happy family of seven; poverty and scrimping have not soured them. The struggle to maintain his wife and the little ones has left Bilton threadbare, it is true, but the loving wife and five pairs of little arms that creep around his neck each morning and night are worth the fight. The fact that old Gilton fumes and fusses about the children sometimes stepping over the line of his back-yard bothers him only insofar as he dislikes discord. When Gilton's dog is poisoned, Bilton is as sorry as though it had been his own, yet old Gilton accuses him of being the poisoner. Even the heart-broken sobs of Cora Corrella, Bilton's sweet little daughter, over the death of her canine playfellow fail to convince the crusty old man. When the grocer's boy delivers Gilton's order to Mrs. Bilton and she cooks the dinner thinking her husband sent the things, Gilton is almost ready to commit murder. As Christmas approaches, the Biltons are hard pressed but give their little store to the children to buy presents, telling them that Santa Claus is too poor to leave them a turkey. On Christmas Eve, old Gilton staggers home in a blizzard, the turkey for Christmas dinner under his arm. On the porch that leads to the twin doors of his house and the Biltons', a terrific gust of wind and snow closes his eyes, and, horror of horrors, he enters the home of the hated neighbor. Blinded and cold, his entire figure snow covered, he steps into the midst of the Biltons, gathered about the table laden with the cheap presents and listening open-mouthed to Bilton reading "The Night Before Christmas." The children's vision of cheery Santa is rudely interrupted by Gilton's snow-covered figure. To them, he is the real Santa Clans. In a beautiful closing scene, old Gilton's flinty eyes fill with tears and the breach between the families is closed as though the spirit of Santa Claus himself had welded it.