Chapter 9

But where was the Toyman now? He had disappeared as mysteriously as had the tree after they brought it home. He must have forgotten something important, for he couldn't want to do _chores_ when there was that tree to look at.

However, the boys were eager enough, both yelling:

"Now for the presents!"

"Wait a minute, laddies," said their father, "somebody's calling."

Now there was a telephone in the White House with the Green Blinds by the Side of the Road, a funny old-fashioned instrument, but a very useful one, nevertheless.

It was tinkling. Father went to it, and this is what they heard him say,--

"Hello! hello!" Then,--

"Why, is that _you_--"

He turned around to the folks in the room:

"Hush!" he warned them, "it's Santa Claus."

Then he turned to the telephone again, very surprised to be talking to so important a person.

"I'm certainly glad to hear from you. How are you?" said Father.

And he whispered to the boys:--

"He says he's very well, "--then into the 'phone:--

"That's fine--we're very glad to hear it."

There was a pause, and Father's voice exclaimed,--

"What! You're not actually coming here? Well, I should say that's the best news I've heard in a long time!"

And, smiling, he told this good news to the folks in the room.

"Doesn't it beat all!" he said, "Santa Claus is coming here to pay us a visit."

He spoke into the 'phone again.

"How soon can you make it?--Fifteen minutes?"

He looked at his watch.

"Of course--we'll wait for you."

Then he hung up the receiver.

"As long as Santy will be here so soon, we'd better wait till he comes, and let him distribute the presents, don't you think?"

He paused a minute, trying to remember.

"Let me see--when was it I last saw him?--yes, yes--it's all of forty years. I was just a little shaver then. I wonder if he's changed much, or grown much older."

As for the children, they could hardly think, much less talk. They sat there, almost in a daze, blinking and looking at the little candles, which seemed to wink back at them as if they had been in the jolly secret all the time.

The youngsters had hardly gotten over their wonder and bewilderment, when they heard sleighbells, and a loud "Whoa--whoa--you old reindeer, whoa when I tell you!" Then there was a stamping on the porch and the old brass knocker was lifted--it fell--"clack, clack"; the door opened, and in walked the welcome guest.

Have you yourself ever seen Santa Claus, or only pictures of him? Well, he really looks like his pictures, only more human--like people you know and love, though of course more magnificent.

In the first place, he wasn't so fat--he was plump in the stomach, but not so really round all over as in the old pictures of him. But perhaps that is because when they were taken there weren't so many children in the world to make things for, and he has grown just a little thinner since then, being so busy, you know.

However, he had on the same red coat trimmed with white fur, the long beard falling down over his chest, and the belt, and the rubber boots, and the red woolen cap on his head. But his face had lost a little flesh, and it wasn't all red as you see in the pictures, but brown and red,--like--like--the Toyman's; and his eyes didn't pop out of his head either, but were just like ordinary people's eyes, only kinder, like the Toyman's, and these, the children said, were the kindest in the world.

Marmaduke wished the Toyman would come back, so that he might meet Santa, for he was a year-round Santa himself, always making things and doing things for little boys.

But Santa was talking:

"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" he said, then he added,--"to one and all."

At the sound of his voice the children forgot their wonder and awe, and hurried to him and clasped his knees, and little Johnny Cricket tried to reach for his crutches, but Santa just picked him up in his arms and kissed him and little Hepzebiah too.

Now Father stood up.

"Mr. Santa Claus," he began, but Santy interrupted him,--

"No Mister for me," he told Father, "we're among friends. I've known you all ever since you were born. Ho! Ho!" and he laughed, and his laugh seemed very jolly.

"Very well," replied Father, "pardon my mistake--Friend Santy, then. Would you be so good as to distribute the presents?"

"Deelighted!" said Santy with a bow, "Marmaduke, you hand 'em to me and I'll read off the names."

So Marmaduke got down on his knees near the pile of presents and picked out one. It was one of his own--not one _for_ him but one he had bought--for Mother. He couldn't wait to see that look he knew would come in her eyes.

She opened it. It was a nice work-basket.

"And my little boy bought it all with the pennies he saved.--I know that," she cried in delight, and that look he had waited for shone in her face.

Then came a big long box which Santy handed to Hepzebiah. Santy himself helped her to tear off the wrappings; and lo and behold! it was a great big doll with blue eyes and flaxen hair.

So back and forth the procession of presents passed,--a pipe for Father, and one for the Toyman, who wasn't there to get it, a football for Marmaduke, a pair of skates for Jehosophat, and oh, so many things!

Then Marmaduke heard a whisper in his ear. He started, for the voice sounded like the Toyman's, but it couldn't have been, for the Toyman was still nowhere to be seen.

"Can't you find something in that heap o' things for little Johnny Cricket?" the voice asked.

Marmaduke turned round, to discover Santy whispering in his ear. And he looked hard, and, sure enough, over in the corner was a great big parcel, marked, "Johnny with a merry Christmas." Santy undid it, and revealed a wagon with handles that could be worked by the arms. It looked very much like the Toyman's invention. And it was just the thing for Johnny, who was so lame.

When he saw it he just clasped his hands, and this time the tears did really come, and they ran from the corners of his eyes and down his cheeks. But they were very happy tears.

"You're all so good to me," was all he said.

Marmaduke didn't need Santy to remind him now, and he hunted hard again and found something for "Mrs. Cricket from her friends in the White House,"--a fine alpaca dress. There was something for Black-eyed Susan too. And all under that roof and around that tree were very happy. It was too bad the Toyman wasn't there to enjoy it.

Now Santy stood up and looked at his watch. It was a great big one with a ship on its face and an anchor on the chain. It resembled the Toyman's, and the children thought it odd that there were two such watches anywhere in the world.

"It's getting late," Santa was saying, "I've got a lot of places to visit, but before I go, I want you to sing a song--every man Jack."

So together they sang "Peaceful Night, Holy Night," and it sounded very sweet and pretty and made them all think of what Christmas meant, besides just the giving and receiving of presents.

"Now the youngest ones--all together now!" and Jehosophat, Marmaduke, Hepzebiah, and little Johnny Cricket sang, without the grownup people this time:

"Alone in the manger, No crib for a bed, The little Lord Jesus Lay down his soft head."

And that song sounded even prettier and sweeter than the other, with those little voices singing it around the tree and all its candles.

When they had finished, Santa said "Goodbye," and, "Merry Christmas to one and all," bowed, closed the door behind him, stamped his feet, and whistled to his reindeer. Then the sleighbells sounded, growing fainter until they faded quite away.

About ten minutes after he had gone, the Toyman appeared. It certainly was a shame he had to just miss him like that.

Marmaduke called,--

"Oh, Toyman, you missed him--Santy was here."

"He was, was he?" the Toyman replied, "I _am_ sorry, for I'd like to have paid my respects to the old fellow."

The funny thing about it was that he didn't seem half as disappointed as the children--that is, Marmaduke and Hepzebiah, particularly Hepzebiah. Jehosophat just smiled in a sort of superior way and said nothing, but perhaps that was because he was getting older and had lost some of his enthusiasm. As for Marmaduke, he hadn't been so enthusiastic about seeing Santa Claus ever since Reddy Toms had told him something, but now, after seeing Santa alive and before him--why, he didn't care what any "ole Reddy Toms" said.

He had seen Santy--and had shaken him by the hand.

XIV

THE HOLE THAT RAN TO CHINA

By this time you should have noticed, if you ever stop to think, that Marmaduke was quite a traveller. It was really remarkable the trips and voyages that boy took--not only to the town, and Apgar's Woods, and the Leaning Mill on Wally's Creek, but to the South Seas, The Cave of the Winds, the Ole Man in the Moon, the Fields of Golden Stars, and to all sorts of beautiful cities and kingdoms, some of which you may find in your geographies, and some not on any map in the world. And he didn't have much money for fares, either. It was hard to tell just how he managed all these journeys, but sometimes, do you know, I suspect he paid for his fare with a ticket of dreams. What do you think? Well, anyway, one day he went to China.

And this is the way it all came about:

First he went to town--with the Toyman, of course, and Old Methusaleh. That old white horse was tied to the hitching-post in front of Trennery's Grocery Store, with his nose deep in a feed-bag. While the Toyman was talking to Mr. Trennery--Mr. Will Trennery, and his brother Lish--Marmaduke sat on the seat of the buggy and watched the people. There were a lot of them, more than he ever saw on the farm, all at one time. There must have been almost fifty on the street. Some of them were lounging around the soldier who stood on the big stone with a gun that never went off; some were hitching up their horses, or "giddyapping" to them; while a crowd was going in the side door of the "City Hotel," and another stood in front of Trennery's Grocery Store, telling who'd be the next president. They were very wise, they thought, but Marmaduke was sure the Toyman could tell them a thing or two--and that was just what the Toyman was doing.

After a while Marmaduke tired of listening to all their talk about presidents and the new Justice of the Peace, and he looked at the other stores and all their signs. He noticed a new one that had just come to town. It stood between Trennery's and Candlemas' Emporium, and it was even more interesting than the candy store. It had a red sign above the door with white letters which read:--

"Hop Sing Laundry."

In the windows were parcels of shirts, tied with white string, with little slips of paper under the string. These slips of paper were colored like the petunias in Mother's garden, and on them were funny black letters that looked like chicken-, and rabbit-, and fox-tracks, all mixed up.

Inside the store three little men were ironing, ironing away on boards covered with sheets, and jabbering in a strange language. And they wore clothes that were as strange as the words they spoke--clothes that looked like pajamas with dark blue tops and light blue trousers. And each of the little men had a yellow face, slant eyes, and a black pigtail.

It was Saturday, and a group of town-boys stood around the door, gazing in at the three strange little men and mocking them:--

"Ching, ching Chinaman, Bow, wow, wow!"

Then one of the boys would shout in through the door,--"Bin eatin' any ole stewed rats, Chinky?" and another would ask,--"Give us a taste of yer bird's-nest pudding?" They thought they were very smart, and that wasn't all, for, after calling the Chinamen all the names they could think of, the boys reached down into the ditch, which some men were digging for a sewer, and scooped up handfuls of mud and threw it straight into the laundry and all over the snow-white shirts the little men were ironing; at which, the Chinamen grew very angry and came to the door, shaking their flat-irons in their hands and calling,--

And the boys ran away, still mocking them. You could hear their shouts dying away in the distance:--

"Chinky, chinky Chinaman, Bow, wow, wow!"

Not long after this the Toyman came out from Trennery's and climbed on the seat; and he and Marmaduke and Old Methusaleh jogged along towards home. All the way, Marmaduke couldn't help thinking of the three little men in their blue pajamas and their black pigtails; and he asked the Toyman a lot of questions, even more than you will find in his arithmetic, I guess, all about what those letters on the packages of shirts meant, and if the Chinamen braided their pigtails every night and morning just like girls, and if they really did eat "ole rats," and bird's-nest puddings, and all that.

The Toyman could hardly keep up with the questions; and he hadn't answered them all, either, by the time they reached the White House with the Green Blinds by the Side of the Road.

On the afternoon of that same day, Marmaduke was sitting like a hoptoad, watching the Toyman dig post-holes in the brook pasture. The sun shone so soft and warm, and the cedar posts smelled so nice and fragrant, that he began to feel drowsy. He didn't sit like a hoptoad any more, but lay on his elbow, and his head nodded--nodded----nodded.

Rather faintly he heard the Toyman say:

"Well, that's pretty deep. A little more, and I'd reach down into China."

The little boy rubbed his eyes and looked down into the deep brown hole.

"If you dug a little more," he asked, "would you really go down through the earth, all the way to China--where the Chinamen live?"

"Sure," replied the Toyman, who never liked to disappoint little boys.

"Then," said Marmaduke, "please dig a little more--for--I'd like--to see--where--the Chinamen--live--." His voice sounded very sleepy.

The Toyman dug another shovelful or two, and all the while the little boy's head kept nodding, nodding in the sun--then--as the last shovelful fell on the pile at his side, he looked down in the hole once more and heard voices--strange voices.

Words were coming up out of that hole, and it seemed to Marmaduke that he could see those words as well as hear them. Now that is a very odd thing, but it is actually what happened--he could both see and hear them--and they looked like the funny music on phonograph advertisements--something like this:

And, way down at the bottom of the hole, he saw three black heads with pigtails that curled upward in the hole like smoke coming from a chimney.

He tried to grab hold of them, but he fell, and Wienerwurst after him, right plump among the pigtails, landing on the three Chinamen way down in the hole, and knocking them flat on their backs until their feet with the funny black slippers kicked in the air.

Then they all got up and rubbed their tummies under the blue pajamas.

"Velly wude little Mellican boy," said the first little Chinaman, whose name was Ping Pong.

"Velly bad manners," said the second, who was called Sing Song.

"You beggy our pardon," the third, whose name was Ah See.

Now Marmaduke intended to do that very thing--that is, beg their pardon, for he was very polite for an American boy.

"I'm very sorry--I didn't mean to hurt you," he explained, "I just fell down that hole."

At this he looked up the sides of the hole. It seemed as if he were at the bottom of a great round stove-pipe, or a well with brown sides. Far, far above him was a little circle of light blue, the top of the hole where he had fallen in.

After he had begged their pardon so nicely, the three little yellow men said, all together,--

"Little Mellican boy velly politely; he has honorable ancestors."

Marmaduke looked around again and saw that they were standing, not on the bottom of the hole, but on a little landing like that on a stairway. Below them the hole kept on descending into the darkness, curving round and round like a corkscrew or the stairways in old castles--down, down, down.

"Little Mellican boy like see China?" asked Ping Pong.

"Very much, thank you," replied Marmaduke, trying to be as polite as they were.

But the Toyman would miss him. He looked way up at the circle of light at the top of the hole and shouted:

"Say, Toyman, can I go to China--just for a little while?"

The Toyman's face appeared in the circle of light at the top.

"Sure, sonny, have a good time," he shouted back, and his voice coming way down that hole sounded hollow, as if he were hollering down a well.

Marmaduke waved to him.

"Goodbye, I won't be long," he called.

Then, turning, he saw that the three Chinamen had flat-irons in their hands. They were fitting the handles to them. Ah See handed Marmaduke a fourth iron for himself.

"Mellican boy wide on this--now, velly caleful," said he.

"But how can I ride on such a small iron?" asked Marmaduke.

"Watchee and see, Allee samee as me."

And at once all the three little Chinamen mounted the irons and curled their tiny slippered feet under them. And Marmaduke curled up on his iron just as they did.

"Allee weady!" shouted Ping Pong, and all-of-a-sudden they started scooting down that curving brown hole, round and round, down through the deep earth. Wienerwurst had no iron to slide on, but he did pretty well on his haunches, and how swiftly the brown sides of the earth slipped by them! How fast the air whistled past!

After a fine ride they saw ahead of them a great red light. It looked like the sky that time when Apgar's barn was on fire.

They stopped with a bump and a bang. Marmaduke waited until he had caught his breath, then he looked around. They had stopped on a gallery, or sort of immense shelf, that extended around a tremendous pit or hole in the earth. In the centre of it stood a big giant, shovelling coal in a furnace. The furnace was as high as the Woolworth Building in New York City, which Marmaduke had seen on picture post-cards. And the Giant was as big as the furnace himself.

He had a beard, and eyes as large and round as the wheels of a wagon; and he was naked to the waist. Great streams of sweat, like brooks in flood-time, poured off his body. When these rivers of sweat struck the ground, they sizzled mightily and turned into fountains of steam that rose in the air like the geysers in Yellowstone Park, it was so hot in the place.

Marmaduke felt pretty warm himself, and he mopped his face with the handkerchief which he had won in the Jack Horner pie at the church sociable. It had pictures of pink and blue ducks and geese on it, and it looked very small beside the handkerchief with which the Giant was mopping his face. That was as big as a circus tent. Marmaduke himself looked very small beside the stranger. When the little boy stretched out his hand, he just reached the nail on the Giant's great toe.

The three little yellow men were exclaiming:--

Which meant that this was the centre of the Earth.

"But what is he doing that for--shovelling all that coal in the furnace when it's so hot already we're most roasting!" complained their little American guest.

His voice was almost lost in the tremendous place. It was strange that it ever reached the Giant's ear, which was hundreds of feet above Marmaduke's head, but nevertheless the Giant did hear it, for he called:--

"Now, you three Chinamen keep your jabbering tongues still," he said, "and let me have a chance to talk. It's so long since I've seen a boy from up on the Earth that I'd like to talk a spell myself--to limber up my old tongue. It's grown pretty stiff all these years."

Then he looked way down at Marmaduke, who was standing there, no higher than the Giant's great toe.

"Come up," he invited the boy, "and have a seat on my shoulder."

Marmaduke looked up and hesitated, for the distance up to that shoulder was so great. He might as well have tried to climb a mountain rising straight up in the air. But the Giant helped him out.

"Don't be scared," he said, "I'll give you a boost."

And he reached down his mighty hand and placed it under the seat of Marmaduke's trousers. The little boy looked no bigger than the kernel of a tiny hazelnut rolling around in the big palm. But very gently the big fingers set him on the tall shoulder, way, way above the bottom of that pit, but very safe and sound. Marmaduke grabbed tight hold of one of the hairs of the Giant's beard to keep from falling off. He had hard work, too, for each hair of that beard was as stout and as thick as the rope of a ship.

"Kind of cosey perch, ain't it?" asked the Giant.

Now it didn't strike Marmaduke as quite that, when he had such hard work to hold on, and he was so far from the ground, but nevertheless he answered,--

"Y-y-yes, s-s-sir."

His lip quivered like the lemon jelly in the spoon, that time he was so sick. If he had fallen from that shoulder, he would have dropped as far as if he had been thrown from the top gilt pinnacle of the Woolworth Building. And so tremendous was the Giant's voice that when he talked the whole earth seemed to shake, and Marmaduke shook with it as if he were blown about by a mighty wind.

"Now," the Giant was saying in that great voice like thunder, "you want to know what I'm heating up this furnace for?"

"Y-y-yes," replied Marmaduke, his lips still trembling like the lemon jelly.

"You see it's this way," the Giant tried to explain, "my old friend, Mr. Sun, keeps the outside of the Earth warm, but I keep the inside nice and comfy."

It seemed strange to hear the Giant use that word, "comfy." It is a word that always seems to sound small, and the Giant was so huge.

"I haven't seen my chum, Mr. Sun, for quite a spell," the Giant went on, "let me see--it was the other day when I last saw him."

"What day?" asked Marmaduke, "last Sunday?"

"Oh, no, a little before that. I guess it was about a million years ago."

"A million! Whew!" Marmaduke whistled. "That was quite a long time."

"Oh, no," responded the Giant, "not as long as you think. No more than three shakes of a lamb's tail--when you come to look at it right."

"But where do you get all the coal?" was Marmaduke's next question. "I should think you'd use it all up quick, you put on such big shovelsful."

"See there," the Giant said, for answer pointing in at the sides of the pit. Little tunnels ran from the sides into the dark Earth. And in the tunnels were little gnomes, with stocking caps on their heads, and they were trundling little wheelbarrows back and forth. The wheelbarrows were full of coal, and when they had dumped the coal on the Giant's pile they would hurry back for more. In their foreheads were little lights, and in the dark tunnels of the Earth these shone like fireflies or little lost stars.

"Would you like to see a trick?" asked the Giant.

"A card trick?" asked Marmaduke in turn, rather hoping it was.

The Giant laughed and looked down at his fingers. Each one was as big as a thick flagpole thirty feet long.

"What would these fingers be doing, playing cards?" he said. "Pshaw! I couldn't play even Old Maid--or Casino."

"I'll show you how," said Marmaduke eagerly, and the Giant put him on a shelf of the Earth close to his head. Then Marmaduke took from his pocket a little pack of cards and shuffled them. He explained the rules very carefully--Old Maid it was--and then dealt them to Ping Pong, Sing Song and Ah See, for they joined in the game, and to the Giant. In those thirty-foot fingers the tiny cards looked like little bits of pink confetti. The Giant seemed to like the game, but Marmaduke beat the three little Chinamen, and the Giant, too, for all he was so big.

They had finished the second hand, when the Giant looked at his furnace.

"There, that's what I get for loafin'," he said, "my furnace is 'most out."