Part 4

But Lady Arabella shook her head and danced up and down and cried louder than before.

‘No, no!’ cried Lady Arabella, shaking her elbows as if she would like to poke the Red Jumping Jack and the White Polar Bear. ‘I want Merrythought! I want Merrythought to go with me or else I won’t go at all.’

Here Lady Arabella threw herself on the ground and kicked with all her might and main. You could scarcely see her brown shoes and stockings, Lady Arabella kicked them to and fro so very fast.

A strange way, indeed, for Lady Arabella to act! It didn’t seem at all like a doll who had been made to live with a little Princess. Surely such a doll would be on her best behavior every moment of the time.

But you would have thought it still more strange if you could have seen Mischief hiding down behind the sleigh. All of the other Brownies were so sorry for Lady Arabella that they looked quite troubled; one or two of them looked quite shocked. But Mischief was not troubled at all. He almost seemed trying not to laugh. He was muttering to himself as well, and Silvertongue said afterward that he thought he heard him say, ‘Hurrah for you, Lady Arabella! That is a good tantrum. That is one of the best tantrums I have ever seen.’

Now Santa Claus was like the Brownies. He was troubled to see Lady Arabella so unhappy. It was growing late, too.

‘Dear me!’ said Santa Claus, rubbing his nose with his great fur glove. ‘Dear me! Little Princess Maud won’t want a doll who has been crying. Perhaps you had better jump in, Merrythought, and go with us, after all.’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Merrythought.

His breath was quite taken away at the idea of going round the world with Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. But he managed to raise Lady Arabella to her feet and together they quickly climbed into place in the sleigh.

Mischief tucked the robe round Lady Arabella and patted her hand. Santa Claus gathered up the reins, he cracked his whip, the Brownies gave three loud cheers, and the sleigh was off.

Lady Arabella still behaved strangely. She wiped her eyes and smiled round at Merrythought. She was not at all ashamed of having had a tantrum, though the Red Jumping Jack and the White Polar Bear gave her a scornful look. Then she hid her face on Merrythought’s shoulder and laughed and laughed and laughed. And not until they were well out of sight of the palace was she able to sit around straight and look about her as she rode.

Now have you guessed the secret that Lady Arabella and Mischief had between them? Just think a moment and I am sure you will.

* * * * *

On sped the sleigh over the snow, the moon and the stars glittering cold and bright in the frosty sky. Snow, snow, still more snow. Then the forests, dark and piney and sweet-smelling. Now and then a house. Up, up, up to the roof would go the sleigh, down the chimney Santa Claus would creep, then back again to his place and off, the reindeer seeming fairly to fly over the snow. Now a village, now a town.

And everywhere children in bed and asleep, their bedrooms dark or dimly lighted by a low night-lamp. And everywhere ready and waiting for Santa Claus, though not always ready in just the same way. Sometimes there would be stockings hung by the chimney place, sometimes a little wooden shoe placed outside the door, sometimes a candle burning in the window to light Noel upon his way. But always Santa Claus knew what to do and just what presents to leave in every house.

Into a big city dashed the sleigh, straight toward a great castle with turrets and towers and many windows sparkling in the frosty starlight. It was the castle where Princess Maud lived, and now Merrythought and Lady Arabella were forced to say good-bye.

‘I know you will make Princess Maud happy,’ said Merrythought, kissing Lady Arabella’s pretty pink cheek.

In return Lady Arabella threw both arms about Merrythought’s neck.

‘I’m so glad that you could come with us,’ whispered she, hugging him close, ‘and do try to find Christmas again to-night if you can.’

Then down the chimney went Lady Arabella and Santa Claus and the great pack of toys into the peaceful night nursery where slept the little Princess Maud, dreaming of the big little-girl doll she hoped Santa Claus would bring her that night.

On went the sleigh. Merrythought crept next to Santa Claus and cuddled down close as the sleigh swept across the ocean with its dashing waves and snow squalls and great ships ploughing silently along through the black and icy water.

There were children on those ships. Do you think Santa Claus passed them by? Not he! By special arrangement down on the decks he flung great sacks of toys so that no child should wake on Christmas Morning and find his stocking unfilled.

Over the land again, Santa Claus stopping so often now that Merrythought grew quite used to holding the reins. Here were more children fast asleep, here were mothers and fathers trimming Christmas Trees, and people trudging through the snow carrying presents and wreaths of holly and bunches of mistletoe.

‘Gay, isn’t it?’ asked Santa Claus, smiling with all his might. ‘There is nothing in the world quite like Christmas and plenty of toys for every one. Eh, Merrythought?’

And his face was so happy as he looked down at Merrythought that the little Brownie was ashamed to tell him how he really felt.

So he buried his nose in the warm fur robe and only mumbled something about ‘too many toys.’

But Santa Claus heard him and understood. He didn’t speak again to Merrythought. He only looked at him when they reached a poor house where all Santa Claus left for the little boy was a fire-engine, and next door where the baby had only a monkey-on-a-stick.

‘Perhaps all children don’t have too many toys,’ thought Merrythought. ‘But they all have something. And I am tired to death of toys, just tired to death of them.’

Now Santa Claus drove through the white countryside, on and on and on, until there was not a house to be seen.

‘Where can we be going?’ Merrythought asked himself. ‘This looks like the end of the world.’

On and on and on, until, half buried in the snow, Merrythought spied a little brown house. There was a light in the window, though it was the middle of the night.

‘Somebody trimming a Christmas Tree, I suppose,’ thought Merrythought. ‘More toys and tinsel and gold, no doubt.’

To his surprise Santa Claus did not stop. He slowed up a little and gently, very gently, he lifted Merrythought out and dropped him in the snow.

‘Go look in the window,’ said Santa Claus, ‘and if I am not mistaken there will be something for you to see. I will be back for you by and by.’

And off sped the sleigh and out of sight among the white drifts of snow.

* * * * *

Merrythought struggled up the path through the deep snow and peeped in the window.

As we know, he had expected to see a Christmas Tree laden with gay balls and chains and ornaments of every kind and hue. He thought he might see stockings in a row. He was sure he would see bunches of holly and sprays of mistletoe.

But the room into which he looked had not a sign of Christmas anywhere.

It was a bare little room with a bed in one corner and an old cook-stove that quite filled one side of the wall.

And in the room were seven children, all wide awake as could be, just as if it were not Christmas Eve, when every wise little boy or girl goes to sleep the moment his bed-time comes. The seven children were in their night-gowns, all but one, the oldest, a girl, and they had huddled round their shoulders bits of shawls and blankets to keep them warm. But in spite of this and the fire in the stove their noses were red with cold and they blew upon their fingers every now and then.

They were watching the stove, the oven of the stove, and all seven were sniffing, sniffing the air. And first one and then the other would call out, ‘I smell them! I smell them! I know I do!’

At this they would become so excited that they would jump up and down and lose off their blankets and bits of shawls. Then the biggest girl would have to go round among them and wrap them up again.

All this Merrythought could hear and see quite plainly, for his nose was pressed flat against the window-pane.

‘They must have a Christmas Turkey in the oven,’ thought he. ‘But what a strange time to cook it. And where are their toys and their Tree and their father and mother, too?’

Merrythought looked and listened with all his might.

‘I must know what is in that oven,’ thought he again. ‘It doesn’t smell like turkey to me.’

Here Merrythought sniffed vigorously all along the window-sill. He was becoming almost as excited as the children themselves.

‘I will know their names soon,’ said he, smiling to see the seven children sniff and clap their hands and jump about. ‘That oldest girl is named Belinda, for the other children are always calling out, “Oh, Belinda, wrap me up! Oh, Belinda, do sniff over here!” She seems to take care of them. I wonder where their own mother is.’

Merrythought rubbed the steam of his breath off the window and peered in again.

‘The littlest boy with freckles is called Tom, and the one with curls and her thumb in her mouth is Matilda, and the baby is Polly, I know. I think those two boys holding hands and giggling are called Danny and Bill. And the one with the pigtails is named Ann Mary, for her two grandmothers, I suppose. I wonder when they will open that oven door and take out whatever is inside.’

The children were wondering this, too.

‘Oh, Belinda, do look in the oven! Oh, Belinda, do see if they are not done! Oh, Belinda, we can’t wait a minute longer!’

Belinda laughed at them and shook her head.

Stand back,’ said she, ‘and I will look in the oven.’

But they didn’t stand back, not they. They crowded round and peeked and sniffed as Belinda gently opened the oven door. And when she said, ‘They are done!’ they clapped their hands and shouted and pranced about the room.

‘What can it be?’ asked Merrythought, clinging to the window-sill, his eyes as round as plates. ‘It must be something very rich and fine.’

But what do you think Belinda took from the oven and carefully set upon the table in a row?

Seven little pies! Seven little saucer pies, in very small saucers, too!

Merrythought almost fell off the window-sill, he was so surprised. And the very next moment he did something much worse. He sneezed! A loud crashing sneeze that jerked his head forward and struck it against the window-pane with a thump!

Well, of course the children rushed over to the window to see what was there. And when they saw a little fellow, only Brownie size, they opened the door, and Belinda called him to come in.

So in Merrythought went, and the room was so sweet with the odor of the seven little pies that Merrythought couldn’t help sniffing and staring at them, too.

‘They are our pies,’ spoke up little Tom proudly.

‘One apiece,’ announced Danny and Bill in a breath.

‘Belinda made them,’ said Ann Mary, twitching her pigtails into place.

‘For our Christmas,’ added Matilda, taking her thumb out of her mouth to say so.

Baby Polly didn’t speak a word. Perhaps she couldn’t. I am not sure about that. But she toddled straight over to Merrythought and slipped her hand in his. She knew at a glance that here was a friend. And she was right. For unless he were a good friend to little children Merrythought could never have made such beautiful playthings for them, in spite of the fact that this Christmas he had grown so tired of toys.

But, somehow, as he looked about the little room, bare of Christmas on Christmas Eve, Merrythought didn’t so dislike the idea of toys. Indeed, it seemed all wrong and strange not to see a shining Tree and stockings, filled to overflowing, in a row, and little heads, brown and black and yellow, snuggled down into a pillow and happy with Christmas dreams.

This was a strange Christmas Eve, and perhaps Merrythought’s face showed what he felt, for Belinda began at once to tell him how it had come about.

‘You see, Father and Mother went to town almost a week ago. Father went to help build a house. He is a carpenter, you know. And Mother went to do sewing for the minister’s wife,’ said Belinda, standing straight and tall. ‘And they left me to take care of the children. They meant to be home for Christmas. They were coming to-night. Mother said she would bring each of the children an orange, if she could. But the snow is very deep, and they didn’t come. So I made the pies for the children. They have apples and molasses and sugar in them. And the children will like them just as well as toys.’

The children did like them. They were hopping round the table and calling out, ‘Smell mine! Smell mine!’

But Merrythought did not like it at all. He thought of the many toys he had made that year in Santa Claus’s Snow Palace on the very tip-top of the North Pole, he thought of Santa Claus’s sleigh still well filled, he thought of the stockings and Christmas Trees that other children would enjoy on Christmas Day. And Merrythought wished with all his generous little Brownie heart that he could give a beautiful toy to each of these seven children who were made so happy on Christmas by a little saucer pie.

‘Oh!’ groaned Merrythought to himself. ‘And I said there were too many toys. I said children thought of nothing but toys and how many they would get. I said I was tired of toys. And these children haven’t a single one, not a single little toy. How could I have said such a thing! Oh! Oh! Oh!’

But here Merrythought felt some one pulling at his hand.

It was Ann Mary, holding out her pie to Merrythought.

‘Here!’ said Ann Mary, her pigtails standing straight out with excitement. ‘Take it. It’s yours. I want to give it to you for Christmas because you haven’t any pie or anything. The other children will give me bites of theirs. They said they would. Take it. It’s for you.’

Merrythought took the pie. He almost wanted to cry, but he took a bite of crust instead.

‘Delicious!’ said Merrythought. ‘It is the best pie I ever ate.’

But at that moment Merrythought’s face grew very bright.

‘Just a minute,’ said he. ‘Don’t stir.’

He opened the door and looked out. He listened and listened again.

Just as he thought. He did hear Santa Claus’s sleigh-bells, faint and clear.

‘Wait! Wait for me!’ he shouted out into the snow. And there came an answering tinkle that told him Santa Claus had heard.

Then he turned back into the room.

‘Think just as fast as you can,’ said Merrythought to the seven astonished children standing before him in a row. ‘Think just as fast as you can, and then tell me what toy you would like most of all for Christmas.’

Why, it didn’t take them two minutes to think. They began to answer before Merrythought had finished speaking to them.

‘A sled! A pair of skates!’ said Danny and Bill, holding tight to one another and giggling as they spoke.

‘A Jack-in-the-Box,’ said Tom, all freckles and smiles.

‘A doll, a sleepy doll,’ said Ann Mary, twitching her pigtails into place.

‘A Jumping Jack,’ said Matilda, taking her thumb out of her mouth and putting it back again.

Polly hid her face in Belinda’s skirt, so Belinda answered for her.

‘She wants a woolly lamb on wheels,’ said Belinda. ‘I know that is what she wants most of all.’

‘And what do you want?’ asked Merrythought. ‘Every one has told but you.’

Belinda’s eyes grew bright.

‘I want a sewing-box,’ said Belinda--‘a sewing-box with a lock and key so that the children can never touch what is inside.’

Merrythought nodded. He could go straight to work at once. He started toward the door. Then suddenly he turned back again.

‘But you mustn’t look!’ exclaimed Merrythought. He had remembered how dreadful it would be if any one peeped out of the window and caught even a glimpse of Santa Claus and his sleigh. ‘You mustn’t look, you know. Promise me that not one of you will look.’

‘We will hide our eyes,’ said Belinda. ‘Come, children. Let’s hide our eyes on the side of the bed.’

So down by the side of the bed went the seven children, all in a row, their blankets and bits of shawls huddled round their shoulders and their pink toes and heels showing in the most comical way. They didn’t know what it was all about, to be sure, but it was Christmasy and fun and exciting, and they liked it, every one.

Then Merrythought, his pie in his hand, rushed out of the house to be met by Santa Claus, with both arms full, down at the gate.

‘Yes, yes, I know all about it,’ said Santa Claus, ruddy and smiling, with little icicles hanging from his beard. ‘Here, help me with these toys. This is Danny’s sled, a red one. Put it on the doorstep and pile these blankets on top. Don’t let them fall in the snow.’

‘Blankets?’ said Merrythought in surprise. ‘Nobody wants blankets here.’

‘Oh, yes, they do,’ answered Santa Claus firmly. ‘Their mother does. Didn’t you see how thin their blankets were?’

Merrythought stared at Santa Claus. There was no one in the world quite like him, after all.

‘Here are Bill’s skates and Belinda’s sewing-box with a lock and key,’ went on Santa Claus, reaching down first into one deep pocket and then into the other. ‘Put them on top of the blankets. And here is Ann Mary’s sleepy doll. You made her, Merrythought. She is one of your prettiest. This is Tom’s Jack-in-the-Box. What’s this? Oh, Matilda’s Jumping Jack. How he can jump! And here is Polly’s woolly lamb on green wheels with a bell round his neck. Now, just a little candy,’ finished Santa Claus, packing seven boxes neatly on the edge of the sled, ‘and we are off.’

Into the sleigh, fairly empty now, climbed Merrythought and Santa Claus.

‘Wait! My pie!’ exclaimed Merrythought, pulling it from his pocket. ‘I will break it in two and share with you.’

The pie was so small it could be eaten in two bites, but Santa Claus and Merrythought did not speak of that. They only said how good it was and how well Belinda baked for a girl of her years.

The little pie plate was made of tin, and as the sleigh moved off Merrythought took aim and sent it flying straight at the little front door.

Clatter! Clatter! Rush!

Out on the doorstep tumbled the seven children, head-first, pell-mell. They spied the toys, they seized them, they screamed for joy.

Santa Claus and Merrythought laughed aloud, they were so happy too.

‘My sled! My skates!’

‘A sleepy doll! She really sleeps!’

‘See my Jumping Jack! He jumps so high!’

‘Look! Look! My Jack-in-the-Box!’

‘A real little key and it locks as tight as tight can be!’

‘Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!’ from the woolly lamb.

Merrythought leaned from the sleigh and waved his hand, though of course the children could not see him at all.

‘Too many toys, Merrythought?’ asked Santa Claus, looking down at the Brownie at his side.

Merrythought laughed and shook his head.

‘No, not enough toys,’ answered he. ‘The moment I reach home I am going to begin to make toys for those seven children for next year. But best of all, Santa Claus, I have found Christmas,’ said Merrythought. ‘I have found Christmas again.’

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.