an
lay asleep, with a baby beside her in a crib.

Claus laughed, but he did not laugh aloud for fear of waking the baby.
Then he slipped a big doll from his pack and laid it in the crib. The
little one smiled, as if it dreamed of the pretty plaything it was to
find on the morrow, and Claus crept softly from the room and entered at
the other doorway.

Here were two boys, fast asleep with their arms around each other's
neck. Claus gazed at them lovingly a moment and then placed upon the
bed a drum, two horns and a wooden elephant.

He did not linger, now that his work in this house was done, but
climbed the chimney again and seated himself on his sledge.

"Can you find another chimney?" he asked the reindeer.

"Easily enough," replied Glossie and Flossie.

Down to the edge of the roof they raced, and then, without pausing,
leaped through the air to the top of the next building, where a huge,
old-fashioned chimney stood.

"Don't be so long, this time," called Flossie, "or we shall never get
back to the Forest by daybreak."

Claus made a trip down this chimney also and found five children
sleeping in the house, all of whom were quickly supplied with toys.

When he returned the deer sprang to the next roof, but on descending
the chimney Claus found no children there at all. That was not often
the case in this village, however, so he lost less time than you might
suppose in visiting the dreary homes where there were no little ones.

When he had climbed down the chimneys of all the houses in that
village, and had left a toy for every sleeping child, Claus found that
his great sack was not yet half emptied.

"Onward, friends!" he called to the deer; "we must seek another
village."

So away they dashed, although it was long past midnight, and in a
surprisingly short time they came to a large city, the largest Claus
had ever visited since he began to make toys. But, nothing daunted by
the throng of houses, he set to work at once and his beautiful steeds
carried him rapidly from one roof to another, only the highest being
beyond the leaps of the agile deer.

At last the supply of toys was exhausted and Claus seated himself in
the sledge, with the empty sack at his feet, and turned the heads of
Glossie and Flossie toward home.

Presently Flossie asked:

"What is that gray streak in the sky?"

"It is the coming dawn of day," answered Claus, surprised to find that
it was so late.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed