day-time, and that the dolls and toy-animals let the
children do the most of the playing. That is because the pets and the
toys are tired out and sleepy after their doings the night before, when
the children were asleep and the grown people out of the way. They have
rare sprees all by themselves, but just as soon as any person comes
about, the fun stops,--the cat and the dog are sound asleep, the dolls
drop down anywhere still as a wood-pile, and the rocking-horse don't
even switch the ten hairs left in his tail.

As for talking, though, they might chatter all the time and nobody be
the wiser. People hear them, but not a soul knows what it is. Mamma
sticks paper into the key-hole to keep out the wind that whistles so,
papa takes medicine for the cold that makes such a ringing in his head,
and Bridget sets a trap to catch the mouse that "squales and scrabbles
about so, a body can't slape at all, 'most;" and all the while it is
the dolls and pets laughing and talking among themselves.

The bird in the cage and the bird out-of-doors know what it is. Very
tame squirrels and rabbits understand it; and the poor little late
chicken, which was brought into the kitchen for fear of freezing, soon
spoke the language like a native.

Scrubby understood all that any of them said, and they all understood
her and liked her immensely. Even the plants in the window would nod
and wink and shake out their leaves whenever she came about.

After little Scrubby and everybody else in the house had gone to bed
that night, Minx, the kitten, came out from behind the broom, and
prancing up to the little pasteboard and wool dog that lay tipped over
in the corner, pawed him about until he was as full of fun as herself.
Then she jumped upon the table and clawed the three dolls out of
mamma's work-basket, sending them all sprawling on the floor.

[Illustration: "OLE KRISS IS COMING WITH HIS REINDEER."]

They were a sad-looking lot of babies, anyway. There was Peg, knit out
of blue, red and yellow worsted, and with black beads for eyes. She was
a good deal raveled out, but there was plenty of fun in her yet, after
all.

Then there was Francaise. She was a French girl, who had been brought
from Paris for Scrubby before that bad time when papa "got poor." She
had been very elegant, but now her laces were torn, her hair would
never curl again, one arm swung loose, and her head wobbled badly; but,
for all that, she was still full of lively French ai