noise in there,' cried father, 'I'll hev to send you all
back to bed.' The idea of askin' boys an' girls to keep quiet on
Chris'mas mornin' when they've got new sleds an' 'Garlands of
Frien'ship'!"

Santa Claus chuckled; his rosy cheeks fairly beamed joy.

"Otis an' I didn't want any breakfast," said Joel. "We made up our
minds that a stockin'ful of candy and pop-corn and raisins would stay
us for a while. I _do_ believe there wasn't buckwheat cakes enough in
the township to keep us indoors that mornin'; buckwheat cakes don't
size up much 'longside of a red sled with 'Yankee Doodle' painted onto
it and a black sled named 'Snow Queen.' _We_ didn't care how cold it
was--so much the better for slidin' downhill! All the boys had new
sleds--Lafe Dawson, Bill Holbrook, Gum Adams, Rube Playford, Leander
Merrick, Ezra Purple--all on 'em had new sleds excep' Martin Peavey,
and he said he calculated Santa Claus had skipped him this year 'cause
his father had broke his leg haulin' logs from the Pelham woods and
had been kep' indoors six weeks. But Martin had his ol' sled, and he
didn't hev to ask any odds of any of us, neither."

"I brought Martin a sled the _next_ Christmas," said Santa Claus.

"Like as not--but did you ever slide downhill, Santa Claus? I don't
mean such hills as they hev out here in this _new_ country, but one of
them old-fashioned New England hills that was made 'specially for boys
to slide down, full of bumpers an' thank-ye-marms, and about ten times
longer comin' up than it is goin' down! The wind blew in our faces and
almos' took our breath away. 'Merry Chris'mas to ye, little boys!' it
seemed to say, and it untied our mufflers an' whirled the snow in our
faces, jist as if it was a boy, too, an' wanted to play with us. An
ol' crow came flappin' over us from the cornfield beyond the meadow.
He said: 'Caw, caw,' when he saw my new sled--I s'pose he'd never seen
a red one before. Otis had a hard time with _his_ sled--the black
one--an' he wondered why it wouldn't go as fast as mine would. 'Hev
you scraped the paint off'n the runners?' asked Wralsey Goodnow.
'Course I hev,' said Otis; 'broke my own knife an' Lute Ingraham's
a-doin' it, but it don't seem to make no dif'rence--the darned ol'
thing won't go!' Then, what did Simon Buzzell say but that, like's
not, it was because Otis's sled's name was 'Snow Queen.' 'Never did
see a girl sled that was worth a cent, anyway,' sez Simon. Well, now,
that jest about b