w, I ain't goin' to guess any more! I want to be
surprised. You jump down an' run an' ask Ma if supper ain't most ready.
Tell her I'm as hungry as a hound pup."

He hears her deliver the message, and also the word her mother sends
back: "Tell him to hold his horses. It 'll be ready in a minute."

"It will, eh? Well, I can't wait a minute, an' I'm goin' to take a
hog-bite right out of YOU!" and he snarls and bites her right in the
middle of her stomach, and if there is anything more ticklesome than
that, it hasn't been heard of yet.

After supper, little Eddie Allgire teases his brother D. to tell him
about Santa Claus. D. is cracking walnuts on a flat-iron held between
his knees.

"Is they any Santy Claus, D.?"

"W'y, cert, they is. Who says not?"

"Bunty Rogers says they ain't no sech a person."

"You tell Bunt Rogers that he's a-gittin' too big fer his britches, an'
first thing he knows, he'll whirl round an' see his naked nose. Tell him
I said so."

"Well, is they any Santy Claus?"

"W'y cert. Ain't I a-tellin' you? Laws! ain't you never seen him yet?"

"I seen that kind of a idol they got down in Plotner's winder."

"Well, he looks jist like that, on'y he's alive."

"Did you ever see him, D.?"

"O-oh, well! Think I'm goin' to tell everything I know? Well, I guess
not."

"Well, but did you now?"

"M-well, that 'd be tellin'."

"Aw, now, D., tell me."

"Look out what you're doin'. Now see that. You pretty near made me mash
my thumb."

"Aw, now, D., tell me. I think you might. I don't believe you ever did."

"Oh, you don't, hey? Well, if you had 'a saw what I saw. M-m! Little
round eyes an' red nose an' white whiskers, an' heard the sleigh bells,
an' oh, my! them reindeers! Cutest little things! Stompin' their little
feet" Here he stopped, and went on cracking nuts.

"Tell some more. Woncha, please? Ma, make D. tell me the rest of it."

"Huck-uh! Dassant. 'T wouldn't be right. Like's not he won't put anythin'
in my stockin' now fer what I did tell."

"How'll he know?"

"How'll he know? Easy enough. He goes around all the houses evenings now
to see how the young ones act, an' if he finds they're sassy, an' don't
mind their Ma when she tells them to leave the cat alone, an' if they
whine: 'I don' want to go out an' cut the kindlin'. Why cain't D. do
it?' then he puts potatoes an' lumps o' coal in their stockin's. Oh,
he'll be here, course o' the evenin'."

"D' you s'pose he's round here no