were mostly dressed
like grown-up people, but when they turned their faces they all looked
young. Tommy was wondering why this was, when Santa Claus said that
was because they were "Working for others. They grow young every
Christmas. This is Christmas Land and Kindness Town." They turned
another corner and were whisking by a little house, inside of which
was some one sewing for dear life on a jacket. Tommy knew the place by
the little backyard.

"Stop, stop!" he cried, pointing. "That's Johnny's home and that's
Johnny's mother sewing. She's laughing. I expect she's making that for
Johnny."

"Where?" asked Santa Claus, turning. Tommy pointed back, "There,
there!" but they had whisked around a corner.

"I was so busy looking at that big house that I did not see it," said
Santa Claus.

"That's our house," said Tommy. "I tell you what," he said presently,
"if I get anything--I'll give him some." Santa Claus smiled.

So they dashed along, making all sorts of turns and curves, through
streets lined with shops full of Christmas things and thronged with
people hurrying along with their arms full of bundles; out again into
the open; by little houses half buried in snow, with a light shining
dimly through their upper windows; on through forests of Christmas
trees, hung with toys and not yet lighted, and presently in a wink
were again at Santa Claus's home, in a great hall. All along the sides
were cases filled with all sorts of toys, guns, uniforms, sleds,
skates, snow-shoes, fur gloves, fur coats, books, toy-dogs, ponies,
goats, cows, everything.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

III

Tommy was just thinking how he would love to carry his mother a polar
bearskin for his father, and his father a sealskin coat for his
mother, when Santa Claus came up behind him and tweaked his ear.

"Ah!" he said, "so you want something--something you can't get?"

"Not for myself," said Tommy, shamefacedly.

"So," said Santa Claus, with a look much like Tommy's father when he
was pleased. "I know that. They don't have them exactly about here.
The teddy-bears drove them out. You have to go away off to find them."
He waved his hand to show how far off it was.

"I should like to hunt them, if I only had a gun!" said Tommy;--"and
one for Johnny, too," he added quickly.

Santa Claus winked again. "Well," he said slowly, just as Tommy's fath