"I could earn a lot of money if I didn't have to go to school to-day," said Jim, with a longing look at the piles of snow. "If it only was Saturday!"
But there was no end of fun at school. The boys began two snow-forts, and the snowballing was something tremendous. The air was crisp and cold, and it gave everybody red cheeks.
Before night the stage sleighs were running, for the omnibuses really couldn't get along. Steve came home early to take the boys and Hanny out. Hanny still wore the red cloak and a pretty red hood and looked like a little fairy.
They went over to the Bowery. You can hardly imagine the gay sight it was. Everything that could be put on runners was there, from the dainty cutter to the lumbering grocery box wagon. And oh, the bells on the frosty air! It was enough to inspire a hundred poets.
There were four horses to the long sleigh. Steve found a seat and took the little girl on his lap, covering her with an extra shawl. The boys dropped down on their knees in the straw. It was a great jam, but everybody was jolly and full of good-natured fun. Now and then a youngster threw a snowball that made a shower of snow in the sleigh, but the passengers shook it off laughingly.
They went down to the Battery and just walked across. Castle Garden was a great white mound. Brooklyn looked vague and ghostly. The shipping was huddled in the piers with fleecy rigging, and only a few brave vessels were breasting the river, bluer still than the sky. And here there was such a splendid turnout it looked like a pageant.
They came up East Broadway. The street lamps were just being lighted. They turned up Columbia Street and Avenue D, and stopped when they came to Houston Street. A man on the corner was selling hot waffles as fast as half a dozen men could bake them, and a colored woman had a stand of hot coffee that scented up the air with its fragrance.
They had to walk up home, but Steve carried Hanny over all the crossings. It was a regular carnival. The children decided snow in New York was ever so much more fun than snow in the country.
But after a few days they settled to it as a regular thing, though the sleighs were flying about in their tireless fashion, making the air musical with bells. And Christmas was coming.
It really was Christmas then. Not to have hung up your stocking would have been an insult to the sweetest, merriest, wisest, tenderest little man in the world. There were some fireplaces left for him to come down, and he was on hand promptly.