And if Kris Kingle should come down into her room through the hole in the paper, she thought she would like to be awake and to ask him to take her away with him in his sleigh somewhere. As she dwelt upon this she pictured herself going up the chimney and then flying over the roofs behind the reindeer, and looking back at Mrs. Tyke standing at the window and cursing her. And so she fell asleep and into a tangled maze of dreams, wherein Kris Kingle, Mrs. Tyke and the doll-baby bride were mingled in great confusion.
Jinnie’s first thought in the morning was the last that she had upon the night before. But as she hurriedly dressed herself it flashed across her mind that as there was grave peril that Kris Kingle might not come to her, perhaps it would make matters surer if she should go to him.
The milkman, whose cry she expected every moment, to her seemed a likely person to know where Kris lived, and to take her there. Young Miss Brown had rather indicated that Kris’s home was in Ohio; but whether Ohio was a little piece up the street or millions of miles away, or whether it was a house or a stable or a town, she did not know. The milkman had spoken pleasantly to her sometimes, and he had a wagon. It was not as attractive as a sleigh with reindeer, but she had often longed to ride in it. She determined to speak to him. But when he came and she opened the door with a beating heart, he snatched the pitcher from her hand and frowned while he filled it. He was thinking of some offensive suggestions made by Mrs. Tyke upon the preceding evening in reference to his too intense partiality for water; and he seemed so cross that Jinnie was afraid to speak to him.
She came into the house again sorrowfully, but with a strong purpose to seek some other means of reaching Kris Kingle; and she carried this determination with her stubbornly through all the fatigues and hardships of the day.
About four o’clock in the afternoon Mrs. Tyke went out. Jinnie felt that her time had come. She resolved to make an effort to find Kris Kingle, to tell him of her longing desire, and to return home again before Mrs. Tyke got back. She put her woollen hood upon her head, wrapped around her shoulders the thin and faded rag which Mrs. Tyke dignified with the name of a shawl; and then she concluded to take a newspaper with her, so that if Kris Kingle showed any disposition to urge the doll-baby upon her in advance of Christmas, she could have something to wrap it in.
When she came out of the house she crossed the street so that she could notice particularly whether there was anything in the construction of the roof of Mrs. Tyke’s dwelling which would be likely to discourage Kris Kingle from attempting to reach the chimney. She saw that the roof was much lower than the roofs of the houses upon each side of it, and that it sloped at a sharp angle toward the front, while they were flat. The chimney, also, was certainly smaller than others in the vicinity, and the conclusion reached by the child’s mind was that Kris Kingle had probably been indisposed to take the risks of running his sleigh upon so precipitous a roof for the sake of descending such a very narrow chimney.
This gave a fresh impulse to the child’s purpose to visit Kris Kingle, so that she might plead with him to make a call at Mrs. Tyke’s despite the inconveniences of the construction of the house. It occurred to her that she might possibly arrange for him to come to the front door and ring the bell, when she would come softly down stairs and open to receive him.
While she thought of the matter she walked quickly up the street, now somewhat gloomy in the early dusk, but before she had gone far she reflected that she ought to inquire the way to Ohio before the darkness should come. She paused to speak to two or three men who were hurrying by, but evidently they thought she intended to ask alms of them, and so they would not pause to listen to her. She was discouraged; but at last she saw a boy standing by a street lamp, doing nothing, and she resolved to ask him.
He laughed rudely at her question and walked away. A moment later he turned and threw a snowball at her. It hit her in the face and hurt her badly; and her foot slipping upon the icy pavement, she fell. A moment elapsed before she was able to rise; but at last she got up, and although she was cold and weak and greatly discouraged, she thought she would press on. She might never have so good a chance again; and if she did not see Kris Kingle now, Christmas would come, and he would come and go, and there would be no doll for her.
While she was standing there, in a very miserable frame of mind, a nicely dressed lady went past her. Presently the lady turned and looked at her; then she came back to where Jinnie stood and spoke to her.