012I suppose were ready to pull; and a gardener was hoeing a row of soldiers that didn’t look in a very healthy condition, or as if they had done very well.
“The gardener looked familiar, I thought, and as I approached him he stopped work and, leaning on his hoe he said, ‘How do you do, Lilian? I am very glad to see you.’
“The moment he raised his face I knew it was Santa Claus, for he looked exactly like the portrait we have of him. You can easily believe I was glad then! I ran and put both of my hands in his, fairly shouting that I was so glad to find him.
“He laughed and said:
“‘Why, I am generally to be found here or hereabouts, for I work in the grounds every day.’
“And I laughed too, because his laugh sounded so funny; like the brook going over stones, and the wind up in the trees. Two or three times, when I thought he had done he would burst out again, laughing the vowels in this way: ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha! He, he, he, he, he! Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi! Ho, ho, ho, h-o-oo!’”
Lill did it very well, and Effie laughed till the tears came to her eyes; and she could quite believe Lill when she said, “It grew to be so funny that I couldn’t stand, but fell over into one of the little chairs that were growing in a bed just beyond the soldiers.013
“When Santa Claus saw that he stopped suddenly, saying:
“‘There, that will do. I take a hearty laugh every day, for the sake of digestion.’
“Then he added, in a whisper, ‘That is the reason I live so long and don’t grow old. I’ve been the same age ever since the chroniclers began to take notes, and those who are best able to judge think I’ll continue to be this way for about one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six years longer,—they probably took a new observation at the Centennial, and they know exactly.’