In the mean time Nimbletoes stood staring. He couldn’t believe his eyes. For a whole half-minute he stood there, leaning on his broom, his eyes and his mouth open wide.
Then Nimbletoes gave a great leap into the air.
‘Hi, there!’ he shouted up at the work-room windows. ‘Hi, there! Sharpeyes! Merrythought! Your Pony has run away! Brownies! Brownies! Come! Come!’
At this loud shouting all the Brownies, and Santa Claus, too, rushed to the work-room windows and looked out. Up from the kitchen scampered Sweet-Tooth, leaving the very-black licorice drops to his band of little cooks. Out of the stable hurried little Crusty, his scarlet cap tipped over one ear and the reindeer’s hair-brush clutched in his hand.
They all saw a strange sight—the Rocking-Horse Pony rocking swiftly away over the snow and after him Brownie Nimbletoes, using his broom as a staff, taking great flying leaps and bounds, the wind lifting him off his feet time and time again.
‘My Pony! My Pony!’ called Sharpeyes, running toward the door. ‘Oh, Merrythought! Oh, Brownies! Help me, do!’
At this, all the Brownies trooped after him, down the stairs, out the front door, and over the snow, while Santa Claus stood on the steps, laughing and waving them on.
‘Catch him, Brownies! Catch him!’ called Santa Claus. ‘Oh, what a race!’
A race it was! For the Rocking-Horse Pony seemed fairly to skim over the ground, and behind him, blown by the wind and carried by their own swift little feet, came the Brownies, every one, for Sweet-Tooth and Crusty had joined them and were running quite as fast as any one else.
The Rocking-Horse Pony seemed to know where he wanted to go. On and on he rocked over the ice and snow. Now he came to a group of low round huts made of snow, where the Eskimos lived, fathers and mothers and little boy and girl Eskimos, too. Smoke was pouring from the hole in the top of each hut, and this smoke the wind caught and gayly blew hither and yon. The little Eskimo boys and girls, bundled in fur, ran out of the huts, their long-haired dogs barking at their heels, and they all, children and dogs, stared in amazement at the galloping Rocking-Horse Pony who was followed so closely by the gay band of Brownies, laughing and shouting and waving their arms as they sped by.