"We'll start from the piano," said Samuel. It was Christmas Eve, you remember, and everything seemed rather uncommon and surprising. So they all jumped upon the piano,—thirteen of them altogether,—and it made the old instrument shiver and rattle, and try to shake them off. Then they started on the game of "tag." Samuel sprang from the piano to the cabinet, from the cabinet to the mantle, and from the mantle to the glass book-case in the corner; and they all jumped after him and each other. Then he swung himself over to the hall door, for his arms and his legs were simply prodigious. From the top of the door he leaped to the big picture frame between the front windows. How it swayed and creaked and screamed! So he dropped down upon a low book-case beneath, and balanced himself on the edges of a crystal loving-cup. But Henry and Herbert had started in the other direction from the piano, and they came face to face with Samuel on the loving-cup. Then this elder brother sprang over to the marble centre-table, and then across to the piano again, and upon the high set of book-shelves in the southwest corner of the room. Here he began to grab the books, and throw them at the other children as they came near him. Then they threw books back at him. And what a commotion there was! Children were passing and repassing with the speed of the wind. They were leaping from picture to picture, and mantle to table, and piano to book-case, and table to chairs, and cabinet to door; books were flying in every direction, the piano was groaning and shaking and scolding, and there was the din of many voices, shoutings, laughter, cries, boys' clothes and girls' clothes woven into a perfect mass of changing colors and shapes, the bang and rattle of moving furniture, and whatever you may be pleased to imagine.
All this time the Judge, his wife, Ruth, and the baby sat composedly behind the face of the clock, and looked down delightedly upon the hilarious scene. There was a hole in the clock's face which served them for a window. Ruth had often observed it; and she had told her mother more than a few times that she was perfectly sure there must be a big room up there, and lots of people in it, for she had seen the flash of their eyes when they peeped down into the room and watched (wouldn't it be more proper to say clocked) the people. Ruth, of course, was right; for wasn't there a big room in the top of the clock? and didn't the Judge and his wife know all about it? It was there that they had gone to rest.
The first thing they did was to put Mrs. "Judge" to bed. This they did with her shoes on. The next thing was to get the baby to sleep. So the Judge sat down in a rocking-chair, and began to sing to his little namesake; and when he got tired of singing the Judge whistled. The baby was just as good as he could be. He laughed, and cooed, and hit the old gentleman on the cheek with a tiny hand, and tried to pick his eyes out one by one, count all his teeth, and pull off his eyebrows, dig into his ears, and find what he did with his nose, and how he kept his cravat on. Meanwhile Ruth was looking down upon the children, and reporting their doings to her visitors.
"I think it will do them good to have a little frolic," said the Judge.
"Yes, let them play," replied Mrs. "Judge." "It makes me feel as if we were once more back in the old home, and had children to fill it and bring us joy."
"But you wouldn't let your children play like that," said Ruth. "Why, I think they're going to break every thing to pieces. And what will the church committee say? They have charge of the house, you know."
"Let's see what they are doing!" exclaimed the Judge. So he put the baby down by his wife while he looked through the eye of the clock. Just at that moment the children had all jumped upon the centre-table; and it was crowded with thirteen of them, and the lamp in the middle. There was a brief struggle, then the lamp went out, and the noise of a great fall and crash sounded through the room, after which darkness and silence prevailed. Something had evidently happened.
"Don't you think we might visit the closets now?" inquired Ruth. The Judge turned to his wife to see what she answered.
"I am too tired to go through them," she said. "But I should like to have them come to me." Now, this was quite an original idea; but it pleased Ruth.
"Why, yes, I think they would like to come." Ruth was speaking with great animation. "We've named them, you know; and I think if I should call them by their names they'd all be glad to see you. Can you sit here by this hole in the clock?"