“Yes,” said Santa Claus, “I can do it by feeding you toy foods! I can have my cooks and my bakers make such tiny cakes and pies, that if you eat them one at a time, you will grow smaller and smaller. It will not be easy and you may have to go hungry at times, but in the end you will be just the right size. You can play with the other boys and no one will laugh at you. Then you may return to your father and mother!”
“And not see you, and Squeaky, and Sancho Wing any more!” faltered Snythergen.
“You may come and visit us at night after your mother has tucked you in your bed—just as you used to steal away from the forest to go home.”
Snythergen still hesitated.
“You will be very happy,” said Santa Claus. “You will grow up to be a man, and all your life you will be happier for having visited Santa Claus’ land on the Wreath.”
Snythergen made the choice that Santa Claus knew he would, the one that any boy would have made. There was a great deal of bustle in all of the kitchens and bakeries on the Wreath, as they made toy foods for Snythergen. There were wonderful loaves of bread shaped like the little tree doctor, which Snythergen wanted to devour by the handful, but was permitted to eat only one at each meal. There were cookies molded in the form of the woodchoppers’ axes, cakes and pies resembling the nest that had once tickled his long green boughs.
And squeezed him almost as tightly as the farmer’s wife had done