“Hurry up! Slide down the chimney and go to school that way!” cried Beckie to Neddie.
“I can’t! I’m stuck fast!” he said.
“I’ll give you a push!” she cried. And she did. She pushed so hard that both she and Neddie fell right on down through the hole in the chimney, into the fireplace in the school room. But, luckily, there was no fire on the hearth, so they were not burned. Which shows you that Santa Claus can come down a chimney, and which also shows you that you should not have a fire in the grate on Christmas eve.
Well, of course, Neddie and Beckie coming down the chimney made quite some excitement in the school, but all the animal children laughed, and the professor-teacher laughed, too, and then, as it was so near Christmas, he said there would be no more lessons that day. So Neddie and Beckie, having proved that Santa Claus could come down a chimney, went home to wash off the soot.
What’s that? How does Santa Claus get the black soot off him when he comes down a chimney? Why, he always has a whiskbroom with him, you know, and every time he comes down a chimney he brushes himself off. See?
And now we have come to the end of this book, for you can easily tell, by looking, that there isn’t room for another story in it.
I’ll just say, though, that Neddie and Beckie had the finest Christmas that ever you can imagine. And such presents as they received! And the candy and nuts and oranges and honey cakes—Oh, my! It makes me hungry just to write about it.
And the two little bear children, and their papa and mamma, and Aunt Piffy, the fat bear, and Uncle Wigwag, and Mr. Whitewash lived happily for ever after—for many years after. And every time he got a chance Uncle Wigwag would play a joke. And Mr. Whitewash would always sit on a cake of ice when he could find one.
But if I can’t get any more stories in this book, I can put them in another. And I will. That book will be called “Bully and Bawly No-Tail,” and they will be stories about the two little frog boys, who lived in a pond, and could swim as good as a gold fish. They had no tails, except when they were baby tadpoles, but those tails soon fell off. So their names were “No-Tail” you see, just as Buddy and Brighteyes, the guinea pigs, had no tail.
So I’ll say good-bye now, for a little while, as I have to write the new book for you.