She did not wait to be told twice, but bustled around delightedly, helping him stow the buckets among the dingy bags and barrels which formed the prosaic load this Santa Claus carried.
“Jest food forninst to-morry fer the shantymen,” he explained, as she prodded the bulging sacks with inquisitive fingers. “They axed me to fetch along their Christmas dinner. Oh, they knowed their man. An’ I, that obligin’, cudn’t say no till thim. If I’d hardened me heart like Phareyo we wudn’t be knowin’ aitch other this blessed minnit; so ’tis glad I am that I’m mild as a mid-summer night by nature an’ dishposition. Let’s limber up a bit afore we shtart ag’in on our thravels; ’tis shtiff I am in the fate av me. All hands down the middle, sashy to corners. Gintlemin, take your pardners—gintlemin twirl your gurrls! Ladies change!”
He roared out the calls, as he had so often done in the different taverns when he sat with his fiddle beneath his chin and played such enlivening strains that nobody who heard them could keep still. This time, however, he was going to cut pigeon-wings himself, and do wonderful double-shuffles; and he needed both hands to swing his little thistledown of a partner, so the old fiddle lay undisturbed in the bottom of the sleigh, while he whistled and sang the tunes with great gusto.
It was a scene unlike any he had ever known. Instead of the long, low rooms with the candles, set a-row in bottles, spluttering through the haze of dust and giving out, besides their meagre light, a smell of dripping tallow, where the air was noisy with the scraping and pounding of many feet, and shouts and laughter rose on every side, was this wide, beautiful place with its pure white carpet and the roof of blue far, far above. Its remote walls were hung with white, where the low hills climbed skyward. And nearer, where the woods began, tall snow-crowned trees stood, their branches shining with frost. Clumps of bushes, with here and there a stunted isolated tree, dressed in the same glittering garments, took on fantastic shapes as if they were spectators; nor were they the only ones,—the furtive little people of the forest in feathers and fur peeped out from their shelter to watch with all their eyes, and then to murmur under their breaths: “How mad these mortals be!”
Terry stood at one side of the road some distance beyond the sleigh, and opposite him, her face aglow with excitement, her eyes like twin stars, the child waited. As he bowed with a great flourish, bringing his old cap to rest over his heart, she swept him a curtsey so low that her skirts stood stiffly out on the ground,—“a cheese” she would have called it; then the next instant she sprang to her feet again and poised on tip-toe, watching eagerly for his signal.
“Now,” he called, “now, thin, darlint, ready.”
She raised her right hand high in air, as if to meet the one he extended toward her, and skimmed across the shimmering floor close, close to him; their fingers met, clasped, parted—and she was in his place and he in hers. Then dipping, bowing, swaying, they advanced, retreated, advanced again; passed each other, now disdaining hands, each twisting and turning alone as if the other did not exist; then repentant, meeting, joining forces, and with hands crossed, setting off together—oh! happy word—in swift sliding steps that scarcely touched the ground, so light they seemed; and up the road and down the road they went, laughing, shouting, singing. It was the maddest, merriest dance! The snow whirled up from their flying feet in soft clouds, and lo! each tiniest particle was a fairy; the air was full of graceful bending shapes fluttering here and there, there and here, until at last, quite tired out, they dropped to earth again to twinkle and sparkle, chattering softly to one another of the fun they had had. Only an old man and a small child light of heart and heels dancing out there in the wide country, do you say? Oh, no! oh, no! Santa Claus and his little sweetheart; and, as if that were not happiness enough, there were the others besides,—the snow fairies (and no dancers are like them anywhere), and the spirits of the plains sending back the gay music and laughter, and the spirits that dwell in the woods in their soft shadowy robes winding between the trees in a stately measure, and the spirits of the wind laughing softly among the snow-laden, ice-gemmed branches, and the spirit of the high blue sky smiling down on everything.
Hitherto the little maid had only danced by herself, or with her shadow, or her dolls,—those rather unsatisfactory partners whose limp legs went every which way; but she was happy at all times because she kept the fairy, Content, in her breast. Now joy came to her in larger fashion. She waved her hand to sparkling earth and smiling sky as she darted up and down like some belated butterfly caught tenderly up into the heart of winter, a bit of glowing color. She saw the dancers in the clearing,—young eyes are sharp eyes, surely!—and I think she caught glimpses, too, of the shy woodland creatures peering out in open-mouthed amazement; she blew a kiss toward them, anyway. Tired? Not a bit. Tired? She could dance forever. Faster, faster, faster, like the little red top at home she spun, and then slower, slow-er, and more slowly. The little top always did that just before it hummed off to sleep. Faster again, slow—Two strong arms caught her and flung her up quite high toward the sky; how blue it was! Then—how blue Santa Claus’ eyes were, and how they twinkled, giving back the picture of herself! She laughed into them gayly, and his deep merriment echoed her flute-like notes. Swiftly he carried her to the sleigh, wrapped her close in the thick rug again, then sprang to his place, and gathered up the reins.
“Och, ’tis the most thriminjious shtepper-out ye are,” he cried. “’Twas the iligantest shport in the wurrld, bar none. Go on, me b’ys.”
Jingle, jangle went the bells; sober music surely, after what had gone before. It was like the little tune when the dance is done and the lights are burning low that, no matter how jolly it may be, still sounds sad, because in and out of its lilt run the words: “Good-by, pleasure, good-by.”