He had not been prepared for the effect his words would have on her; the joy in her face was keen as a dagger’s point, and seeing it he would not temporize.
“Come wid me,” he urged.
She hesitated in her turn, and cast a backward glance at the silent house whose tin roof flashed almost like an admonishing eye in the sun. Duty was a word of even less proportions in her vocabulary than in Terry’s, though she knew its existence; knew, too, young as she was, the wide gulf that lies between right and wrong doing. Yet here was no question of wrong, certainly. The possibility of the passing of such an Important Personage had never occurred to her elders, and they, who loved to see her happy, would never refuse to let her go with him; it wasn’t necessary to ask—she couldn’t wait. The house was so lonely! Her uncle was away at his work, and her mother sat sad and quiet, sewing the livelong day; there were no children’s voices in the empty rooms, no rollicking, romping feet in the hall or on the stairs. Just silence, save for the little sounds she herself made as she played with her dolls, or, tired of them, watched the big, desolate world from the window. That was the picture the house held for her. This,—she looked again at the little red-cheeked, blue-eyed man smiling at her from under his big fur cap, his white beard framing his jovial face—why, he had just stepped from her story book; hundreds of times he had met her glance in this same friendly fashion from the printed page; just so had he looked at her in those long daydreams, gleamed at her so in the twilight from the leaping fire, haunted her slumbers at night. Even the sound of his voice was familiar, though she had never thought to hear him say: “Come with me, come with me.”
The road, stretching away to the north, gleamed like silver under the dazzling sky, twinkling and beckoning to her as with a thousand hands, and innumerable voices, too fine to be heard by ordinary ears, echoed the invitation. The voices of the sleeping plains waking at the thought of the happiness in store for her, the voices of the snow-covered trees where the little leaves danced in the summer time, and all the spirits of the birds that had once darted in and out among them and had nested there sang now in a mighty chorus: “Come, come, come.”
Oh, that happy, happy road. Never a child of all the multitude of children on earth who had loved him, dreamed about him, and longed to see him had been so fortunate as she. It was impossible to hesitate a moment longer, especially when the pursed up lips might so quickly slip from the magic word into a chirrup to the horses, and in consequence sleigh and occupant would vanish into thin air.
“Do you really mean it?” she asked tremulously. “Do you really mean it?” For though she was deafened by the noisy voices, his had been the first to speak. “Will you take me, truly?”
For answer he threw back the robes, and as she sprang to his side he gave a great laugh and drew her closer to him; then he dragged an extra rug from the bottom of the sleigh and folded it about her.
“Santa Claus’ swateheart mustn’t ketch the p-noo-moany,” he cried. “Divil a bit av it! What do I percaive—is it missin’ a mitten ye are? Sure that’s disthressful, fer we can’t hunt it up now wid toime racin’ by like a mill-shtrame—”
“I’m unpartikilar, truly. I don’t mind the leastest bit—”
“Well, mine wud be too shmall fer the likes av ye annyway, an’ I nade thim mesilf. So tuck your hands clost under, me darlint, an’ ye won’t be afther falin’ the cold. Now thin, is it ready ye are?”