“Come,” said Santa Claus; and taking a hand of each, he led them up to where a large, soft cloud rested on the hill-side, and he bade the children sit down with him on it.
Up, up floated the billowy mass into the sky, and glided away to the south. How smoothly they went along, wafted by the morning breezes! and Cis and Hal, seated on their soft cushions, gazed dreamily down on the country that sped away so quickly beneath them.
“How small the big mountains look!” cried Hal; “and the towns and villages look like toy ones.”
And then they passed over big streams, and a wide strait, that looked like a silver streak in the far depths. Away, away they floated; the sky was now clearer, and off the hills, and out of the valleys the mists were rolling, their silvery edges gleaming in the fitful sunlight.
“Look! we are going over some big ponds now,” said little Cis.
“Ponds!” exclaimed Santa Claus, “those are large lakes, see how they spread out like sheets of silver water!”
The cloud was by this time passing over one of the largest lakes, and very beautiful looked the soft shining waters surrounded by mountains, on the tops of which the clouds still rested. Then the cloud floated to the far end of the lake, and glided down a narrow valley in which the milky blue waters of a glacier-stream rushed and roared, though no sound reached the children, who could only see its fighting wavelets.
On they went, watching the clouds roll from the tree-clad depths and rocky heights, till at last they uttered cries of joy and wonder.
There, in front of them, the mighty snow-crowned hills pierced the grey clouds, catching the rosy rays of the now rapidly-rising sun. Vast ice-fields stretched far and wide, their rifts blue as the breaks in the sky above, their jagged peaks gleaming with a thousand diamond lights; and how soft and inviting looked the beds of snow in the hollows!