Then they went to the window. Snow was on the ground.
"It's as white as the feathers of the Foolish White Geese," Jehosophat happened to remark.
"No, it's prettier than that," Marmaduke corrected him. "It's like the coats of the Hippity-Hop Bunnies. And the sky is just as gray as the Quaker ladies over in the meeting-house on Wally's creek," he added.
That afternoon they heard sleigh-bells, clear, tinkling, but never jangling, on the still air.
"Whoa!" yelled the Toyman.
The big sleigh stopped by the side porch. Hal the Red Roan and Teddy the Buckskin Horse tossed their heads merrily, and the sleigh-bells jingled even after the team had come to a halt.
"All aboard!" shouted the Toyman, as he stamped the snow from his boots and entered the kitchen. "We're going to find the biggest, finest tree in the whole woods! Who wants to go?"
Who wouldn't want to go! There was a scurrying for boots and coats, mufflers and mittens. Then they tumbled in, the sleighbells jingled, and off they flew through the deep, powdery, sparkling snow.
The river was not in motion; it was not flowing at all this day, but lay like a long lead pipe, twisting between the white snow banks. Sometimes, when the sun came out and shone upon it, the lead was changed to pearl.
They drove away from it now, up by Jake Miller's place, and past the Fizzletrees' and the Van Nostrands', then up the hill to the woods.