“Oh,” answered his papa, “I see what you mean now. Well, how can you tell to-morrow is coming? Can you smell it?”
The Man Mite laughed. “Such a silly papa! To-morrow has to come so that to-day can be yesterday. You ’splained that to me once yourself.”
“Yes? Well, Christmas has to come so that next Christmas can be last Christmas.”
“Oh, papa,” cried the Man Mite, “you forgot about this Christmas, but please don’t tell me when this Christmas is coming, because I want it to surprise me. I want it to sneak right up and get here when I don’t know it.”
“All right,” laughed papa, “I shan’t tell, and you can go to bed every night for a week hoping that the next day will be Christmas.”
Which was exactly what the Man Mite did, and for a night or two it was very exciting, but toward the end of the week he began to grow tired of it. It was all very well to go to bed hoping that the next day would be Christmas, but to wake up every morning, and ask, “Where is Christmas?” only to be answered with “Christmas is coming!” was very disappointing.
One night his papa and mamma insisted that he go to bed earlier than usual, so he was very wide awake for a while, and lay there wondering how he could hurry up Christmas. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine how Christmas looked dilly-dallying along the way, as (he remembered with shame) he himself did sometimes when he was sent upon an errand, instead of hastening, as Christmas and a little boy ought to do.
“Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!” he repeated to himself, “and if it doesn’t hurry and hurry up—if it doesn’t hurry and hurry up, I’ll go to meet it!”
That was a new idea, and the Man Mite lingered on it lovingly. Go to meet it! Why not?
Just how he got himself dressed and out of the house he never distinctly remembered. He afterwards said that he was in such a hurry he didn’t have time to remember, but that doesn’t sound quite reasonable, does it?