"Now for home, Liph. Your grandmother'll cut into one of them new pies for you when you get there."
"Look!" shouted Liph, "that little fellow's waiting for us at the top of the hill."
The hill was not a high one, and the road led right over it, and there on the summit stood Bijah.
"I'm so tired and hungry," he said to himself, "and there comes old Santa Claus, sleigh and all."
He was getting colder, too, now he was standing still, and when Grandfather Vrooman came along the road, walking in front of the sleigh, while Liph perched among the evergreens and drove, there seemed to be something warm about him.
It was not so much his high fur hat, or his tremendous overcoat, or his long white beard, or the way he smiled, but something in the sound of his voice almost drove the frost out of Bijah's nose.
"Well, my little man, don't you want to come to my house and get some pie?"
"Yes, sir."
Bijah could not think of one other word he wanted to say, and he mustered all the courage he had not to cry when Grandfather Vrooman picked him up, as if he had been a kitten, and perched him by the side of Liph among the evergreens.
