"It'll be for me and for you, Lucy, and for all the babies, and then wont you be glad! And for mamma too, and for papa, cos we's all good little chillen, if we is poor. Yes, indeed, Ole Kriss is coming with his reindeer. And he'll bring me a horse with pink shoes on; and you'll have a piano—a really piano, ye know; and mamma, she'll have two little glass s'ippers, and—and—"
"OLE KRISS IS COMING WITH HIS REINDEER."
Little Scrubby stopped chattering just there, and laid her head down on poor old Lucy's kind bosom.
"Oh dear!" she sighed, "I do wish ole Kriss'd come with that pitty tree!"
The kitten curled up on the hearth, and the little broken dog that lay tipped over in the corner, and good old Lucy, and the three dolls tucked up in mamma's basket, all heard the wish of the poor little disappointed child.
II.
Everybody has noticed that the kittens and the dogs take a great many naps in the day-time, and that the dolls and toy-animals let the children do the most of the playing. That is because the pets and the toys are tired out and sleepy after their doings the night before, when the children were asleep and the grown people out of the way. They have rare sprees all by themselves, but just as soon as any person comes about, the fun stops,—the cat and the dog are sound asleep, the dolls drop down anywhere still as a wood-pile, and the rocking-horse don't even switch the ten hairs left in his tail.
As for talking, though, they might chatter all the time and nobody be the wiser. People hear them, but not a soul knows what it is. Mamma sticks paper into the key-hole to keep out the wind that whistles so, papa takes medicine for the cold that makes such a ringing in his head, and Bridget sets a trap to catch the mouse that "squales and scrabbles about so, a body can't slape at all, 'most;" and all the while it is the dolls and pets laughing and talking among themselves.
The bird in the cage and the bird out-of-doors know what it is. Very tame squirrels and rabbits understand it; and the poor little late chicken, which was brought into the kitchen for fear of freezing, soon spoke the language like a native.