Then he turned and went back into the house. He felt like a little man in that great house all by himself. From room to room he went. He went into the game room and rolled the balls. Some of the balls were so large that they were as high as the little boy’s head. They were of rubber, and if you would drop one from the top of the house it would bounce clear back to the top. The little boy went into the candy kitchen and ate some of the candy. He went into the workshop and worked on some toys, then into the library and read some of the books, then into the parlor and banged on the piano.
But after a while, the little boy was tired, and he said, “I wish Santa Claus would hurry and come back.” He was lonely. And so he thought he would go up on the housetop and look out to see if he could see Santa Claus coming home. Up the steps he went. When he reached the top, there was another flight. Up these he went and still another flight; up, up, he went until it seemed he had gone a thousand steps. But, finally, he came out on top. The little boy stood there with his hands on the railing and looked out, but all he could see were the snow fields, white and glistening. Santa Claus was not in sight. He could see the track over the snow that the sleigh had made, but that was all.
Then down the steps he came, and it just happened that he came by the room that Santa Claus told him he must not go in. As he passed, he stopped in front of the door and said to himself, “I wonder what they have in that room and why they did not want me to go in?” He took hold of the knob and gave it a turn, but the door was locked. Then he shut one eye and peeped through the keyhole, but he could see nothing; it was all dark. Then he put his mouth at the keyhole and blew through it, but he could hear nothing. Then he put his nose there and smelled, but he could smell nothing. “I wonder what they have in the room?” he said, “I believe I will see just for fun which one of these keys will fit in the lock.” The little boy had in his hand the great bunch of keys. He tried one key and that would not fit, then he tried another and another and another, and kept on until he came to the last key. Now, he said to himself, “If this key does not fit I am going.” He tried it and it was the only key on the bunch that would fit. “Now,” he said, “I shall not go into the room, but I will just turn the key and see if it will unlock the lock. It may fit in the lock and then not unlock the lock.” He turned the key slowly and the latch went “click,” “click,” and the door flew wide open. What do you suppose was in the room? It was all dark; the little boy could see nothing. He had his hand on the knob and it seemed to him that his hand was caught between the knob and key, and somehow, as the door opened, it pulled him in. When he stepped into the room, he felt a breeze blowing and, more than that, as he stepped down, he found the room did not have any bottom; just a dark hole.
Well, as the little boy stepped over into the room, he felt himself falling, away down, down, down yonder. He shut his eyes, expecting every moment to strike something and be killed. But, before he did, some one caught him by the shoulders and shook him and said, “Wake up!” “Wake up.” He opened his eyes and where do you suppose the little boy was? At home. It was Christmas morning and his father was calling him to get up. The sun was shining across his little bed. He looked towards the fireplace and there all the stockings were hanging full. The little boy had been to see Santa Claus, but he went by that beautiful route we call “Dreamland”.
HARALD’S CHRISTMAS TREE
BY ANNA BOGENHOLM SLOANE
IN a little log hut at the edge of a forest in far-away Sweden lived Harald and his widowed mother. The winter snows crept in through the window cracks and the biting winds found their way between the decaying logs. All the fuel they had was the dry sticks that Harald gathered in the woods, and, indeed, nearly all the money used in their humble home was earned by his hands. But, notwithstanding the poverty and uncomfortable habitation, Harald was as happy as though he lived in a palace; for he loved the fading beauty of his mother’s tender face and the whitening hair under her stiff cap. And for playmates he had all the elves and fairies about whom his mother had told him so many wonderful tales.
Harald had never seen a Bible or heard about the Saviour, but he knew the Eddas by heart and he prayed to Odin and Thor with as devout reverence as a Christian boy prays to the Lord Jesus, and he had firmly resolved to live the noble life of a brave hero so as to be worthy to die on the battlefield, and by kind Valkyrias be borne to the fair gardens of Valhall.