“That,” says Dirty Shirt, “is the star of—of—where was it, Tellurium?”
“I dunno the exact location. Pete Gonyer made it for us. Iron star, with a glass front. Put a candle in her, and she looks like somethin’.”
They started to tell me more about it, but jist about that time Magpie and Scenery hooks some sort of a doodad around my chin, ties it off tight in a few places, and I looks down at about three feet of chin whiskers. They kinda shoot out from jist below my lower lip like a waterfall, and they shore smell awful horsey.
“There!” says Magpie. “You look more like Santa Claus than Wick did.”
I try to say somethin’, but I’m whisker bound. I talk through my nose, but I can’t even understand what I’m sayin’. Magpie explains what I’ve got to do. They’ve got a chimbley all built. It’s about ten feet tall, and about three feet square. At the bottom is what looks kinda like a fireplace.
“Here’s your chore,” says Magpie. “You climb that ladder to the top of the chimbley. There’s a ladder built inside for you to come down. Your act is the last on the bill. Up to that time, your chimbley is part of the stable. When we git everythin’ cleared after the next to the last act, we make this up to look like a room in the house. Mrs. Smith will recite a poem entitled ‘It Was The Night Before Christmas’, and while she’s recitin’, you come down the chimbley. There’ll be a Christmas tree, and you’ll have some doojinguses to hang on it, while she speaks. And that’s about all. We aims to show the folks jist why Christmas started; sabe? Kinda show the modern way of celebratin’, jist as a—a extra act, as you might say. Mebbe you better git up there jist before the show starts; so as to be all set. Now, I’ve got to see that the raffle is all pulled off right.”
I got up out of that chair, kinda gropin’ in the dark. I wanted to git that horse’s tail off my chin, so I could talk a little, but that heavy coat and all them sets of sleigh bells prevents me from liftin’ my arms. I’m jinglin’ around, grabbin’ for somethin’ or somebody to support me, when all to once, somethin’ grabbed me by the whiskers and gave an awful yank.
It knocked my feet from under me, but I didn’t fall down, ’cause I was still suspended by the whiskers, and I looked up at the flarin’ nose of Araby, the Scenery Sims camel. The damn’ thing has got me by the whiskers, kinda holdin’ me up at arm’s length, as it were. And then the blamed thing began to swing me around. My neck is jist about to break, when all to once the toggle busts, and I went end over end out through the black curtain, hit the edge of the platform on the seat of my pants, where I ricocheted straight out and landed with both legs around Bill Thatcher’s neck.
There’s a lot of yellin’, but it don’t mean much to me and Bill and his bull fiddle. Willin’ hands separated us, and somebody hauled me back onto the platform, where they yanked me back behind the curtain.
“I’m through Santa Clausin’,” says I. “No damn’ camel is goin’ to use me for a sling shot.”