Freddy Goes to the North Pole (19 page)

CHAPTER XV

CHRISTMAS EVE AT SANTA'S

It was late in the afternoon when Jinx and Freddy finally got back to the palace. Santa Claus laughed until the tears ran down his fat red cheeks when he heard their story.

“I don't know what I'll do when you animals leave me and go back to your homes,” he said. “We've always had a good time up here on the top of the world, but since you've been here, it has been twice as much fun. Well, well, the poor old captain! I should like to have seen his face! But I'm afraid it serves him right for taking the reindeer without my permission. I must send out and bring Blixen in, I suppose. I'm sorry his leg has given out, for tomorrow night is Christmas Eve, and there isn't another reindeer I can put in his place on the sleigh. They're fairly fast, some of them, but they're not sure-footed enough, and a reindeer has to be sure-footed to keep from falling when he gets on some of those steep, snow-covered roofs.”

“Why couldn't you put Uncle William in his place, sir?” asked Freddy. “He's fairly fast for a horse—of course nothing like your reindeer, but he used to be in a circus, and from what he's told us about the tricks he had to do, I'm sure he'd have no trouble in keeping his feet on the steepest roof.”

“Why, that's a fine idea, Freddy,” said Santa Claus. “I never thought of it. I did think Bill might do, because a goat is used to climbing; but he's so much smaller than the reindeer that I'm afraid he'd look funny hitched up with them. The children wouldn't like it if Santa Claus came with three reindeer and a goat. Well, now, why didn't I ever think of that? You two go in and get something to eat; you must be pretty hungry. And ask Uncle William to come out and see me.”

Freddy and Jinx went in and ate a huge lunch, and then they took Mr. Hooker's suitcase up to his room. But before they left it, they took out the map. “We mustn't leave that here,” said Jinx. “He'll just try to get away with it again if we do.”

Freddy and Jinx went in and ate a huge lunch

“Tear it up,” said Freddy.

“No,” replied the cat, “I'll hide it somewhere. I have an idea we can use it yet.”

Late that evening an Eskimo brought the captain back to the palace on a dog-sled. Mr. Hooker seemed very grumpy, and he went straight to his room without speaking to anybody. He came down to breakfast the next morning, but only answered with grunts when spoken to, and between courses sat and twirled his moustaches and glared down the long dining-room at the animals. When the mice had finished their breakfast, they went over to his table, but instead of picking them up he merely glowered angrily at them, then jumped to his feet, shook his fist at them, shouted: “Traitors!” in a loud voice, and went back to his room, where he remained until lunch, playing strange wild music on his flute.

But as it was the day before Christmas, everybody in the palace was very busy, and nobody had time to wonder about the captain. The thousands and thousands of presents were stacked up in the courtyard, ready to be loaded into the sleigh and the pack that Santa Claus carries on his back. A lot of last-minute letters were being hastily opened and presents wrapped and addressed for the children who had written them. And the animals and the sailors and all the workmen in the toy-factory were hanging up their own stockings and decorating trees and getting presents ready for each other. And in the midst of all this hurry and bustle, Santa Claus had found time to hitch up Uncle William with the three reindeer and give him a try-out round the yard and over the palace roofs.

“I don't see how he manages to deliver all these presents,” said Mrs. Wiggins. She and Mrs. Wogus were wrapping up some dog-biscuits in red paper to put in Robert's stocking.

“It isn't really as much work as it looks,” said Mrs. Wogus, “though it's enough, land knows! I've had it all explained to me. You see, he tries to deliver all the presents as near twelve o'clock as he can. When it's twelve o'clock in New England, it's only eleven in Ohio, and out on the Pacific coast it's still early in the evening, and in Japan it is still noon of the day before.”

“Eh?” exclaimed Mrs. Wiggins. “What are you talking about, sister! If it's twelve o'clock, it's twelve o'clock. I never heard—”

“Oh, you don't understand,” said Mrs. Wogus. “I could show you if I had a globe. What I mean is, the earth goes round, and the sun comes up on New England before it does on California, doesn't it? And when it's shining on Mr. Bean's farm, it's dark in Japan, isn't it?”

“I guess so,” said Mrs. Wiggins doubtfully. “It sounds all right when you say it, but when I begin to think about it, it makes my head feel funny.”

“You don't want to think about it,” said her sister. “You just see how it is, and then it's perfectly simple. Santa Claus delivers his presents in New England at twelve o'clock. An hour later he gets to Ohio. But it isn't one o'clock there, it's only twelve. He goes round the whole world the same way. He delivers all his presents at midnight, but he has twenty-four hours to do it in.”

“Oh dear!” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Don't tell me any more. You've got me all confused now. See here, are we going to give Henrietta this china egg with the forget-me-nots on it, or the bottle of Jockey Club perfume?”

“I think she'd like the perfume best. Wrap it up and I'll get a card ready. Where are the stickers?”

Mrs. Wogus didn't try to explain any more, and it is doubtful if Mrs. Wiggins ever really understood about the change of time, although she was not to blame for that, as she had never been to school and had lived all her life on a very small farm. Nor did it really matter, for she understood so many things that were more important, such as how to be nice to animals who were in trouble, and what to say to stop animals' being angry at each other.

As soon as everything was ready, Santa Claus set out. He had fastened a pair of antlers to Uncle William's head so that the horse would look as much as possible like a reindeer. Uncle William was very proud to be going with Santa Claus. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him. He had raced a good deal when he was younger, but he had never even imagined such speed as he made that night. He never knew afterwards quite how it happened, whether the reindeer pulled him along or whether there was some magic about it. His hoofs seemed to skim the snow. They sped through the forest so fast that the trees fairly whizzed backward past them, like the pickets on a fence that you pass in a swift automobile. Soon the forest was behind, and houses began to appear. A leap, and they were on a roof; Santa was out of the sleigh and down the chimney and back again in the sleigh almost before they had come to a stop—and then another leap, and in a swirl of snow they were off again. Through towns and villages and cities, up narrow mountain roads, across bridges, over cultivated valleys, along beaches where the surf broke white in the starlight, they raced, faster and faster; passing lighted trains that seemed to be standing still, though they were making their fifty miles an hour; passing speeding automobiles whose occupants caught but a glimpse of them as they hurried by and were never sure afterwards of the reality of what they had seen. After a little it was all like a dream to Uncle William; he galloped and galloped, and lights and buildings and woods and fields whizzed by in a confused mass; and he could hear Santa Claus humming a little tune to himself as he pulled the reins gently, now to the left, now to the right, to guide their flight. The horse didn't seem to get tired, either, for all the swiftness of the pace. It was too exciting, he was too proud of his part in it, to feel fatigue. And when at last he was back in the stable, and his harness was taken off and a good feed of oats was brought to him, he was sorry that it was all over.

“Splendid work!” said Santa Claus, patting him on the shoulder. “If it weren't for you, there'd be a lot of unhappy children tomorrow morning who'd be wondering why I'd forgotten them. And you never slipped once. Even I lost my footing on that steep slate roof in Minneapolis, and if I hadn't caught hold of the chimney, you'd have had to dig me out of the snow-drift at the side of the house.” He shook with laughter. “That's happened to me more than once, I can tell you. You'd be surprised at some of the things that have happened. Once I fell through a skylight right into a bed where four children were trying to keep awake so they could see me when I came down the chimney. They saw me all right, and felt me. I nearly squashed them.”

“You must have had lots of funny experiences,” said the horse.

“I have. I'll tell you about them some time. But now I think we both want to get to bed. There'll be lots of eating and excitement tomorrow, and we want to be rested.”

Christmas at Santa Claus's palace was, as you may imagine, nothing but fun and happiness for all the animals and people under that generous roof. It would take much too long to tell of the presents they exchanged, and the turkeys and plum puddings and mince pies and candy they ate, and the games they played. Even Mr. Hooker recovered from his anger and disappointment sufficiently to eat an enormous dinner—for which he dressed in full pirate costume—cocked hat, gold-laced coat, ear-rings, red sash, and all—and to play for them afterwards on his flute while they all danced.

The dancing was really worth seeing. The sailors danced hornpipes and jigs; the ship's carpenter, Mr. McTavish, put on kilts and danced a Highland fling; Mr. Bashwater did the harpooner's jig, which is something like the gimpus dance, with many complicated figures; and even the captain finally consented to do his famous and very graceful dance to Mendelssohn's
Spring Song
, for which he wore a leopard-skin and a green wreath, and carried a basket of artificial crocuses. The animals danced too, mostly old-fashioned round dances. Mrs. Wogus in particular turned out to be a really fine dancer. Her polka was quite astonishing.

Late in the evening, when the merriment was at its height, there was one unpleasant incident. One of the sailors, a greedy and ill-tempered man named Pell, was complaining about the present his room-mate, Mr. Osnip, had given him. “It's all very well to talk about the Christmas spirit,” he was saying. “But Jim Osnip hasn't got it. He just simply hasn't got it, that's all! Why I gave him a swell ivory manicure set, and what did he give me? A couple of miserable little guest-towels. Why, they're not even linen! And look, here's the price tag—he didn't even take it off—nineteen cents! What kind of a present is that to give your mate?”

Some of the sailors had gathered round, and Mr. Bashwater said: “Why, Pell, I think those are very nice towels. Jim hasn't got very much money, you know, and he's spent a lot of time embroidering your monogram on them. See here—”

“I don't care about that at all,” said Pell crossly.” What I say is—”

But just then Mr. Osnip himself pushed through the ring. “You don't like 'em, eh?” he said. “All right, give 'em back. Here's your old manicure set. Give me those towels!” And he started to pull them away from his friend.

But Mr. Pell didn't really want to give up the towels, so he hung on to them, and they tugged and pulled until at last one of the towels gave way and tore down the middle, leaving Mr. Pell lying on his back with half a towel in his hand, and Mr. Osnip lying on
his
back with a towel and a half in
his
hand.

The disturbance had brought everyone together in that corner of the Present Room. Freddy had been upstairs fixing up something on his typewriter, and now, as he came down with a sealed envelope in his mouth, Jinx came up to him and said: “You're just in time. Now's the time to give it to him.”

Freddy nodded and pushed his way through the crowd. Mr. Hooker had just taken matters in hand and was scolding the two sailors, who stood before him blushing and with downcast and shamefaced looks. The pig stood on his hind legs and offered the envelope to the captain.

“What's this?” said Mr. Hooker.

The sailors all looked over his shoulder as he turned the envelope over in his hands. “It says something on it,” said one of them.

“Eh? So it does. ‘The contents of this letter are of interest to the officers and crew of the
Mary Ann
.' H'm, wonder what can be in it.”

“Why don't you open it and find out?” suggested someone.

“That's an idea,” said Hooker, and tore open the envelope. Out dropped a folded paper.

Hooker had recognized it immediately as the treasure map, and he stooped to snatch it up before anyone else should see what it was. But Mr. Osnip was quicker, and in a few moments every sailor in the room knew what it was and they all crowded closer about the captain, who, realizing now that it was useless to try to keep it for himself, and knowing that the animals could not give him away, pretended that he had known what it was all the time.