Just a little before dawn the disturbers were on the road to heaven,
as merry as crickets, frisking and skipping about among the clouds.
There were millions and millions of them, all beautiful, pure,
divine, with short white wings beating faster than those of the
swiftest birds on earth.
This white swarm was greater than anything that the eye can focus in
visible space, and it spread over the moon and the stars, and the
firmament seemed filled with little fleecy clouds.
"Hurry, hurry, my dears!" said a voice among them; "the first thing
you know it will be day, and Grandpapa God will scold us for being
late. If the truth must be told, the Bethlehem mangers this year are
not worth a penny. When I recall those of former times--" Celinina
was one of this merry throng, but as this was her first experience in
those altitudes, she felt somewhat giddy.
"Come over here," one of them cried to her; "give me your hand, and
you will fly straighter--but what is that? What have you there?"
"'Em's my sings," said Celinina, pressing two rude little clay
figures to her bosom.
"Listen, my dear, throw those away. It is very evident that you
are just from the earth. Let me tell you how it is. Although we
have all the toys we want in heaven,--eternal and ever-beautiful
toys,--Grandpapa God lets us go down on Christmas Eve just to stir up
the Bethlehem mangers a little. You needn't think they are not having
a glorious time in heaven too to-night; and for my part, I believe
they send us off on account of our being so noisy. But Grandpapa God
lets us go down into the houses only on condition that we take away
nothing, and here you have pilfered this!"
These weighty reasons did not seem to impress Celinina as they should
have done, for pressing the animals more closely to her bosom, she
merely repeated,--
"My sings,--'em's my sings."
"Listen, goosy," continued the other; "if you don't do what I tell
you, you'll get us all into trouble. Fly back and leave them, for
they are of the earth, and on the earth they should remain. Don't be
foolish; you can go and be back in less than a minute. I'll wait for
you on this cloud."
Celinina was at last convinced and started off to restore her theft
to the earth.