SANTA CLAUS
They had just finished a hearty breakfast, of which home-made pineapple
jam and the crisp, crusty rolls that grow on a certain palm had formed a
part, when Baby Jane suddenly remarked:
'I do believe it's Christmas Eve!'
The creatures had no idea what that meant, but they knew when she spoke
in that way there was more fun coming, and they eagerly crowded round
her to hear about it.
'And now,' she went on, 'as it is Christmas Eve, to-night we must all
hang up our stockings, and Santa Claus will come and fill them with
presents.'
The creatures set up a shout of delight, and catching one another round
the waist danced a wild polka round Baby Jane.
All of a sudden they stopped as if turned into statues; a chilly
silence fell upon them, and they looked aghast into each other's eyes.
Then the Light-Horse, looking in her horror-stricken paleness more like
a night-mare, whispered to Baby Jane, 'But we don't wear stockings!'
'Oh, that's all right,' she said; 'I will make something for you that
will do. Santa Claus is an old dear, and will pretend to think that they
are all real stockings. Bear, bring some woolly stuff from that store of
yours, if you please!'
And then they all sat in a ring, contriving queer bag-shaped things and
fitting them on--all except the Rabbit. He sauntered round for a while
among the creatures picking up a bit of stuff here and another bit
there, and then he disappeared behind a tree.
By-and-bye all the other animals were proudly marching around, each with
one leg in a stocking, but it was some time before the Rabbit strolled
up from behind his tree with his stocking wrapped round him like a
plaid.
'Let us see it,' said Baby Jane.
With a slight blush and some hesitation the Rabbit laid it on the
sand--it was big enough for a hippopotamus.
'Nonsense,' said Baby Jane severely; 'you can't wear that.'
'Oh,' said the Rabbit, 'you don't know how my toes swell when I've got
chilblains!'
'You shouldn't try to cheat Santa Claus,' replied Baby Jane, and the
Rabbit had to cut his stocking down.
It was now some time since tea, and growing dark. It was not an English
Christmas Eve, with holly and snow, and darkness lit and warmed by cosy
flickering fires, but it seemed to Baby Jane that at that time all over
the world as the darkness deepens there spreads everywhere one same
feeling of coming happiness growing and growing until, as the dawn
breaks, a great loving kiss falls upon the poor world to comfort and
bless it, so that it awakes with its heart full of warmth and joy on
Christmas morning.
'Now, before we hang up our stockings and go to sleep,' said Baby Jane,
'we have got to go out and sing carols, and the people we sing to will
give us hot things to drink, and cake.'
'Oh, will they?' said the Lion. He loyally believed everything that his
mistress said, but knowing the folk who lived in this neighbourhood, he
had his doubts of this.
'Now, whom shall we sing to?' she asked.
'Well,' said the Lion rubbing his chin doubtfully, 'there are the
Ourang-outangs, a decent family--at least, now and then.'
'O'rang o'tang!' said Baby Jane. 'I can't say that word. I used to know
some people called O'Flanagan; let us call them the O'Flanagans.'
'You are always so clever!' said the Lion admiringly. 'Well, let us go
and sing to the Flanagans. They live in the third palm tree on the left
in the riverside avenue.'
So they set off under the starlit sky, Baby Jane on the Bear's shoulder,
and the others close round her, all practising their voices and all very
merry.
It was rather undignified of the Lion to sing falsetto, but he seemed to
fancy that he did it well, and so he kept it up--a shrill squeal that
now and then broke down suddenly into his own deep roar.
When they were still some way from the riverside avenue they heard
distant sounds of a terrible riot.
'I do hope it is not the Flanagans,' said Baby Jane.
But unfortunately it _was_ the Flanagans. The screeching and hurrooing
and thwack-slamming that was going on up that tree was marvellous.
Now and then down came a shower of cocoa-nuts and little Flanagans, but
the little Flanagans went scuttling up the tree again to join once more
in the fray.
Baby Jane was afraid and trembling, and longed to tell the Bear to
gallop away with her; but that was not what she had come out to do, so
she gathered her scraps of courage and said:
'Let us sing a carol: in the story-books bad people always turn good
when they hear a carol'; and she struck up in a shaking voice, 'Heav'n
rest you, merry gentlemen!'
And all the animals joined in--not properly of course, but still as each
kept up one note--the Lion's falsetto rising high above the rest--it
made a fairly good accompaniment to Baby Jane's tune.
After the first few notes the hullaballoo up in the palm tree ceased.
'Oh,' thought Baby Jane, 'it has made them gentle, and the story-books
are right--oh, I am glad!'
But at that moment a storm of cocoa-nuts came pelting down upon them,
and a voice exclaimed:
'Ah, it's no manners you have at all to come disturbing a decent family
at this time of the night. Go away with you!'
And with that the riot began again.
'They all want to thrash little Patsey at once,' shouted the Lion in
Baby Jane's ear; 'that is what they usually quarrel about.'
'Oh, how cruel!' she sobbed. 'I am going up to save him.'
And before any one could stop her, she was climbing up the tree with a
skill only given her by her pity for little Patsey. The Light-Horse
happened to be nearest to her, and though equally unused to climbing
trees, up she went in hot pursuit of Baby Jane, with all the creatures
after her.
The fight that followed, words will not describe. You must imagine for
yourself a combat in the branches of a palm tree between a family of
ourang-outangs and a lion, a light-horse, a bear, a rabbit, a crocodile,
and two little mortals. Thrice were the invaders driven down the tree,
and thrice, with Baby Jane and the Light-Horse in the van, they scaled
it again. But with that last attack came victory.
[Illustration: Up she went in hot pursuit of Baby Jane.]
Disputing every inch of the branches, the Flanagans were forced back
until they broke and fled.
Triumphant, though rather scratched and rumpled, Baby Jane rode off in
triumph, bearing in her arms the rescued Patsey, who was a quaint little
brown ape, all hands and feet, with bright inquisitive eyes.
All the way home they sang lustily, and then, having hung up their
stockings--Patsey should share hers, said Baby Jane--with their little
queen in the middle of them, they curled up and went to sleep.
It should be said that, now that the nights had grown more chilly, they
slept in a hollow in a great bush, and had to crawl in by a narrow
tunnel. So thick were the leaves and branches that neither rain, nor
enemies, nor even sunlight, could enter through the roof, and the floor
was carpeted with soft moss. The Lion always slept in the doorway.
* * * * *
'A merry Christmas to you all,' said Baby Jane, as the new-risen sun
shone straight down the tunnel, and she clapped her hands. Patsey, who
had been nestling to her, clapped his hands and tried to say 'A merry
Christmas.' That was his way. He would watch her with his head on one
side, and thought it his solemn duty to do everything that she did.
The creatures all nodded and smiled and rubbed their eyes. Then some one
said the word 'Stockings!' and there was a wild rush and then a joyful
hubbub.
Every one wanted every one else to look at his presents and see how they
worked. The Rabbit was the happiest of all. Though his stocking was
empty there was a huge pile of presents underneath, for the reason that
he had made it without any toes, so that Santa Claus had gone on trying
to fill it up until he grew tired. The Rabbit did not seem a bit ashamed
of his deceitfulness, and protested with indignant squeaks when Baby
Jane picked him off his pile of ill-gotten gains by the ears with one
hand and took as much as she could hold with the other and gave them to
Patsey.
This was the only touch of unpleasantness.
Out of the presents each chose one favourite plaything. The Light-Horse
had a skipping-rope, and she and the Bear, back to back, soon steadily
hammered the desert for a hundred skips at a time.
And even then the Light-Horse, calm almost to sadness, was ready for
another cool hundred.
The Rabbit's favourite was a clockwork mouse, but unfortunately he used
its powers for bad purposes.
Among the presents that Baby Jane had taken from the greedy Rabbit and
had given to Patsey was a wooden Dutch doll, and it was the darling of
Patsey's heart. Now the Rabbit cast jealous eyes on that Dutch doll, so
while the others were playing he decoyed Patsey into a quiet place and
then whispered in a tone of cold, cruel ferocity:
'The very worst pain in the world is to be gnawed by mad clockwork mice.
Now you will give me back my Dutch doll, or I'll set my mouse on you!'
Patsey made no answer, but burst into a roar of terror and grief, and
holding the doll above his head for safety, he pattered away as fast as
his little legs could carry him.
After him, straight and swift as a motor-car, with a cruel gleam in its
bead eyes, hissed the clockwork mouse, with the Rabbit racing behind,
holding it by a string.
[Illustration: The Rabbit racing behind, holding it by a string.]
But when Patsey already felt the mouse's whiskers tickling his legs, a
strange thing happened. There was a click inside it and it suddenly
wheeled round, and, to the Rabbit's horror, made straight for _him_. He
dropped the string and ran faster than he had ever run before, because,
to his guilty conscience, it seemed that it was some spirit of Justice
and not clockwork that propelled that mouse.
While this was going on, the Lion and the Crocodile were learning how to
use their new roller skates upon a smooth hard patch of sand, and soon
were swaying round and round like swallows on the wing. To see them
link arms and, with the other hand on the hip, sweep along on the
outside edge was wonderful, and Miss Crocodile's slender and flexible
figure was shown to great advantage.
[Illustration: Miss Crocodile's slender and flexible figure was shown to
great advantage.]
Baby Jane and the Piccaninny also had the very presents they had wanted,
but Baby Jane had no time to play with hers just then.
The creatures played with their things all the morning until the time
for dinner, which was as fine as you ever saw. In fact, the only thing
wanting was a sprig of holly to stick in the rich fruit of the
plum-pudding plant. And the cooking? Oh, there is no difficulty about
cooking in a place where you use your window-sill for an oven and where
you only use dish-covers to keep the food from being burned.
After dinner, Baby Jane and the creatures prepared a fine Punch and Judy
show, with living figures.
'Nobody but relations, or tortoises laid on their backs, will watch
tableaux, but everybody likes a Punch and Judy show,' said Baby Jane.
By using palm-stems with bamboos tied across and draped, they built a
very passable Punch's house, and soon all were crowded inside ready to
bob up and act while Baby Jane did the squeaky talking.
It is wonderful how soon a crowd collects round a Punch and Judy show.
Here in five minutes there were five hundred beasts and niggers seated
in rows--all too curious and excited to think of eating one another. And
at the last moment up came the Flanagans in a body and took front
seats. For it was good-hearted souls that they were, and they bore no
malice. Perhaps they were a trifle excitable--that was all.
The excitement reached its highest point when Joey the clown (Master
Rabbit) outwitted Punch (Mr. Lion). The Policeman (Mr. Bear) and the
Black Man (Master Piccaninny) had popped up and had been promptly
knocked on the head, and then the wily Joey appeared and was apparently
slain also--a dozen times Punch reckoned to have knocked the stuffing
out of Joey, but each time that cunning rascal caused the Policeman or
the Black Man to receive the whacks.
Then Punch began counting up his slain, 'One, two, three----'
'And four!' squeaked Joey, hitting Punch a sounding crack and laying him
flat.
All this was as it should be, but when the much battered Bear and
Piccaninny saw the Lion laid low, they arose and rushed at him and
pummelled him until he roared again.
'Now we are going to do some of the hitting,' they said.
At this the Flanagans in the front row cheered wildly, and would have
stormed the stage and joined in the fight if the whole of the characters
had not disappeared downwards with a jerk.
Then there was a great heaving of the curtains, and the sound of
argument within.
'I don't believe that "Exit" is Latin for being jerked off the stage by
the legs,' said a voice.
'If you don't behave, it will be Latin for being fed on dry bread-fruit
for a week,' replied the voice of Baby Jane.
But soon afterwards the actors popped up again, though rather breathless
and rumpled, and the rest of the show went splendidly to a triumphant
close, and Baby Jane had to climb up and make a speech before the crowd
would disperse.
'Ladies and Gentlemen,' she said, whereupon the audience, unused to
being so addressed, cheered loudly; and then her feelings of joy and
pride at the success of her Christmas effort to soften and teach these
neglected creatures so overcame her, that she fell backwards on top of
her company of actors, who bore her home in triumph.