Tommy was just thinking how he would love to carry his mother a polar
bearskin for his father, and his father a sealskin coat for his
mother, when Santa Claus came up behind him and tweaked his ear.
"Ah!" he said, "so you want something--something you can't get?"
"Not for myself," said Tommy, shamefacedly.
"So," said Santa Claus, with a look much like Tommy's father when he
was pleased. "I know that. They don't have them exactly about here.
The teddy-bears drove them out. You have to go away off to find them."
He waved his hand to show how far off it was.
"I should like to hunt them, if I only had a gun!" said Tommy;--"and
one for Johnny, too," he added quickly.
Santa Claus winked again. "Well," he said slowly, just as Tommy's father
always did when Tommy asked for something and he was considering--"well,
I'll think about it." He walked up and touched a spring, and the glass
door flew open. "Try these guns," he said; and Tommy tipped up and took
one out. It, however, seemed a little light to shoot polar bears with
and he put it back and took another. That, however, was rather heavy.
"Try this," said Santa Claus, handing him one, and it was the very
thing. "Load right; aim right; and shoot right," said he, "and you'll
get your prize every time. And, above all, stand your ground."
"Now, if I only had some dogs!" thought Tommy, looking around at a
case full of all sorts of animals; ponies and cows; and dogs and cats;
some big, some little, and some middle-sized. "I wish those were real
dogs."
"Where's Sate?" asked Santa Claus.
"Sate can't pull a sled," said Tommy. "He's too little. Besides, he
ain't an Eskimo dog--I mean he isn't," he corrected quickly, seeing
Santa Claus look at him. "But he's awful bad after cats." Just then,
to his horror, he saw Sate in the show-case with his eye on a big,
white cat. He could hardly keep from crying out; but he called to him
very quietly, "Come here, come here, Sate. Don't you hear me, sir?
Come here."
He was just about to go up and seize him when Santa Claus said: "He's
all right. He's just getting acquainted."
"My! how much he talks like Peake," thought Tommy. "I wonder if he is
his uncle."
Just then Sate began to nose among some little brownish-gray dogs, and
so, Tommy called, "Here--come here--come along," and out walked not
only Sate, but six other dogs, and stood in a line just as though they
were hitched to a sled, the six finest Eskimo dogs Tommy had ever
seen.
"Aren't they beauties!" said Santa Claus. "I never saw a finer lot;
big-boned, broad-backed, husky fellows. They'll scale an ice-mountain
like my reindeer. And if they ever get in sight of a bear!" He made a
gesture as much as to say, "Let him look out."
"What are their names?" said Tommy, who always wanted to know every
one's name.
"Buster and Muster and Fluster, and Joe and Rob and Mac."
"Ain't one of them named Towser?" asked Tommy. "I thought one was
always named Towser."
"No, that's a book-name," said Santa Claus so scornfully that Tommy
was sorry he had asked him, especially as he added, "Isn't, not
ain't."
"But they haint any harness," said Tommy, using the word Peake always
used,--"I mean, hisn't any--no, I mean haven't any harness. I wish I
had some harness for them."
"Pooh! wishing doesn't do anything by itself," said Santa Claus.
"Oh! I tell you. I've a lot of string that came off some Christmas
things my mother got for some poor people. I put it in my pocket to
give it to Johnny to mend his goat-harness with, and I never thought
of it when I saw him last night."
"So," said Santa Claus. "That's better. Let's see it."
Tommy felt in his pocket, and at first he could not find it. "I've
lost it," he said sorrowfully.
"Try again," said Santa Claus.
Tommy felt again in a careless sort of way.
"No, I've lost it," he said. "It must have dropped out."
"You're always losing something," said Santa Claus. "Now, Johnny would
have used that. You are sure you had it?"