“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! It’s time to get up, little master,”
barked Tzandi, as the first pale gleams of the Christmas sunrise crept
through the painted window above the high altar of St. Stephans.
“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! So it is,” answered Fritzl sleepily;
“but does your head too feel awful funny, Tzandi? All light and hot?
And your feet all cold and heavy?” By a languid wag of his tail, Tzandi
assured his master that all was indeed as he had said. “I tell you what
it is,” said the boy; “we’re just hungry. And Santa Claus hasn’t come.
I s’pose there are so many children in Vienna, he couldn’t help being
late getting around to us. Oh, but don’t you wish he’d come!”
A frantic wagging of Tzandi’s tail, and the thrusting of his cold nose
into his master’s hand, answered as plainly as words could have done.
“Let’s go out to the Stephansplatz,” went on Fritzl, rising weakly to
his feet; “and I’ll play, and you shall dance, and surely, Christmas
morning, someone will give us some kreutzers. And--and--” The words
trailed off drowsily.
The boy shook himself impatiently. “I never felt so sleepy as this
before,” he thought; “and Christmas too!” Then after an awkward
little “reverence” before the Blessed Mother, and a “Merry Christmas”
whispered softly to her, Fritzl went down the broad nave to the
Riesenthor, pushed open one of its portals slowly, and with his violin
held closely to him, and followed by Tzandi, went without, and stood, a
forlorn little figure, upon the broad stone step.
The hour for early mass had not yet come, but the Stephansplatz was
already filled with people, singing Christmas carols. The booths were
fringed with evergreen; every window was a blaze of color; and the
people, as they walked or danced along, waved boughs of hemlock, so
that the square looked almost as if the long vanished pine forests were
once more growing in Old Vienna.
“Now what did I tell you, Tzandi,” Fritzl cried triumphantly, if
somewhat shakily. “Just look at all those boys and girls! ’Course Santa
Claus hasn’t forgotten us, but he couldn’t help being a bit late,
Tzandi dear. Any minute now, he may come!”
Suddenly, from the direction of the Graben, came the sound of cheering.
The crowd opened, like great waves parted by some mighty wind, and into
the Stephansplatz came a closed carriage drawn by two black horses.
Slowly it passed along, the white-haired man within bowing kindly to
right and left, straight to where Fritzl and Tzandi waited, at the
Riesenthor. At the foot of the steps, the carriage stopped. A groom in
quiet livery opened the door. And wrapped in furs from head to feet,
the white-haired man stepped out. Beneath his bushy eyebrows, eyes as
clear and blue as those of a child looked forth. And the lips under the
heavy white moustache were smiling, as he mounted the steps.
Fritzl gave a little gasp of pure delight. Deaf to the words the crowd
were crying, of the identity of the white-haired, fur-wrapped figure,
he had no doubt.
It must be Santa Claus.
The relaxed little figure straightened; the thin little hands were
outstretched; and lifting his happy eyes to the friendly ones looking
straight into them, Fritzl cried:
“Tzandi, Tzandi, he’s come!”
And fell, a limp little heap, at the feet of “Unser Franz.”
[Illustration]