Half-Past Seven Stories Part 27

"It's getting late," Santa was saying, "I've got a lot of places to visit, but before I go, I want you to sing a song--every man Jack."

So together they sang "Peaceful Night, Holy Night," and it sounded very sweet and pretty and made them all think of what Christmas meant, besides just the giving and receiving of presents.

"Now the youngest ones--all together now!" and Jehosophat, Marmaduke, Hepzebiah, and little Johnny Cricket sang, without the grownup people this time:

"Alone in the manger, No crib for a bed, The little Lord Jesus Lay down his soft head."

And that song sounded even prettier and sweeter than the other, with those little voices singing it around the tree and all its candles.

When they had finished, Santa said "Goodbye," and, "Merry Christmas to one and all," bowed, closed the door behind him, stamped his feet, and whistled to his reindeer. Then the sleighbells sounded, growing fainter until they faded quite away.

About ten minutes after he had gone, the Toyman appeared. It certainly was a shame he had to just miss him like that.

Marmaduke called,--

"Oh, Toyman, you missed him--Santy was here."

"He was, was he?" the Toyman replied, "I _am_ sorry, for I'd like to have paid my respects to the old fellow."

The funny thing about it was that he didn't seem half as disappointed as the children--that is, Marmaduke and Hepzebiah, particularly Hepzebiah. Jehosophat just smiled in a sort of superior way and said nothing, but perhaps that was because he was getting older and had lost some of his enthusiasm. As for Marmaduke, he hadn't been so enthusiastic about seeing Santa Claus ever since Reddy Toms had told him something, but now, after seeing Santa alive and before him--why, he didn't care what any "ole Reddy Toms" said.

He had seen Santy--and had shaken him by the hand.

XIV

THE HOLE THAT RAN TO CHINA

By this time you should have noticed, if you ever stop to think, that Marmaduke was quite a traveller. It was really remarkable the trips and voyages that boy took--not only to the town, and Apgar's Woods, and the Leaning Mill on Wally's Creek, but to the South Seas, The Cave of the Winds, the Ole Man in the Moon, the Fields of Golden Stars, and to all sorts of beautiful cities and kingdoms, some of which you may find in your geographies, and some not on any map in the world. And he didn't have much money for fares, either. It was hard to tell just how he managed all these journeys, but sometimes, do you know, I suspect he paid for his fare with a ticket of dreams. What do you think? Well, anyway, one day he went to China.

And this is the way it all came about:

First he went to town--with the Toyman, of course, and Old Methusaleh.

That old white horse was tied to the hitching-post in front of Trennery's Grocery Store, with his nose deep in a feed-bag. While the Toyman was talking to Mr. Trennery--Mr. Will Trennery, and his brother Lish--Marmaduke sat on the seat of the buggy and watched the people.

There were a lot of them, more than he ever saw on the farm, all at one time. There must have been almost fifty on the street. Some of them were lounging around the soldier who stood on the big stone with a gun that never went off; some were hitching up their horses, or "giddyapping" to them; while a crowd was going in the side door of the "City Hotel," and another stood in front of Trennery's Grocery Store, telling who'd be the next president. They were very wise, they thought, but Marmaduke was sure the Toyman could tell them a thing or two--and that was just what the Toyman was doing.

After a while Marmaduke tired of listening to all their talk about presidents and the new Justice of the Peace, and he looked at the other stores and all their signs. He noticed a new one that had just come to town. It stood between Trennery's and Candlemas' Emporium, and it was even more interesting than the candy store. It had a red sign above the door with white letters which read:--

"Hop Sing Laundry."

In the windows were parcels of s.h.i.+rts, tied with white string, with little slips of paper under the string. These slips of paper were colored like the petunias in Mother's garden, and on them were funny black letters that looked like chicken-, and rabbit-, and fox-tracks, all mixed up.

Inside the store three little men were ironing, ironing away on boards covered with sheets, and jabbering in a strange language. And they wore clothes that were as strange as the words they spoke--clothes that looked like pajamas with dark blue tops and light blue trousers.

And each of the little men had a yellow face, slant eyes, and a black pigtail.

It was Sat.u.r.day, and a group of town-boys stood around the door, gazing in at the three strange little men and mocking them:--

"Ching, ching Chinaman, Bow, wow, wow!"

Then one of the boys would shout in through the door,--"Bin eatin' any ole stewed rats, c.h.i.n.ky?" and another would ask,--"Give us a taste of yer bird's-nest pudding?" They thought they were very smart, and that wasn't all, for, after calling the Chinamen all the names they could think of, the boys reached down into the ditch, which some men were digging for a sewer, and scooped up handfuls of mud and threw it straight into the laundry and all over the snow-white s.h.i.+rts the little men were ironing; at which, the Chinamen grew very angry and came to the door, shaking their flat-irons in their hands and calling,--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And the boys ran away, still mocking them. You could hear their shouts dying away in the distance:--

"c.h.i.n.ky, c.h.i.n.ky Chinaman, Bow, wow, wow!"

Not long after this the Toyman came out from Trennery's and climbed on the seat; and he and Marmaduke and Old Methusaleh jogged along towards home. All the way, Marmaduke couldn't help thinking of the three little men in their blue pajamas and their black pigtails; and he asked the Toyman a lot of questions, even more than you will find in his arithmetic, I guess, all about what those letters on the packages of s.h.i.+rts meant, and if the Chinamen braided their pigtails every night and morning just like girls, and if they really did eat "ole rats," and bird's-nest puddings, and all that.

The Toyman could hardly keep up with the questions; and he hadn't answered them all, either, by the time they reached the White House with the Green Blinds by the Side of the Road.

On the afternoon of that same day, Marmaduke was sitting like a hoptoad, watching the Toyman dig post-holes in the brook pasture. The sun shone so soft and warm, and the cedar posts smelled so nice and fragrant, that he began to feel drowsy. He didn't sit like a hoptoad any more, but lay on his elbow, and his head nodded--nodded----nodded.

Rather faintly he heard the Toyman say:

"Well, that's pretty deep. A little more, and I'd reach down into China."

The little boy rubbed his eyes and looked down into the deep brown hole.

"If you dug a little more," he asked, "would you really go down through the earth, all the way to China--where the Chinamen live?"

"Sure," replied the Toyman, who never liked to disappoint little boys.

"Then," said Marmaduke, "please dig a little more--for--I'd like--to see--where--the Chinamen--live--." His voice sounded very sleepy.

The Toyman dug another shovelful or two, and all the while the little boy's head kept nodding, nodding in the sun--then--as the last shovelful fell on the pile at his side, he looked down in the hole once more and heard voices--strange voices.

Words were coming up out of that hole, and it seemed to Marmaduke that he could see those words as well as hear them. Now that is a very odd thing, but it is actually what happened--he could both see and hear them--and they looked like the funny music on phonograph advertis.e.m.e.nts--something like this:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And, way down at the bottom of the hole, he saw three black heads with pigtails that curled upward in the hole like smoke coming from a chimney.

He tried to grab hold of them, but he fell, and Wienerwurst after him, right plump among the pigtails, landing on the three Chinamen way down in the hole, and knocking them flat on their backs until their feet with the funny black slippers kicked in the air.

Then they all got up and rubbed their tummies under the blue pajamas.

"Velly wude little Mellican boy," said the first little Chinaman, whose name was Ping Pong.

"Velly bad manners," said the second, who was called Sing Song.

"You beggy our pardon," the third, whose name was Ah See.

Now Marmaduke intended to do that very thing--that is, beg their pardon, for he was very polite for an American boy.