Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Claus' Reading List

by A. A. Milne

"All ready?" asked Dick.

  "All ready!" answered Russ, holding tightly to Mun Bun.

  Away they sailed over the ice, turning this way and that, and they went so fast that, at times, it almost took away the breath of Mun Bun and Russ. But they liked it, and laughed so gleefully about it that Laddie and Violet were eager to have their turn.

  They, too, liked the ride on the ice boat, as it glided across the frozen pond. The wind blew on the sail, and made the ice boat go fast.

  Then came the turn of Rose and Margy. At first Margy thought she would not go, but when they told her how much Mun Bun had liked it, and when Mun Bun himself had said he wanted to go again, Margy let Rose lift her in.

  "Here we go!" cried Dick, and away glided the boat. Back and forth across the pond it went, and Rose laughed, and so did Margy. She found she liked it very much.

  "Could I have another ride?" asked Russ after a bit.

  "I guess so," agreed Dick. "I'll take you and Laddie this time. The wind is stronger now, and we'll go faster—too fast for the smallest ones, maybe."

  "I like to go fast!" exclaimed Russ. But he went even faster than he expected to.

  As Dick had said, the wind was blowing very strong now, and it stretched the sail of the ice boat away out. Dick had all he could do to hold it while Russ and Laddie got on board.

  "All ready?"

  "All ready!" answered Russ.

  The boat swung around and away it whizzed over the ice. Russ and Laddie clung to the sides of the box-like cabin, and Russ had fairly to shout to make himself heard above the whistling of the wind.

  "This is fast!" he called in Laddie's ear.

  "Yes, but I like it," said the smaller boy. "I'm going to make up a riddle about the ice boat but it goes so fast as soon as I think of anything in my head I forget it."

  "It's fun!" exclaimed Russ. "When I get bigger I'm going to make an ice boat that goes——"

  But what Russ intended to do he never finished telling for, just then, there came a stronger puff of wind than before, and Dick cried:

  "Lookout!"

  Just what they were to look out for Russ and Laddie did not know, but they soon discovered.

  The ice boat seemed to tilt up on one side, "as if it wanted to stand on its ear," Grandpa Ford said afterward, and out spilled Russ, out spilled Laddie, and Dick, himself, almost spilled out. But he managed to hold fast, which the two boys could not do.

  Out of the ice boat the lads tumbled. But as they had on thick coats, and as they did not fall very far but went spinning over the frozen pond, they thought it was fun.

  Over the ice they slid, just as a skater slides when he falls down, and finally they stopped and sat up.

  "Huh!" grunted Russ.

  "That—that was fun, wasn't it?" asked Laddie.

  "Lots of fun!" agreed Russ. "I wonder if he did it on purpose?"

  "Let's ask him to do it again," suggested Laddie.

  But the spill was an accident. Dick had not meant that it should happen.

  "As for giving you more rides," he said, when he had brought the boat back to shore, "I don't believe I'd better. The wind is getting stronger, and there might be a real accident next time. Some other day I'll give you more rides."

  "Oh, Dick, please!" pleaded Violet. But Dick said he was sorry, but they would all have to wait for a calmer day.

  So the little Bunkers had to be satisfied with this, and really they had had fine fun, and all agreed that Dick's ice boat was just grand.

  Back to the house they went, and, as it was nearly time to eat, they did not come out again until after the meal. Then there was more skating, and some fun on the ice with sleds, until it was time to come in for the day.

  "What'll we do to-morrow?" asked Rose, as she and the other little Bunkers were getting ready for bed.

  "If it snows we can go coasting," said Russ.

  "Well, it looks and feels like snow," said Grandpa Ford, who came in from the barn just then, having gone out to see that the horses and cows were all right.

  The grown folks sat about the fire after supper, talking and telling stories while the children were asleep in their beds.

  "Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Bunker.

  "What is it?" asked her husband.

  "I thought I heard one of the children," she answered.

  And just then, through the house, there sounded, as from some distance away, the rattle of a drum.

  "Another queer noise!" exclaimed Grandma Ford in dismay. "What will happen next?"

  Mr. White

  Rattle and bang-bang and rattle sounded the noise of the drum in Grandpa Ford's house, and yet, as the grown folks downstairs in the sitting-room looked at one another, they could not imagine who was playing at soldier. And yet that is what it sounded like—children beating a drum.

  "Are any of those little ones up?" asked Mother Bunker. "Could they have gotten out of their beds to beat a drum?"

  "I didn't know they had a drum with them," said Daddy Bunker.

  "They didn't bring any from home," returned his wife.

  "There is an old drum up in the attic," said Grandpa Ford. "It used to belong to Mr. Ripley, I think. Could Russ or Laddie have gone up there and be beating that?"

  "The noise has stopped now," remarked Grandma Ford. "Let's go up and see which of the six little Bunkers did it," and she smiled at Mrs. Bunker.

  It took only a glance into the different rooms to show that all six of the little Bunkers were in bed. Margy and Mun Bun had not been awakened by the drumming or the talk, but the other four were now waiting with wide-open eyes to learn what had happened.

  "There it goes again!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker.

  Surely enough the rub-a-dub-dubbing sounded again, this time more loudly than before, because the grown folks were nearer the attic.

  "We must see what it is," said Grandpa Ford.

  "We surely must," at once agreed Daddy Bunker.

  As he and Grandpa Ford started up the stairs to the attic the drumming noise stopped, and all was quiet when the two men went into the attic. It was not dark, as Daddy Bunker took with him his electric flashlight, which he flashed into the different corners.

  "Where is that drum you spoke of, Father?" he asked of Grandpa Ford.

  "I don't see it now," was the answer. "It used to hang up on one of the rafters. But maybe the children took it down."

  Daddy Bunker flashed his light to and fro.

  "Here it is!" he cried, and he pointed to the drum standing up at one side of the big chimney, which was in the center of the attic. "The children did have it down, playing with it.

  "But I don't see what would make it rattle," went on Daddy Bunker. "Unless," he added, "a rat is flapping its tail against the drum."

  The noise had stopped again, but, all of a sudden, as Grandpa Ford and Daddy Bunker stood looking at the drum, the rattle and rub-a-dub-dub broke out again, more loudly than before. The drum seemed to shake and tremble, so hard was it beaten.

  "Who is doing it?" cried Grandpa Ford.

  Daddy Bunker quickly stepped over where he could see the other side of the drum, which was in the dark. He leaned over, holding his flashlight close, and then he suddenly lifted into view a large, battered alarm clock, without a bell.

  "This was beating the drum," he said.

  "That?" cried Grandpa Ford. "How could that old alarm clock make it sound as if soldiers were coming?"

  "Very easily," answered Daddy Bunker. "See, the bell is off the clock, and the hammer, or striker, sticks out. This is shaped like a little ball, and it stood close against the head of the drum.

  "I suppose the children wound the clock up when they were playing with it up here and when it went off the striker beat against the head of the drum and played a regular tattoo."

  "Yes, I can see how that might happen," replied Grandpa Ford. "But what made the drum beat sometimes and not at others. Why didn't the alarm clock keep on tapping the drum all the while?"

  "Because," said Daddy Bu
nker, as the clock began to shake and tremble in his hand, "this is one of those alarm clocks that ring for a half minute or so, and then stop, then, in a few minutes, ring again. That is so when a person falls asleep, after the first or second alarm, the third or fourth may awaken him.

  "And that's what happened this time. The old alarm clock went off and beat the drum. Then when we started to find out what it was all about, the clock stopped. Then it went off again."

  "Another time Mr. Ghost fooled us," said Grandma Ford, when her husband and son came down from the attic.

  "Did any of you children have the alarm clock?" asked Mother Bunker, for the four oldest Bunkers were still awake.

  "I was playing with it," said Russ. "I was going to make a toy automobile out of it, but it wouldn't work."

  "I had it after him, and I wound it up and left it by the drum," said Laddie. "But I didn't think it would go off."

  But that is just what happened. Laddie had set the clock to go off at a certain hour, not knowing that he had done so. And he had put it down on the attic floor so the bell-striker was against the head of the drum.

  "Well, it's a good thing it didn't go off in the very middle of the night, when we were all asleep," said Mother Bunker. "We surely would have thought an army of soldiers was marching past."

  "And it wasn't any ghost at all!" exclaimed Rose, as the grown folks turned to go downstairs.

  "No, and there never will be," said her mother. "All noises have something real back of them—even that funny groaning noise we heard."

  "But we don't know what that is, yet," said Russ.

  "Go to sleep now," urged his mother, and soon the awakened four of the six little Bunkers were slumbering again.

  The next morning they all had a good laugh over the drum and the alarm clock, and Laddie and Russ had fun making it go off again. The clock was one that had never kept good time, and so had been tossed away in the attic, which held so many things with which the children could have fun.

  "Want to help us, Rose?" asked Russ after breakfast, when the children had on their rubber boots, ready to go out and play in the snow.

  "What you going to do?" she asked.

  "Make a snow man," Russ answered. "We're going to make another big one—bigger than the one the rain spoiled."

  "It'll be lots of fun," added Laddie.

  "I'll help," offered Rose.

  "Comin', Vi?" asked Laddie.

  But Violet, Mun Bun and Margy were going to coast on a little hill which Dick had made for them, so the three Bunkers began to make the snow man.

  As Russ had said, they were going to make a large one. So big balls were rolled and moulded together, and after a while the pile of white flakes began to look like a man, with arms sticking out, and big, fat legs on which to stand.

  "Grandpa said we could have one of his old tall silk hats to put on Mr. White," said Russ. "That will make him look fine."

  "Who is Mr. White?" asked Dick, who was passing at that moment.

  "The snow man," answered Laddie. "That's what we're going to call him. 'Pleased to meet you, Mr. White!'" he exclaimed with a laugh, as he made a bow.

  Soon Mr. White was finished, with the tall hat and all. There were pieces of black coal for buttons, while some red flannel made him look as if he had very red lips. A nose was made of snow, and bits of coal were his eyes.

  "Let's make a Mrs. White!" exclaimed Rose. "And then some little White children, and we can have a whole family," she added.

  "Oh, yes, let's do it!" cried Laddie.

  "All right," agreed Russ.

  But just as they were going to start to make Mrs. White they heard a cry from the spot where the other children were coasting.

  "Oh, Mun Bun's hurt!" shouted Rose, and, dropping her shovel, she ran toward the hill.

  An Upset

  Russ followed his sister over the snow to the place where Dick had made the little hill. If there was trouble Russ wanted to help, for, though Rose was the "little mother," Russ felt he must do his share to help her.

  They found that Mun Bun had rolled off the sled in going down a little hill and had toppled into a snow bank.

  "But that didn't hurt you!" said Rose, laughing as she picked him up. "There, sister will kiss the place and make it better. You only got a little snow up your sleeve, and it makes your arm cold."

  "But I bumped my head, too!" sobbed Mun Bun.

  "Well, I'll rub that and make it well," said Rose, and she did.

  "But I'm hungry, too," added Mun Bun.

  "Oh, I can't rub your hungry away," and Rose laughed so merrily that Mun Bun stopped his crying and laughed too. So did Margy.

  "What makes us get hungry?" asked Violet, as Mun Bun let Rose brush the snow from him. "What makes us?"

  "It's when something tickles us in our stomachs," answered Laddie. "I know, 'cause I feel that way right now. I wish I had something to eat."

  "So do I," said Margy. "My stomach doesn't zactly tickle, but it's hungry."

  "Well, I'll go and ask Grandma for some cookies," offered Russ. "She always has a lot in a jar, and they taste awful good. I'll be back in a minute."

  Away he ran to the house which was surrounded by the great, high hedge, and soon he came back with both hands and his pockets filled with sugar and molasses cookies.

  "I brought two kinds," he said, "'cause I thought some of you would want one kind, and I might want both kinds."

  The making of the snow man and the coasting down the little hill stopped while the children ate their cookies, and then, after a while, Russ said:

  "Well, we must finish the White family."

  "What's that?" asked Violet, brushing some cookie crumbs off her jacket.

  "Oh, it's a snow family we're making," explained Rose. "There's Mr. White and Mrs. White and we're going to make some little White snow children."

  "Like us six little Bunkers?" asked Mun Bun.

  "No, I guess not so many as that," replied Laddie. "That would take us all day. We'll just make two children, a girl and a boy."

  "Oh, I'm going to help make the White children!" cried Vi.

  "Let's go an' watch 'em!" called Margy to Mun Bun. "We've had enough coasting, haven't we?"

  "Yes," said Mun Bun. "We'll make some snow mans ourselves."

  With the smaller children dragging their sleds and following them, Russ and Rose and Laddie and Vi went back to where they had left Mr. White standing. There he was, very fine and brave-looking with his tall silk hat on his head, his coal-black eyes glistening in the sun, and his row of black buttons also shining.

  All at once, as Russ, who was in the lead of the procession of children, looked at the snow man, he cried:

  "Oh!"

  "What's the matter?" asked Rose.

  "Did you hear some funny noise?" questioned Violet.

  "No, but look at Mr. White!" cried Russ. "He took off his hat and made a bow to me!"

  "Why, Russ Bunker!" gasped Vi.

  "Took off his hat?" cried Laddie.

  "Made a bow to you!" exclaimed Rose. "Why, how could he? Mr. White is only a snow man. He isn't alive!"

  "Well, he made a bow just the same!" cried Russ. "You just watch, and he'll do it again!"

  Eagerly the children watched. Mr. White did not move. He just stared at them with his black eyes, smiled at them with his red cloth lips, and the tall, silk hat upon his snowy head never moved.

  "You're fooling us, Russ!" exclaimed Laddie.

  "No, I'm not—really!" Russ declared. "I saw him take off his hat and wave it at me."

  For a moment the six little Bunkers stood in a row and looked at Mr. White. Then, just as naturally as if he had been used to doing it all his life, Mr. White's tall, black silk hat came off his head, was lowered before the children and was put back again. This time they all saw it.

  "Oh, look! Oh!" exclaimed Rose.

  "Why—why——" and that was all Laddie could say as he stood with his mouth wide open, he was so surprised.

  "You
made him do it, Russ!" exclaimed Violet.

  "I? How could I make him do it?" Russ demanded.

  "It's one of your tricks. You pulled a string and made his hat come off. It's a trick!"

  "Well, maybe it is a trick, but I didn't do it," declared Russ. "I haven't got any string fast to his hat. And, anyhow, if I did, maybe I could pull his hat off with a string, but I couldn't pull it back on again, could I?"

  "Well, maybe not, but you did it!" insisted Vi.

  "No, I didn't!" said Russ. "You watch and I won't move my finger even, and maybe Mr. White will take his hat off again."

  "Did you know he was going to do it?" asked Rose, as she looked at the snow man carefully.

  "No, I didn't know anything about it," said Russ. "I was walking along with you all, just now, and, all of a sudden, I saw the hat come off. First I thought the wind blew it, and then, when I saw it wave at me, and go back on his head, I knew somebody did it—or—or maybe he did himself."

  "But he couldn't, 'cause he's a snow man," insisted Laddie. "And I helped make him and you didn't put any phonograph or any machinery in him. You didn't, did you, Russ?"

  "No, not a thing. He's just a snow man."

  "Then he couldn't do it!" declared Rose. "But maybe it was Mr. Ghost! No, it couldn't be that 'cause he only makes a noise, and, anyhow, there isn't any such thing. But what is it?"

  "Look! He's doing it again!" cried Vi.

  Surely enough, the snow man once more took off his tall silk hat, and waved it toward the children. Then it went back on his head again, but this time it was not quite straight. It was tilted to one side, and gave him a very odd look.

  "Ho! Ho! Isn't he funny!" laughed Mun Bun. "I like that snow man. I'm going to see what makes him take off his hat!"

  "No, don't!" cried Rose, catching hold of her little brother's arm as he was about to run toward Mr. White.

  "Why not?" Mun Bun wanted to know.

  "'Cause he might—something might—oh, I don't want you to go!" exclaimed Rose. "I guess we'd better go and tell Daddy."

  They stood for a moment looking at the snow man who had acted so strangely.

  Suddenly the tall silk hat was straightened on Mr. White's head, and then, once more, it was lifted off and bowed to the six little Bunkers.