Still further south there were mothers who sighed
even more for the sound of merry sleigh-bells, the snapping of logs
on the hearth, the cosy snugness of a fire-lit room made all the
snugger by the fierce wind without: that, if you like, was a place
to hang a row of little red and brown woollen stockings! And when
the fortunate children on the eastern side of the Rockies, tired of
resisting the Sand Man, had snuggled under the great down comforters
and dropped off to sleep, they dreamed, of course, of the proper
Christmas things--of the tiny feet of reindeer pattering over the
frozen crust, the tinkle of silver bells on their collars, the real
Santa Claus with icicles in his beard, with red cheeks, and a cold
nose, and a powder of snow on his bearskin coat, and with big fur
mittens never too clumsy to take the toys from his pack.
Here the air blew across orange groves and came laden with the
sweetness of opening buds; here, if it were a sunny Christmas Day, as
well it might be, the children came in to dinner tired with playing
in the garden: but the same sort of joyous cries that rent the air
three thousand miles away at sight of hot plum-pudding woke the
echoes here because of fresh strawberries and loquats; and although,
in the minds of the elders, who had been born in snowdrifts and bred
upon icicles, this union of balmy air, singing birds, and fragrant
bloom might strike a false note at Christmastide, it brought nothing
but joy to the children.
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