"How do, my darlings? How do, all round? Bless your little hearts, how do you all do? Did they tell ye Santa wasn't a-comin', my dears? Did your grandpas and grandmas say, 'Humph! there isn't any such a person.' My love to the good old people. I know they mean all right; but tell them they'll have to give it up now!"
(Here Santa Claus made a low bow. Everybody laughed and clapped; but Prudy whispered, "O, don't he look old all over? What has he done with his _teeth_? O, dear, has anybody pulled 'em out?")
"Yes, my dears," continued the old gentleman, encouraged by the applause,--"yes, my dears, here I am, as jolly as ever! But bless your sweet little hearts, I've had a terrible time getting here! The wind has been blowin' me up as fierce as you please, and I've been shook round as if I wasn't of more account than a kernel of corn in a popper!
"O, O, I've been ducked up to the chin in some awful deep snow-drifts, up there by the North Pole! This is the very first time the storms have come so heavy as to cover over the end of the North Pole! But this year they had to dig three days before they could find it. O, ho!
"I was a-wanderin' round all last night; a real shivery night, too! Got so _broke up_, there's nothing left of me but small pieces. O, hum!
"Such a time as I had in some of those chimneys, you haven't any idee! Why, if you'll believe me, over there in Iceland somebody forgot to clear out the chimney, and there I stuck fast, like a fish-bone in your throat; couldn't be picked out, couldn't be swallowed!
"The funniest time that was! How I laughed! And then the children's mother woke up, and, 'O, dear,' said she; 'hear the wind sigh down the chimney!' 'Only me,' says I; 'and I've caught you napping this time!' She helped me out, and when I had caught my breath, I climbed out the window; but, deary me, I shouldn't wonder if that very woman went to sleep again, and thought it was all a dream! Heigh-ho! that's the way they always treat poor Santa Claus nowadays."
(Here the children laughed, and Susy said, "I guess he must have bumped his nose against that chimney: see what a hump!")
"O, O, don't you make sport of me, children! My nose is big, to be sure, but I'm going to keep it and make the best of it! If you love Santa as he loves you, you wouldn't mind the looks. I _was_ going to change my coat and dickey; but then, thinks I, I'll come just as I am! I patted myself on the shoulder, and says I, 'Santa Claus, don't you fret if you _are_ growin' old! You may look a little dried up, but your heart isn't wrinkled; O no!' You see father Adam and me was very near of an age, but somehow I never growed up! I always thought big folks did very well in their place; but for my part, give me the children. Hurrah for the children!"