Old Lucy, the dearest baby of all in this little girl's large family, was taken up and quieted; and then something happened that was really wonderful. Scrubby, with her poor torn and tangled doll in her arms, sat very still for at least five minutes. The little maid was thinking all that time. She did not think very straight, perhaps, but she thought over a great deal of ground, and settled a good many things in that busy little head of hers; then she sang them all over to good old Lucy. "Hush, my dear!" she sang. "Don't stay long, for it beats my heart when the winds blow; and come back soon to your own chickabiddy, and then Kissmuss'll be here. S'umber on, baby dear. Kriss is coming with such a booful tree; then wont you be s'prised? She went to the hatter's to get him a coffin, and when she come back he was fixin' my Kissmuss-tree!" The little singer grew so enthusiastic when she came to the tree that she could not wait to sing any more; so she just danced Lucy up and down and chattered to her as fast as her tongue could go. "It'll be for me and for you, Lucy, and for all the babies, and then wont you be glad! And for mamma too, and for papa, cos we's all good little chillen, if we _is_ poor. Yes, indeed, Ole Kriss is coming with his reindeer. And he'll bring me a horse with pink shoes on; and you'll have a piano--a _really_ piano, ye know; and mamma, she'll have two little glass s'ippers, and--and--" Little Scrubby stopped chattering just there, and laid her head down on poor old Lucy's kind bosom. "Oh dear!" she sighed, "I do _wish_ ole Kriss'd come with that pitty tree!" The kitten curled up on the hearth, and the little broken dog that lay tipped over in the corner, and good old Lucy, and the three dolls tucked up in mamma's basket, all heard the wish of the poor little disappointed child. II. Everybody has noticed that the kittens and the dogs take a great many naps in the day-time, and that the dolls and toy-animals let the children do the most of the playing. That is because the pets and the toys are tired out and sleepy after their doings the night before, when the children were asleep and the grown people out of the way. They have rare sprees all by themselves, but just as soon as any person comes about, the fun stops,--the cat and the dog are sound asleep, the dolls drop down anywhere still as a wood-pile, and the rocking-horse don't even switch the ten hairs left in his tail. As for talking, though, they might chatter all the time and nobody be the wiser. People hear them, but not a soul knows what it is. Mamma sticks paper into the key-hole to keep out the wind that whistles so, papa takes medicine for the cold that makes such a ringing in his head, and Bridget sets a trap to catch the mouse that "squales and scrabbles about so, a body can't slape at all, 'most;" and all the while it is the dolls and pets laughing and talking among themselves.