Marmaduke looked surprised.
"You! Why, that was _hundreds_ of years ago! You can"t be as old as all that."
But Jack only smiled a superior smile
"Sure I am. Why I"m as old as the world!"
"Old as that Man-in-the-Moon?" continued Marmaduke, and the odd little fellow replied:
"Just as old."
Marmaduke looked up at the moon sailing far above them. And the old man, sitting there on the moon-mountain, nodded as much as to say that Jack was quite right.
Now the sleigh reached the top of the hill just where it touches the sky.
Surely there they would stop.
But no--
"This sleigh can run on air just as well as on snow," the odd little driver explained.
Another touch of the icicle whip, a jingle of bells, a snort from the reindeer, and they were off--off through the air towards the sailing moon.
Marmaduke was so interested in looking up that he didn"t see little Wienerwurst run ahead of all the animals. That doggie beat them all to the top of the hill. And when he came to the top he just jumped out in the air and landed safe on the runner of the sleigh, and curled up there and hid and didn"t make any noise.
It was very clear high up in the air, and Marmaduke looked down.
The houses had shrivelled all up. As small as Wienerwurst"s own little house they seemed. And the trees were as small as plants in the garden.
He looked down again. The earth was far below them.
By the white steeple of the church they flew. In the steeple was a little window. The bell-rope hung out. Jack jerked it as they went past.
"_Ding, dong-- Something"s wrong_."
So spoke the deep voice of the old bell. He was a hundred years old, and such strange things had never happened in his life before.
And the minister threw up his window and stuck his head out. And the minister"s wife stuck her head, in her nightcap, out of the window, too.
And the s.e.xton ran out in the snow, in his shirt-tail, to see what was the matter.
And all the other people, in the farmhouses and in the town houses, threw up their windows or ran out of doors to see where the fire was.
Then, after looking all around the houses and barns and the haystacks, they looked up at the sky and saw Marmaduke in the sleigh, racing towards the moon
They were very funny, like little toy people, all looking up and pointing at the sky and all shouting at once.
But Marmaduke didn"t care--he was having the time of his life!
Then a still stranger and funnier sight he saw,--all the animals on the top of the hill--the horses, the dogs, the cows, the sheep, the pigs, the ducks, the geese, the turkeys, and the White Wyandottes, all sitting on their haunches and barking or neighing or howling or squawking at Marmaduke, as on--up and up--he went, a-sailing through the sky.
But he missed his little pet doggie. Where _could_ he be?
He was worried about that until all of a sudden he heard a little bark and looked behind, and there on the red runner, hanging on for dear life, was little Wienerwurst. Marmaduke reached down, and picked him up by the scruff of his neck, and set him on his lap, under the robe, so that he wouldn"t catch cold.
So Wienerwurst too had the time of his life, and his little pink tongue hung out in delight as they raced toward the moon.
They hadn"t gone more than a hundred miles or so, when something strange floated past them--a cloud all puffy and soft and white, like the floating islands in the puddings Mother makes.
The reindeer nearly ran into it. That would have been too bad, for the sleigh would have torn it in two. And as they pa.s.sed, Marmaduke saw little baby angels lying there, curled up in the cloud, fast asleep, with their wings folded.
A whole fleet of the clouds pa.s.sed by and there was only clear air ahead of them, they thought, but no!
"Bang." They had bunked into something high up in the sky.
"Very careless," said Jack Frost, as he pulled on the reins.
It was very bright, and Marmaduke blinked hard.
Ahead of them lay another island, but this one was round and flat and shiny like a gold shield, with a little hill in the centre. And there upon the hill sat a jolly old man, round and fat, with a pipe in his mouth and a sack on his back.
"h.e.l.lo, old Top!" said Jack Frost.
"Good evening, you mischief-maker," replied the Man-in-the-Moon. "What are you up to now?"
"Oh, I"ve brought one of the little earth children to see you. This is Marmaduke Green. He"s been sick, so I thought I"d give him a ride."
"Oh, ho! That"s it. You _do_ do someone a good turn now and then, after all."
Then the old man turned to Marmaduke.
"Howdy," he said, "I hope you"ll get better very soon."
"Thank you," replied Marmaduke politely. He was so well brought up that he didn"t forget his manners, even up high in the sky.
"Well, here"s something to play with when you get back to earth," said the Old Man-in-the-Moon. And he reached his hand inside the sack on his back, and pulled out a fistful of bright gold pennies--oh, such a lot of them!
Marmaduke reached for them. But alas! he was in too much of a hurry, and they spilled out of his hand and rolled right over the edge of the moon.
Down, down, down, through the sky they dropped, past the stars and the clouds, down, down, down to the earth.
There were all the animals still, on the top of the hill, looking up at the moon. And one of the bright pennies landed on Black-eyed Susan"s nose. She was a timid old cow and she was startled. And she was still more frightened at the howling, the barking, the squawking, which the animals set up, one and all.
So frightened was she that she jumped. So hard did she jump that she leaped way over the hill and over the clouds and the stars.
"There"s that critter again," complained the Man-in-the-Moon.
On, with her tail spread out behind her, and her legs sprawling in the sky, came old Black-eyed Susan, straight towards them. Jack Frost and Marmaduke jumped back; the Old Man-in-the-Moon moved a little too. They were afraid she would land on their toes.
But she didn"t.