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.

The bird in the cage and the bird out-of-doors know what it is.  Very tame squirrels and rabbits understand it; and the poor little late chicken, which was brought into the kitchen for fear of freezing, soon spoke the language like a native.

Scrubby understood all that any of them said, and they all understood her and liked her immensely.  Even the plants in the window would nod and wink and shake out their leaves whenever she came about.

After little Scrubby and everybody else in the house had gone to bed that night, Minx, the kitten, came out from behind the broom, and prancing up to the little pasteboard and wool dog that lay tipped over in the corner, pawed him about until he was as full of fun as herself.  Then she jumped upon the table and clawed the three dolls out of mamma’s work-basket, sending them all sprawling on the floor.

[Illustration:  “OLE KRISS IS COMING WITH HIS REINDEER.”]

They were a sad-looking lot of babies, anyway.  There was Peg, knit out of blue, red and yellow worsted, and with black beads for eyes.  She was a good deal raveled out, but there was plenty of fun in her yet, after all.

Then there was Francaise.  She was a French girl, who had been brought from Paris for Scrubby before that bad time when papa “got poor.”  She had been very elegant, but now her laces were torn, her hair would never curl again, one arm swung loose, and her head wobbled badly; but, for all that, she was still full of lively French airs.  Lyd was the last of the lot.  Poor thing!  She had been such a lovely wax blonde:  but now the wax had all melted off her cheeks, she was as bald as a squash, one eye had been knocked out, and, worst of all, she had not a stitch of clothes on.  Scrubby had brought her to this plight; but, for all that, Lyd loved the very ground Scrubby tumbled over; and so did all the rest of them, for that matter, never caring how much she abused them in her happy, loving way.