PHOTOGRAPHER CRANE
Well, sir! by this time if ever a little bunny was crazy to go sleigh riding it was Little Jack Rabbit as he looked at the four reindeer hitched up to the old sleigh. And wouldn’t you love to go sleigh riding behind four of Santa Claus’s reindeer?
Well, I just guess you would, and so would I and so would the Czar of Russia if he hadn’t lost his throne.
“Now hurry up and get on your fur overcoat,” said the old gentleman rabbit, while the reindeer pawed the snow and tossed their antlers, which are their horns, you know—until the bells on the harness began chiming:
“Down from the North come the reindeer a-flying,Silver bells tinkle as onward they go,Faster and faster their fleet hoofs are tryingTo race with the North Wind that blows o’er the snow,Tinkle, tink, tinkle, and crinkle, crink, crinkle,Swift through the snowflakes they dash in a row.”
“Down from the North come the reindeer a-flying,Silver bells tinkle as onward they go,Faster and faster their fleet hoofs are tryingTo race with the North Wind that blows o’er the snow,Tinkle, tink, tinkle, and crinkle, crink, crinkle,Swift through the snowflakes they dash in a row.”
“Down from the North come the reindeer a-flying,Silver bells tinkle as onward they go,Faster and faster their fleet hoofs are tryingTo race with the North Wind that blows o’er the snow,Tinkle, tink, tinkle, and crinkle, crink, crinkle,Swift through the snowflakes they dash in a row.”
“Down from the North come the reindeer a-flying,
Silver bells tinkle as onward they go,
Faster and faster their fleet hoofs are trying
To race with the North Wind that blows o’er the snow,
Tinkle, tink, tinkle, and crinkle, crink, crinkle,
Swift through the snowflakes they dash in a row.”
And pretty soon out came Little Jack Rabbit with his fur overcoat, and jumping into the sleigh sat down beside dear, kind Uncle John Hare.
“On, Dixon and Blixon! On, Bullet and Arrow!” cried the old gentleman rabbit, and away went the reindeer, while Lady Love waved her calico apron from the window and smiled to see how happy was her little bunny boy.
Well, after a while, or maybe a mile, Little Jack Rabbit said:
“Let’s go down to the photographer and have our picture taken.”
“All right,” said Uncle John Hare, and the Yellow Dog Tramp said he’d never had his picture taken in his life and would be tickled to death to have one to send home to his old mother who lived in New Hampshire and hadn’t heard from him since he’d left home.
Well, when they came to the picture place the photographer, who was a long-legged crane—as I told you once upon a time some fifty stories ago, or maybe more—came out of his little picture gallery.
And, oh, my! he shivered so that he almost spoilt the picture, for he had to bring his camera outside because the four reindeer and the sleigh and the two little rabbits andthe Yellow Dog Tramp couldn’t get into his little shop.
You see, the crane didn’t have any stockings on and his great long legs got dreadfully cold.
“Now, look pleasant, if you please,Excuse me while I take a sneeze!”
“Now, look pleasant, if you please,Excuse me while I take a sneeze!”
“Now, look pleasant, if you please,Excuse me while I take a sneeze!”
“Now, look pleasant, if you please,
Excuse me while I take a sneeze!”
and Photographer Crane almost sneezed his head off, as he stood on one leg and pulled the other one out of the snow way up under his feathers. Then he sneezed again.
But, by and by, the pictures were taken, and Uncle John Hare paid for them all, and the Yellow Dog Tramp took his over to the Postoffice and sent it to his mother, way up in New Hampshire, and on the back he wrote:
“Oftentimes I’m thinking,Mother dear, of you,Some day when I’ve made my pileI’ll come home in grand old style,So be patient just a while,Keep for me your same old smile,Mother dear, won’t you?”
“Oftentimes I’m thinking,Mother dear, of you,Some day when I’ve made my pileI’ll come home in grand old style,So be patient just a while,Keep for me your same old smile,Mother dear, won’t you?”
“Oftentimes I’m thinking,Mother dear, of you,Some day when I’ve made my pileI’ll come home in grand old style,So be patient just a while,Keep for me your same old smile,Mother dear, won’t you?”
“Oftentimes I’m thinking,
Mother dear, of you,
Some day when I’ve made my pile
I’ll come home in grand old style,
So be patient just a while,
Keep for me your same old smile,
Mother dear, won’t you?”
I guess when that hobo dog’s mother received his picture she smiled,—or maybe she cried, for sometimes we cry when a happy sadness comes into our heart.