gaining on it. Before they reached San
Francisco, the Express locomotive's cow-catcher was almost touching the
Pony Engine's tender; it gave one howl of anguish as it felt the Express
locomotive's hot breath on the place where the nightmare had bitten the
piece out, and tore through the end of the San Francisco depot, and
plunged into the Pacific Ocean, and was never seen again. There, now,"
said the papa, trying to make the children get down, "that's all. Go to
bed." The little girl was crying, and so he tried to comfort her by
keeping her in his lap.

The boy cleared his throat. "What is the moral, papa?" he asked,
huskily.

"Children, obey your parents," said the papa.

"And what became of the mother locomotive?" pursued the boy.

"She had a brain-fever, and never quite recovered the use of her mind
again."

The boy thought awhile. "Well, I don't see what it had to do with
Christmas, anyway."

"Why, it was Christmas Eve when the Pony Engine started from Boston, and
Christmas afternoon when it reached San Francisco."

"Ho!" said the boy. "No locomotive could get across the continent in a
day and a night, let alone a little Pony Engine."

"But this Pony Engine _had_ to. Did you never hear of the beaver that
clomb the tree?"

"No! Tell--"

"Yes, some other time."

"But how _could_ it get across so quick? Just one day!"

"Well, perhaps it was a year. Maybe it was the _next_ Christmas after
that when it got to San Francisco."

The papa set the little girl down, and started to run out of the room,
and both of the children ran after him, to pound him.

When they were in bed the boy called down-stairs to the papa, "Well,
anyway, I didn't put up my lip."

THE PUMPKIN-GLORY

[Illustration]

The papa had told the story so often that the children knew just exactly
what to expect the moment he began. They all knew it as well as he knew
it himself, and they could keep him from making mistakes, or forgetting.
Sometimes he would go wrong on purpose, or would pretend to forget, and
then they had a perfect right to pound him till he quit it. He usually
quit pretty soon.

The children liked it because it was very exciting, and at the same time
it had no moral, so that when it was all over, they could feel that they
had not been excited just for the moral. The first time the little girl
heard it she began to cry, when it came to the worst part; but the boy
had heard it so much by that time that he did n