except the North Pole, is made for some one else, and
that's the reason we have such a good time up here. If you like, I'll
take you around and show you and Johnny our shops." This was exactly
what Tommy wanted, so he thanked him politely.

"I'll be back in a little while," said Santa Claus to the lady, "for
as soon as the boys are all asleep I must set out. I have a great many
stockings to fill this year. See that everything is ready. Come along,
boys," and next minute they were going through room after room and
shop after shop, filled with so many things that Tommy could not keep
them straight in his mind. He wondered how any one could have thought
of so many things, except his mother, of course; she always thought of
everything for everyone. Some of them he wished for, but every time he
thought of wanting a thing for himself the lights got dim, so that he
stopped thinking about himself at all, and turned to speak to Johnny,
but he was gone.

Presently Santa Claus said: "These are just my stores. Now we will go
and see where some of these things are made." He gave a whistle, and
the next second up dashed a sled with a team of reindeer in it, and
who was there holding the reins but Johnny, with his little cap
perched on the top of his head! At Tommy's surprise Santa Claus gave a
laugh that made him shake all over like a bowl full of jelly, quite as
Tommy had read he did in a poem he had learned the Christmas before,
called "The Night Before Christmas, when all through the house."

"That comes of knowing how to drive goats," said Santa Claus. "Johnny
knows a lot and I am going to give him a job, because he works so
hard," and with that Tommy's boots suddenly jumped him into the sled,
and Santa Claus stepped in behind him and pulled up a big robe over
them.

"Here goes," he said, and at the word they turned the corner, and
there was a gate of ice that looked like the mirrored doors in Tommy's
mother's room, which opened before them, and they dashed along between
great piles of things, throwing them on both sides like snow from a
sled-runner, and before Tommy knew it they were gliding along a road,
which Tommy felt he had seen somewhere before, though he could not
remember where. The houses on the roadside did not seem to have any
front-walls at all, and everywhere the people within were working like
beavers; some sewing, some cutting out, some sawing and hammering, all
making something, all laughing or smiling. They