Lills Travels in Santa Claus Land

Lill's Travels in Santa Claus
Land
by Ellis Towne, Sophie
May and Ella Farman

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Title: Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories
Author: Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
Release Date: May 4, 2007 [EBook #20112] [This file was first posted
on December 15, 2006]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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LILL'S TRAVELS IN SANTA CLAUS LAND.
AND OTHER STORIES.
BY ELLIS TOWNE, SOPHIE MAY AND ELLA FARMAN.
BOSTON: D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY, FRANKLIN ST.,
CORNER OF HAWLEY.
COPYRIGHT BY D. LOTHROP & CO. 1878.

LILL'S TRAVELS IN SANTA CLAUS LAND.
Effie had been playing with her dolls one cold December morning, and
Lill had been reading, until both were tired. But it stormed too hard to
go out, and, as Mrs. Pelerine had said they need not do anything for
two hours, their little jaws might have been dislocated by yawning
before they would as much as pick up a pin. Presently Lill said, "Effie,
shall I tell you a story."
"O yes! do!" said Effie, and she climbed up by Lill in the large
rocking-chair in front of the grate. She kept very still, for she knew
Lill's stories were not to be interrupted by a sound, or even a motion.
The first thing Lill did was to fix her eyes on the fire, and rock
backward and forward quite hard for a little while, and then she said,
"Now I am going to tell you about my thought travels, and they are apt
to be a little queerer, but O! ever so much nicer, than the other kind!"
As Lill's stories usually had a formal introduction she began: "Once
upon a time, when I was taking a walk through the great field beyond
the orchard, I went way on, 'round where the path turns behind the hill.
And after I had walked a little way, I came to a high wall--built right up
into the sky. At first I thought I had discovered the 'ends of the earth,'
or perhaps I had somehow come to the great wall of China. But after
walking a long way I came to a large gate, and over it was printed in

beautiful gold letters, 'Santa Claus Land,' and the letters were large
enough for a baby to read!"
How large that might be Lill did not stop to explain.
"But the gate was shut tight," she continued, "and though I knocked and
knocked and knocked, as hard as I could, nobody came to open it. I was
dreadfully disappointed, because I felt as if Santa Claus must live here
all of the year except when he went out to pay Christmas visits, and it
would be so lovely to see him in his own home, you know. But what
was I to do? The gate was entirely too high to climb over, and there
wasn't even a crack to peek through!"
Here Lill paused, and Effie drew a long breath, and looked greatly
disappointed. Then Lill went on:
"But you see, as I was poking about, I pressed a bell-spring, and in a
moment--jingle, jingle, jingle, the bells went ringing far and near, with
such a merry sound as was never heard before. While they were still
ringing the gate slowly opened and I walked in. I didn't even stop to
inquire if Santa Claus was at home, for I forgot all about myself and
my manners, it was so lovely. First there was a small paved square like
a court; it was surrounded by rows and rows of dark green trees, with
several avenues opening between them.
"In the centre of the court was a beautiful marble fountain, with streams
of sugar plums and bon-bons tumbling out of it. Funny-looking little
men were filling cornucopias at the fountain, and pretty little barefoot
children, with chubby hands and dimpled shoulders, took them as soon
as they were filled, and ran off with them. They were all too much
occupied to speak to me, but as I came up to the fountain one of the
funny little fellows gave me a cornucopia, and I marched on with the
babies.
"We went down one of the avenues, which would have been very dark