Christmas Stories Rediscovered. Sarah Orne Jewett

      “But it is cold here, Dick. I’m ‘mos’ froze! Dick, Alice is making cookies!”

      Dick let at least two tigers get away. Then he said sadly:

      “I won’t need any cookies. I shall be dead on the Russian steppes on Christmas morning. If Africa isn’t cold enough I guess Russia is!”

      He had rushed over to the little cutter in the corner, and leaping up in the seat, began shooting wildly from the back end.

      “The wolves! The wolves!” he shouted. “They are close behind, and I can’t slay them all!”

      “Dick! Oh, Dick!”

      “They will eat me! They will eat me all up! There will be only a red stain on the snow on Christmas morning.”

      “Dick, Alice is making two little cakes! I saw them!”

      The wolf-killing stopped for at least five seconds. Perhaps the wolves were all dead. Then the killer said tragically, and with a tremble in his voice:

      “It’s too late. I’m going to the North Pole. You can have the cake, Dot, and I forgive you about the doll.”

      Little Dot was already whimpering from the cold and from being rather scared, but she did want to see what Dick would do next. He jumped out of the cutter and ran over to a heavy post at the farther end of the barn.

      “This is the north pole,” he said, as he dragged bunches of hay about him. “I am in my winter hut. I shall be found dead and starved on Chr—in the spring, I mean. It will be too late then for cakes and cookies. Dick Daring, the great explorer, will be dead!”

      “Dick!” Little Dot had made her way tearfully to the north pole, and was looking at the great explorer buried in the hay. “Oh, Dick, Alice has made two little mince-pies, and they’re—they’re done, and she said we might have ’em now!”

      Dick Daring, the explorer, crouched in his hut a moment longer. Then he sat straight up.

      “Oh, Dot” he said, “let’s play that you’re a relief expedition, and that you came just in time to save me on Christmas morning!”