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“Look at yourself,” he repeated.

Marmaduke obeyed.

“Why, I’m as big as I used to be!”

Jack laughed and replied:

“The dream fairy does love to play tricks on folks!”

Yes, the sleigh had grown as large as his father’s sleigh; the reindeer as big as Teddy, the buckskin horse. The tossing horns were as high as the reindeer’s in the Zoo, and Jack Frost was as big as Jehosophat now.

“I’m sorry that Jehosophat and Hepzebiah are not along,” said Marmaduke to himself, “they’re going to miss some fun”

He looked ahead through the trees Up over the hill the snow path stretched–up to the dark blue sky and the stars. Millions of them there were and they were all twinkle-winking at him. And the Old Man-in-the-Moon, just over the hill, kept winking at him too.

Jack Frost turned to Marmaduke.

“Where would you like to go most?“

Marmaduke didn’t need to think, he had his answer all ready.

“I’d like to visit the Old Man-in-the Moon.”

“It’s a bit of a drive,” replied Jack, “but Old Yellow Horns and Prancing Hoof are fast goers. Gee-up! Gee-up!” he shouted at them, touching their flanks with the icicle whip. So fast they went they scarcely seemed to touch the snow, and on up the hill they rode towards the laughing Man-in-the-Moon.

Then suddenly there came such a barking, a yelping, a neighing, a mooing, a clucking, a gobbling, a squealing, a squawling, as you never heard before.

Around jerked Marmaduke’s head.

There, behind the sleigh, running and leaping and paddling and waddling and frisking and scampering came a strange procession. There were Rover and Brownie and little Wienerwurst, Teddy and Methusaleh and all the horses, Primrose, Daisy, Buttercup, Black-Eyed Susan and all the cows. He could see their tongues hanging out–it was so hard to keep up with the dogs and the horses.

“Moo–moo, slow–slow!” called the poor cows.

And behind them ambled the sheep and the curley-tailed pigs; waddled the ducks and the geese; Miss Crosspatch, the Guinea Hen, and Mr. Stuckup, the turkey; and, at the very end, all of the White Wyandottes, the fathers and the mothers, and the little yellow children, and their grandfathers and grandmothers, and all their uncles and aunts, and their cousins, first, second, and third–every last one of them.

My–what a fuss and a clatter they made!

There was a long long line of them, stretching down the hill and down the white road over the snow.

Marmaduke laughed and exclaimed to Jack Frost:

“Why, they look just like the procession of the animals when they came out of the Ark.”

“Yes, I remember them,” replied Jack. “And Old Noah too. I used to pinch their ears and pull their tails o’ nights.”

Marmaduke looked surprised.

“You! Why, that was hundreds of years ago! You can’t be as old as all that.”

But Jack only smiled a superior smile

“Sure I am. Why I’m as old as the world!”

“Old as that Man-in-the-Moon?” continued Marmaduke, and the odd little fellow replied:

“Just as old.”

Marmaduke looked up at the moon sailing far above them. And the old man, sitting there on the moon-mountain, nodded as much as to say that Jack was quite right.

Now the sleigh reached the top of the hill just where it touches the sky.

Surely there they would stop.

But no–

“This sleigh can run on air just as well as on snow,” the odd little driver explained.

Another touch of the icicle whip, a jingle of bells, a snort from the reindeer, and they were off–off through the air towards the sailing moon.

Marmaduke was so interested in looking up that he didn’t see little Wienerwurst run ahead of all the animals. That doggie beat them all to the top of the hill. And when he came to the top he just jumped out in the air and landed safe on the runner of the sleigh, and curled up there and hid and didn’t make any noise.

It was very clear high up in the air, and Marmaduke looked down.

The houses had shrivelled all up. As small as Wienerwurst’s own little house they seemed. And the trees were as small as plants in the garden.