"Oh, I'm so proud," whispered little brown Teddy Bear.
"You're no more proud than I am," said a little white lamb. "Please pinch me - so - and then I will say: 'Baa-Baa-Baa.' ''Ah, that will make someone happy.''
The toys were in Santa Claus' toy-shop and they were getting very much excited. There were still some to be finished - in fact, there were many to be finished, but none of them were worried, for they knew perfectly well that Santa Claus never left any toys unfinished.
That was the wonderful part of Santa Claus. He could be rushed and hurried and he could be so busy that you wondered how it was possible for him to do so much and you might think, if you didn't know, that some of those many, many things wouldn't be done. But the toys knew, for the tools which Santa used to make them with whispered to them many secrets.
''He may be busy,'' the tools always told the new toys, ''but he'll finish you and you'll go to the children on Christmas day.''
"How proud I will be,'' whispered the Teddy Bear once more, ''if I am put on a tree. They say that Santa hangs toys on Christmas trees. But then I would be just as proud if I were put in a stocking. How I would love to peep my head out from the top of a stocking and see the children as they come downstairs early Christmas morning! In fact, I would be proud no matter where Santa put me, or how he gave me. It's a great big and wonderful pride to be a toy made by Santa Claus which is given to a child on Christmas day.''
''That is what we all feel,'' said the other toys.