Comic Geekspeak Presents

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum.

Part 2, Manhood

Chapter 1 The Laughing Valley

When Claws came, the valley was empty, save for the grass, the brook, the wildflowers, the bees,

and the butterflies. If he would make his home here and live after the fashion of men, he must have a

house. This puzzled him at first, but while he stood smiling in the sunshine, he suddenly found beside him

old Nelko, the servant of the master woodsman. Nelko bore an axe, strong and broad, with blade that

gleamed like burnished silver. This he placed in the young man's hand, then disappeared without a word.

Clause understood, and, turning to the forest's edge, he selected a number of fallen tree trunks,

which he began to clear of their dead branches.

He would not cut into a living tree.

His life among the nymphs who guarded the forest had taught him

that a live tree is sacred, being a created thing endowed with feeling. But with the dead and

fallen trees it was different. They had fulfilled their destiny as active members of the forest

community, and now it was fitting that their remains

should minister to the needs of man. The axe bit deep into the logs at every stroke. It seemed

to have a force of its own, and claws had but to swing and guide it. When shadows began creeping

over the green hills to lie in the valley overnight the young man had chopped

many logs into equal lengths and proper shapes for building a house such as he had seen the poorer

classes of men inhabit then resolving to await another day before he tried to fit the logs together

clause ate some of the sweet roots he well knew how to find,

...