For several days smoke had been pouring out of the Teenie Weenie kitchen chimney from early morning until bedtime. The little cookstove really never had time to cool off, for the Cook and Gogo were working like beavers to make all sorts of good things for a Teenie Weenie Christmas.

They made two thimblefuls of doughnuts and a fruit cake as wide as a big pants button and three times as thick. They made honey and nut bars. They filled an acorn with hard candy, which was almost as good as honey-nut bars, but which lasted much longer.

Then there were the preparations for a Christmas dinner. A whole frog ham had to be boiled and made ready for baking. Six grains of corn had to be bleached with lye and made into hominy. Three grains of this were set aside for Tilly Titter, the sparrow. It was Tilly's favorite dish and the Teenie Weenies always gave her three grains for Christmas and three grains on her birthday.

Gogo made his famous dish of escalloped crawfish meat. Of course, there were cookies and pies and a number of loaves of Teenie Weenie bread had to be baked.

The rest of the Teenie Weenies were kept busy making Christmas gifts. The men crowded the old coffee can which served the Teenie Weenies for a work shop, and there they made all sorts of lovely and useful things.

The Teenie Weenie women had been busy, too. For days they knitted Teenie Weenie stockings. The Lady of Fashion made a lot of Teenie Weenie handkerchiefs, each one about a quarter the size of one of our postage stamps. The little women cleaned the shoe house from roof to cellar.

The Dunce and the Cowboy searched through the woods for twigs of pine and cedar to decorate the shoe house and the old felt hat which the Teenie Weenies used as a schoolhouse and town hall. The Dunce found a tiny balsam, which is a baby Christmas tree. The tree was dragged to the Teenie Weenie town hall, where it was set up in an old tea cup. Round seeds painted with bright colors were used to decorate the balsam. All the Teenie Weenies were proud of their Christmas Tree.

Teenie Weenie holidays always start off with a Chinese dinner on Christmas Eve. The Chinaman made a thimble and a half of chop suey and almost filled another thimble with boiled rice. There was an acorn of tea and many tiny Chinese cakes.

Tilly Titter, the sparrow, was invited to the feast and so were the two respectable mice and Nick, the squirrel. Nick sent his regrets on account of rheumatism, and the respectable mice had accepted an earlier invitation to a cheese frolic in a grocery store. However, Tilly came and she led the singing around the Christmas tree.

The little people sang all the Teenie Weenie songs they knew and Tilly sang several songs all by herself. Then they all filed into the old hat for the Chinese feast. Tilly couldn't get through the doorway, but the Chinaman carried a generous helping of rice out to her.

Christmas morning found the Teenie Weenies up at daylight, and there was a great deal of excitement over the various presents which the Weenie Santa Claus had left during the night.

"Jinks!" exclaimed the Dunce, as he emptied his stocking onto the caterpillar fur rug in front of the fireplace. "I'd like to see Santa and thank him for all my nice presents."

"I saw him once," said the Old Soldier. "He's a jolly old fellow with a long white beard. He had on a fine coat trimmed with caterpillar fur and he wore high boots of frogskin leather. On his back he carried an acorn which was jammed full of presents. I had only a glance at him, but he made a very handsome appearance."