The Story of a Plush Bear Part 11

Into the water fell the toy, and, a moment later, when the wave washed back into the ocean, it took Mr. Bruin with it. Right out to sea the Plush Bear was washed, on the top of the big wave!

"Oh! Oh, dear! What is going to happen to me now?" thought the poor Plush Bear.

CHAPTER X

SAVED AT LAST

When the big wave knocked Arthur down and the little fat boy dropped the Plush Bear into the sea, that toy expected he would at once sink to the bottom and be drowned. It was the first time he had ever fallen into the water. At the North Pole, where he had been made in the workshop of Santa Claus, it is so cold nearly all the time that all water is frozen into ice, and there is very little into which one may fall.

"This is the last of me!" thought the poor Plush Bear, as he felt the water closing over his head. Faintly he heard the screams of Arthur, as the waves rolled the fat boy over and over on the beach. But Arthur's father quickly sprang in and picked up his little fat son, saving him.

There was no one at hand just then to save the Plush Bear.

"Yes, this is the last of me!" thought Mr. Bruin. But, to his surprise, he found that, after his first drop into the ocean when the waters closed over his head, he bobbed up again and floated nicely like a piece of wood.

Much of what was inside the Plush Bear was sawdust and cork, making him very light, so that, though he did not know it, he was a better floater than was Arthur.

The Plush Bear had been careful not to breathe when he fell into the sea, so he did not sniff any water up his nose. And after the first shock he did not feel bad. The water was warm, and by keeping his mouth closed the Plush Bear did not taste any of the salt. There he was, floating on his back, his big, yellow eyes staring up at the sun and the blue sky. And now, as the tide had turned and was going out, the Bear was carried out to sea with it.

Back on the beach there was much excitement when Arthur's father had pulled the fat boy out of the sea. But it was soon found that Arthur was all right, except that he had swallowed a little salt water.

"But where's my Plush Bear?" Arthur cried, when he had been dried and comforted by his mother. "Where's my Plush Bear?"

Where, indeed? Well might Arthur ask that, for his Plush Bear was being carried far, far out to sea on the waves.

"Oh, Arthur! did you drop Mr. Bruin when the wave knocked you down?"

asked Nettie.

"I guess--I guess I did!" answered her brother sadly.

"Then that's the last of your Plush Bear," said Arthur's father. "But don't cry!" he told the little boy. "I'll get you another. Don't cry!

There is salt water enough around here without your adding to it by your tears!" he laughed. But Arthur felt too unhappy to laugh.

And all this while Mr. Bruin was floating on the waves.

"This is certainly the strangest thing that ever happened to me,"

thought the Plush Bear. "I thought surely my end had come when Arthur dropped me. But, though I am all wet outside, I seem to be dry inside."

On and on floated the Plush Bear; then, all of a sudden, he heard voices talking. The voices were those of men and children, and not the voices of toys.

"Don't you like it here, Joe?" asked a boy.

"Yes, I do, Herbert," was the answer. "And my Nodding Donkey likes it, too."

"My Monkey on a Stick is having fun, and he isn't seasick a bit," said the boy who had been called Herbert. "He loves to ride in a motor boat, my Monkey does."

"What's this? What's this!" thought the Plush Bear. "Nodding Donkey?

Monkey on a Stick?"

He tried to raise himself in the water to look toward the place whence came the voices, but the Plush Bear could see nothing. A moment later, though, he heard one of the boys call:

"Oh, look! What's that floating in the water?"

"It's a fish!" said the other boy.

"That isn't a fish! It's some sort of floating toy," was the answer in a man's voice. "Well, I declare, it's a Teddy Bear!"

"I'm not a Teddy Bear at all," said Mr. Bruin to himself; "but if you rescue me from the water you may call me anything you wish."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Plush Bear Meets Nodding Donkey and Monkey On a Stick. _Page_ 117]

A moment later, after he had been afloat for some hours, the Plush Bear felt himself being lifted from the sea, and in another second he was placed in the bottom of a motor boat. In the boat were two men and two boys, but when the water had run out of his eyes the Plush Bear was more interested in looking at two other toys which were also in the boat.

On one seat was a Nodding Donkey who seemed to be bowing in a most pleasant and jolly fashion to the Plush Bear. And on the other seat, beside a boy, was a Monkey on a Stick.

"Oh, I have heard of these toys," thought the Plush Bear. "They, too, were once in the shop of Santa Claus! Oh, how glad I am! I'm saved at last!"

"Where do you suppose this Plush Bear came from?" asked Joe, the boy who had the Nodding Donkey.

"I think he must have fallen overboard out of some boat when some children were being given a ride, just as you boys are having a ride,"

said the father of Herbert. Herbert, you know, owned the Monkey on a Stick.

"I wish I could keep that Plush Bear," softly said Joe. "Now that I'm not lame any more I could run around and have fun with him."

"It is a very nice Plush Bear," said Mr. Richmond, Joe's father, as he examined the wet toy. "Some little boy or girl will be glad to get it back. It doesn't seem to be much harmed." He wound up the spring and at once the Plush Bear began to move his paws, wag his head, and growl. The growl was a trifle rusty and a bit gritty from the sand still inside the works, but that did not matter.

"We'll take the Plush Bear back to sh.o.r.e with us," said Joe's father.

"Perhaps some children stopping at one of the hotels, or even at our own hotel, may claim this toy. We must find out. I'll put the Bear on his back in the sun so he'll dry."

"And I'll put my Nodding Donkey back there, too, so Mr. Bruin won't be lonesome," offered Joe.

"Put my Monkey there, too," said Herbert.

So the three toys were placed near each other on the back seat of the boat, and then the two boys and their father gathered in the bow, or front part, to look across the ocean. They were out for a pleasure ride.

"How did you come to be floating in the sea all by yourself?" asked the Nodding Donkey in a whisper of the Plush Bear.

"A big wave knocked Arthur down and he dropped me," was the answer, in the same low voice.

The Plush Bear was just going to tell more of his adventures when the motor boat was run up alongside a dock, and the party got out.

"I'll carry the Plush Bear," said Joe's father. "He isn't quite dry yet.

We'll take him to our hotel, and I'll tell the clerk to post up a notice, saying the toy was found at sea. Then whoever owns him may claim him."

But matters were not going to turn out just that way. As it happened, Joe and Herbert were stopping at the same hotel where Arthur and Nettie were with their father and mother. Joe and Herbert had just arrived that day, which was why Arthur and Nettie had not seen their little friends before.