The Story of a Plush Bear Part 6

"Oh, what a queer place!" cried the Wax Doll. "I don't like it here!

What is it?"

"I hardly know," answered the Plush Bear.

"This is the repair department," said the Jumping Jack, who had followed the two new toys. "It is here that Mr. Mugg mends the toys that get broken in the store, or toys that get broken when the boys and girls play with them. We had a fire here, not long ago, and the place is rather upset, but don't mind that. It is almost in order again, but there are always things scattered about in this repair department. If ever you lose an eye or an ear, Mr. Plush Bear, just come in here and Mr. Mugg will make you a new one," said the Jumping Jack.

"That's a comfort," answered the Plush Bear, laughing. "So you have had a fire here? I thought the place smelled rather smoky."

"It's just the way I smelled after I climbed up the string, too near the gas jet, and burned my trousers," said a voice that seemed to come from one of the shelves in the repair room.

"Who is that?" whispered the Wax Doll.

"The Calico Clown," answered the Jumping Jack. "He came here to have a new cap put on him."

"That's right," said the Clown, and he made a polite bow to the Plush Bear and the Wax Doll. "Sidney, the boy who owns me, was playing circus with me. His brother, who owns the Monkey on a Stick, was trying to make me jump over the Monkey, when my cap caught on the stick and was ripped off. So they brought me here to have Mr. Mugg make me a new one. But did you hear about how I burned my trousers?" asked the Calico Clown.

"I never did, having just arrived here," said the Plush Bear.

"Oh, you should hear that story!" cried the Clown. "It was quite funny in a way, though I did not think so at the time. In fact, there has been a book made about it, and about some of my other adventures. I must tell you of them."

"I should be delighted to hear them," said the Wax Doll, who seemed to have taken quite a liking to the Calico Clown.

"Baa! Baa!" suddenly called a voice from another shelf. "I have had adventures also. After you finish telling about how you burned your trousers, Mr. Clown, I'll tell how I was once down in a coal hole."

"Who is that?" asked the Plush Bear in a low tone of the Jumping Jack.

"That is a Lamb on Wheels," was the answer. "How comes it that you are here, Miss Lamb?" the Jack answered. "I didn't hear that you had had an accident."

"Oh, yes; but not a very bad one," bleated the Lamb. "One of my wheels came off when Mirabell, the little girl who owns me, let me fall. Her brother Arnold, who has a Bold Tin Soldier and his men, tried to fix me, but his father brought me here for Mr. Mugg to operate on. I shall be well again in a few days, and go back home. But who are the visitors?"

asked the Lamb.

"Oh, excuse me," said the Jumping Jack. "Let me introduce Mr. Plush Bear and Miss Wax Doll from North Pole Land," and the Bear and Doll made polite bows, as did the Lamb on Wheels and the Calico Clown.

Then the toys talked together and had a good time among themselves until morning came, when they had to go back to their places and become quiet.

As soon as the store was opened for business Mr. Mugg and his daughters began arranging the playthings. The Plush Bear was put in the show window, with the Wax Doll and some of the other new gifts. It was the first time in his life that he had been in such a place, and you may be sure the Plush Bear looked about him with eagerness.

He was gazing out into a busy street--a street where people were pa.s.sing up and down all the while--a street in which there was a layer of newly-fallen snow, only not as much as at the North Pole.

"I wonder if Santa Claus is here?" thought the Plush Bear.

But he could not speak aloud because so many eyes--those of the pa.s.sers-by in the street and the customers in the store--were watching.

There was so much to see that the Plush Bear did not know at which to look first, but, all of a sudden, he heard a voice saying:

"Oh, I want that Plush Bear! I want that! Can he do any tricks?"

The Plush Bear felt himself being lifted out of the show window of the toy shop. The springs inside him were wound up by Mr. Mugg and when he was set down on a showcase near the window the Bear began to move his head and paws, and from his red mouth came a make-believe growl.

"Oh, I want him! I want him!" the eager voice went on, and the Plush Bear was caught up by a fat boy--the very fattest and jolliest boy that the toy had ever seen. "I want this Plush Bear for my very own!" cried the fat boy. "He's the best toy I ever saw!"

CHAPTER VI

OUT OF THE WINDOW

"Don't squeeze the Bear so hard, Arthur," said a lady who was with the fat boy. "You may break the toy before I have paid for him."

"The Plush Bear is strong and well-made, Mrs. Rowe," said Mr. Mugg. "He is one of the newest of the Christmas toys, and I only put him in the show window this morning."

"And I saw him when I was walking along!" exclaimed Arthur Rowe, the jolly fat boy. "As soon as I saw him I knew I'd like him! Oh, Mother, hear him growl! And see him wave his paws!"

Indeed the Plush Bear was doing all his tricks, for he had been wound up by Mr. Mugg for that very purpose. There he sat on the top of the gla.s.s showcase, growling away (make believe of course) and waving his paws like a real bear.

Other persons in the toy store crowded up to the showcase to watch the Plush Bear do his tricks, and Arthur, the jolly fat boy, laughed loud and long as his plaything amused the throng. For the Plush Bear was to belong to Arthur. Pa.s.sing down the street early that Winter morning, he had seen the toy in Mr. Mugg's window, and had begged his mother to stop and go in and inquire about him.

"Wrap him up, Mr. Mugg, please," said Arthur, when the spring was all unwound and the wheels inside the Plush Bear no longer moved his paws and head and caused him to growl. "Wrap him up, and I'll take him home.

I guess d.i.c.k and Arnold and Herbert and Sidney will wish they had a toy like this!"

The Plush Bear again felt himself being lifted up by Mr. Mugg, who put him in tissue paper and then in the same box in which the Bear had traveled to Earth from the shop of Santa Claus.

"Good-by, Wax Doll! Good-by, Jumping Jack, Elephant and all my friends,"

said the Plush Bear to himself as the tissue paper covered his eyes and shut out the sight of the other toys in the store. "Good-by! I don't know when I shall see you again!"

Of course the Plush Bear dared not say this out loud, for he was being watched. And he dared not move of his own accord for the same reason. He felt a little sad at leaving all his toy friends, but he liked the looks of the fat boy, and Arthur seemed like one who would make a kind master.

"Oh, what fun I'll have with my Plush Bear!" said the fat boy, as he walked out of the toy store with his mother. "I'll invite d.i.c.k over with his White Rocking Horse, Arnold with his Bold Tin Soldiers, Herbert with his Monkey on a Stick, and Sidney with his Calico Clown. We'll have a lot of fun!"

"I thought you said Sidney's Calico Clown was broken," remarked Mrs.

Rowe as she and Arthur got into their automobile.

"Only the Clown's cap was torn off when they were playing circus the other day," said Arthur. "Mirabell's Lamb on Wheels was broken, too, and I guess they're both in Mr. Mugg's toy shop being fixed."

"Indeed they are there," thought the Plush Bear, who could hear all that was said through the tissue paper and his box. "I was talking to the Lamb and the Clown only last night. Well, it will not be so bad if I can see them once in a while. I should also like to meet the Wax Doll again, and the Elephant. I hope nice fat boys get them for presents."

Though it was cold outside of Mr. Mugg's store, the Plush Bear did not feel it. In the first place, he had on his own warm coat, which was almost like fur. Then he was wrapped in paper, and he was in a box, and he was inside the nice automobile. So he was even more comfortable than he had been at the North Pole, and ever so much more cozy than when he was in the igloo of Ski, the Eskimo boy.

"Look, Nettie! Look what I have!" cried Arthur, the fat boy, as he ran into the house as soon as the auto stopped. "I have a Bear that growls!"

Nettie, his little sister, who was running to meet her brother, carrying in her arms a Rag Doll, stopped when Arthur began to open the bundle he had carried from Mr. Mugg's store.

"I don't like growly bears!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, this bear is nice! He's a Plush Bear," Arthur said. "He wobbles his head and he jiggles his paws, and he growls, but it's only a make-believe growl. Look at my new Bear, Nettie!"

Arthur quickly took the wrappings from the Plush Bear and wound up the spring as Mr. Mugg had shown him. Then, when the Bear was set down on the floor, the toy began to wave his paws, to shake his head from side to side, and from his red mouth came several growls.