The Story of a Plush Bear Part 9

"Is your Bear all right?" asked Nettie of her brother, as they were wheeled along. "I mean will his head nod?"

"His head doesn't exactly nod," replied Arthur. "I guess you're thinking of Joe's Nodding Donkey. But my Bear wags his head."

"Maybe he won't now, after all that happened," suggested Nettie.

"Oh, I guess he will," said Arthur. "But I'll wind him up and see."

He turned the key that wound up the spring, and as soon as it was tight enough the Plush Bear began to move his paws, shake his head from side to side and growl in a gentle voice, just as Santa Claus had intended he should do.

"He's all right," said Arthur.

"Thank goodness for that!" exclaimed the Plush Bear to himself. "One never knows what may happen when one falls out of a car window and then from a wheeled chair to the boardwalk. I might have got a lot of slivers in me, or have loosened a wheel! I'm glad I'm all right."

After an hour spent on the boardwalk, seeing the many sights and looking at the waves of the ocean rolling up on the sandy beach, Arthur and his sister, with their father and mother, went back to their hotel. Evening was coming on and it was time for supper, or dinner as it is called in fashionable seaside hotels, for the princ.i.p.al meal is served in the evening instead of at noon.

"I wish we could go down and play on the sand," said Nettie, as she and her brother got out of the wheeled chair. "My Rag Doll wants to go barefoot on the beach."

"And I think my Plush Bear would like it, too," said Arthur.

"You may go down and play in the sand all day to-morrow," promised their mother.

"Oh, won't we have fun!" cried Nettie. "Maybe my Rag Doll can learn to swim."

"Well, swimming won't hurt _her_," said Arthur; "but I'm not going to let my Plush Bear get in the water. I'm going to make a sand cave for him to live in."

"Well, it seems I am to have some fun," thought the toy, as he was taken up in the elevator.

The Plush Bear did not like the elevator very much. It gave him a queer feeling among his wheels and spring; and his grunter, by means of which he growled, seemed to be turning over and over. But this did not last long, and while Arthur and Nettie, with their parents, were at dinner in the hotel, the Bear and the Doll had a chance to talk.

"How do you like it at this fashionable seaside hotel?" asked the Bear.

"Quite well," answered the Doll, lifting her eyebrows the way she had seen some ladies doing in the hotel parlor as she was carried in. "I wish Nettie would put a different dress on me, though," the Doll added.

"It is fashionable to dress here in the evening, but she has left my old clothes on."

"Old clothes are best," growled the Bear. "You feel more comfortable in them. I don't need any, I'm glad to say, not even at the cold North Pole. But say, Rag Doll, now we're alone, let's do something."

"I know what we can do!" the Rag Doll exclaimed. "All my life I have wanted to play with the glistening things in a hotel bathroom. I want to work the shower, and turn the shiny handles. There are ever so many more than we have at home. Come on into the bathroom, and let's turn every handle we see!"

"All right," agreed the Plush Bear. "That'll be fun!"

And there is no telling what mischief he and the Rag Doll might have got into, only, just then, in came Nettie and Arthur, having finished dinner.

"I'm going to play with my Plush Bear!" cried the fat boy.

"And I'm going to get my Rag Doll to sleep," said Nettie. "It's time she was in bed."

The Doll and the Bear could only look slyly at one another. There was no chance now for them to have fun with the shiny handles in the bathroom. But perhaps it was just as well.

That night, when Arthur and Nettie, as well as their father and mother were asleep, the Bear and Doll had a chance to make believe come to life, move about, and speak.

"But we won't turn the handles in the bathroom and splash the water now," said the Doll. "It would make such a noise that they'd awaken and we'd be caught. But what can we do?"

"Let's look out the windows," suggested the Plush Bear. So, climbing up first on little stools, and then on chairs, the two toys looked from the hotel windows. They saw many lights sparkling, and out to sea was a tall lighthouse with a gleaming beacon which flickered like a giant lightning bug.

In the morning Arthur and Nettie went down on the sand to play, the little fat boy taking his Plush Bear and Nettie her Rag Doll.

"Oh, what a dandy Teddy Bear!" cried a small, red-haired chap as he ran along the beach to play with Arthur.

"This isn't a Teddy Bear," explained Arthur. "He's a Plush Bear, and he can move his head and his paws and he can growl."

"Let's hear him!" begged the red-haired boy.

So Arthur wound up the spring, and, surely enough, the toy did all those things.

"Oh, he's a dandy!" cried the red-haired lad. "If you let me play with him, I'll let you take my airship that flies."

"We'll take turns playing with them," said Arthur, and then began a happy time for the children. Some little girls came over to play with Nettie, and they had lots of fun on the sand.

After a while Arthur happened to think of what he had said he was going to do--dig a sand cave for his Bear.

"We'll make a big one," he said to the red-haired lad. "We'll dig a big hole."

"With clam sh.e.l.ls!" cried the other lad, and, putting aside the Plush Bear and the airship, the two little friends began to make a large hole in the sand. When it was finished the Plush Bear was put down in it, and some sticks were stuck up in front.

"We'll make believe the sticks are the bars of his cage," said Arthur.

"We'll pretend he's a circus Bear."

"Oh, yes," agreed the red-haired boy. "That's lots of fun."

So they played with the Plush Bear in the hole of the sand for some time. Then other boys and girls came along, joining in the fun, and pretty soon some children rode past on ponies.

"Oh, I'm going to ask mother if we can't ride on the ponies!" cried Nettie.

"So'm I!" added her brother, and, forgetting all about the Plush Bear in the hole, away they ran to tease for ponies to ride. Mrs. Rowe was sitting on the sand not far from where the children had been playing.

"Yes, Arthur and Nettie, you may ride the ponies," she said. "I'll take you down and tell the man to put you on."

And in the excitement of the pony ride Arthur forgot all about his Plush Bear in the sand cave. The toy was left there all alone, and he did not know what to think.

"I wonder if I dare knock down those sticks they call bars and climb out?" thought the toy. "I don't believe any one is looking." He was just going to do this when along the beach dashed one of the ponies with a little girl on his back. The pony stepped close to the hole where the Plush Bear was, and in another instant the sand caved in, covering Mr.

Bruin from sight!

CHAPTER IX

OUT TO SEA