The Story of a Stuffed Elephant Part 13

Jeff looked around until he found a flat board, large enough to hold the elephant. Putting the toy on this board, Jeff laid it to one side, and ran on to the store. He did not want to take the Elephant with him for fear some one would see it and ask him about it.

But Jeff was not to have that Elephant. While the colored boy was at the store the rain came down harder than ever, making so much water that the little brook in Archie's back yard rose higher and higher.

So high did the brook rise that the water reached the board on which the limp and soaking Elephant was lying on his side. And then the water lifted up the board, Elephant and all, and floated them down stream.

"Oh, my!" thought the poor Stuffed Elephant. "This is the last of me! I am going on a long voyage! I shall never see Archie again!"

Down the stream he floated on the board which was like a boat. Once a fish poked his head out of the water and called:

"Who are you and where are you going?"

Before the Elephant could answer the swift current had carried him farther downstream and away from the fish.

Once the board with the Elephant on it b.u.mped against a big Water Rat.

"Be careful who you're b.u.mping!" snarled the Rat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Be Careful Who You're b.u.mping!" Snarled the Rat.

_The Story of a Stuffed Elephant._ _Page_ 114]

"Excuse me," replied the Elephant. "I didn't mean to."

The Rat tried to bite the Elephant's trunk, but again the swift current carried the boat downstream.

Finally the rain stopped, after a day or so, but by that time the Elephant had been carried a long way down the brook, at last coming to a stop when the board was caught in the roots of an overhanging tree. By now the Elephant was almost glued fast to the board, so wet and soaking was he.

The rain stopped, the brook went down, the sun came out, and the Elephant dried. But he still lay on the board, on the bank of the stream, under the roots of the tree.

A man, who happened to be pa.s.sing, saw the Elephant, picked him off the board, and, seeing that he was an expensive toy, took the plaything to his home.

"What a fine Elephant!" said the man's wife. "I'll put him on the mantel, over the stove, so he'll dry out more. Some child lost this. We haven't any children small enough to want to keep it. I wish I could find out who owned this Elephant."

"I wish so, myself," thought the Elephant. "Oh, shall I ever get back to Archie?"

It was a day or so after the big storm that Archie was able to be up and around, and the first thing he thought of, when he could go outdoors, was his Elephant.

"Oh, where is he?" cried the little boy. "I 'member I left him in the yard when we heard the hand-organ music and ran to see the monkey. And then it rained and I fell down and b.u.mped my nose. Oh, where is my Elephant?"

"If you left him out here in the yard I fear the Elephant has floated away," said Mrs. Dunn. "The brook rose very high--almost up to our back steps--and it probably carried your Elephant away."

"Oh, shall I ever get him back?" cried Archie, feeling sad.

"I'm afraid not," his mother answered.

Archie felt so bad about his toy that his father put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper, asking whoever found the Elephant to please bring him back and get a reward.

If Jeff, the colored boy, had been able to read, he might have seen the advertis.e.m.e.nt and have told what he did with the toy.

But Jeff never read the papers. And, besides, it rained so hard when the colored boy went back from the store, after putting the Elephant on the board, that Jeff had to go home another way, and he forgot all about the stuffed plaything he had set aside.

But the man who had taken the Elephant home read the paper, and he saw the advertis.e.m.e.nt Mr. Dunn put in.

"There!" called the man to his wife. "Now I know where that Elephant belongs. I'll take him back to the little boy."

"Well, he's good and dry," said his wife. "I mean the Elephant is good and dry. He's almost as good as new." And, in fact, the Elephant was, for she had brushed off all the mud, and the heat had dried out the water.

Carrying the Stuffed Elephant, the man who had found the toy took it to Archie's house.

"Oh, here he is! My Christmas Elephant! He's come back to me! Oh, how glad I am!" cried Archie, as he clasped the cotton creature in his arms.

"Oh, how glad I am!"

"And I'm glad, too!" thought the Elephant. "I feared I would never see Archie and Elsie again! And I'm even glad to see Nip!" for the dog came to the door, wagging his tail.

And so, after several adventures, the Stuffed Elephant was back home again, but many more things happened to him, though I have no room for them in this book. The Elephant even acted again as Judge in the dispute of the Rake, the Shovel and the Pick, but who won the prize I cannot tell. I think each should have had a prize. Don't you?

Once again there was happiness in the Dunn house, for the lost Elephant was back, and Elsie gave her brother a pink ribbon to tie on his toy's neck.

"It may look pretty, but it tickles me," thought the Elephant, as Archie pulled him about.

THE END

THE STORY LADY SERIES

By GEORGENE FAULKNER

=Ill.u.s.trated. Every Volume Complete in Itself=

What child does not love to hear again and again these charming and thrilling tales that have been handed down through the ages from generation to generation--the best liked and the most famous of the world's myths, legends and fairy lore about animals, birds, witches, fairies, giants, dwarfs and beloved heroes and heroines from many different countries. These are the stories that children read and re-read with wonder and delight. In these volumes they are told in simple, charming language by Georgene Faulkner, known by thousands of youngsters and grown-ups as "The Story Lady."

_THE STORY LADY BOOKS_

SQUEAKY AND THE SCARE BOX THE FLYING SHIP THE SNOW MAIDEN THE GOLDEN FISH THE GINGERBREAD BOY THE THREE BEARS THE LITTLE RED HEN AND THE FOX

GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK