The Story of a Plush Bear Part 8

"I'm sure you must have dropped him about here," said Mr. Rowe, as he and the fat boy stood beneath the railroad bridge. "But he isn't in sight. Perhaps some one picked him up."

"Oh, is my nice Plush Bear gone?" sighed Arthur.

He looked all around, but Mr. Bruin, as the Bear was sometimes called, was not in sight. Then a ragged little boy, who had been flying a kite, came running along the street.

"What's the matter?" asked the ragged lad. "Did you lose your ball?"

"No; it's my Plush Bear," answered Arthur. "I dropped him out of the car window, but I don't see him now."

The ragged boy looked up into the tree under which he and the fat boy and Mr. Rowe were standing. There, right over their heads, stretched out on a limb to which he seemed to be clinging with all four paws, was the Plush Bear. The toy had been looking down at Arthur and his father, and he had been wis.h.i.+ng he might call and tell them where he was, but of course this was not allowed.

"I see him! I'll get him for you!" cried the ragged boy.

In another moment he was climbing the tree, and a little later he tossed down the Plush Bear, Mr. Rowe catching the toy in his hands.

"Now I have him back again! Oh, I'm so glad! Now I have my Plush Bear!"

cried Arthur. "I'll never let you fall out of a window again!"

"I should hope not!" said Mr. Rowe, as he gave his fat son the toy. "And here is twenty-five cents for you, little man," he added to the ragged boy.

"Oh, thanks!" cried the barefoot lad, as he ran away down the street, the s.h.i.+ning silver quarter held tightly in his hand. Then Arthur and his father went back to their train, the fat boy holding the Plush Bear in his arms.

"Oh, you found him! I'm so glad!" said Mrs. Rowe, as her husband and son took their seats and the train started. "You must be careful after this, Arthur."

"I will," promised the little boy.

"And I'm going to be careful of my Rag Doll," said Nettie, as she held her plaything on her lap.

There were no more accidents during the trip to the seash.o.r.e, which was reached in the afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Rowe went to the hotel with their son and daughter, and of course the Plush Bear and the Rag Doll went also.

"Where is this ocean you talked about?" asked the Plush Bear of the Rag Doll when they had a moment alone together.

"Oh, it is outside. Did you think they kept the ocean in the hotel?"

asked the Doll, with a laugh.

"I didn't know," the Bear remarked. "Is this a hotel?"

"Yes; it's a great big house where the family lives while at the seash.o.r.e," the Doll said. "You'll like it here. This is my third summer, and I--"

But just then the door opened and Arthur and Nettie came running into the room. Of course the toys could no longer talk to each other.

"We're going down on the boardwalk in wheeled chairs!" cried Nettie.

"I'm going to take my Rag Doll."

"And I'll take my Plush Bear," said Arthur. "To-morrow I'll play with him on the sand."

"I wonder what all this means--wheeled chairs--sand--boardwalk?" thought the Plush Bear. "So many things are happening I cannot keep track of them!"

Suddenly he found himself shut up with the two children and the Rag Doll in a sort of iron cage. And, all of a sudden, it began to go down.

"Goodness! am I falling again?" thought the Plush Bear.

He looked at the Rag Doll, but she did not seem to be startled. And then he heard Nettie say:

"Don't you like to go down in the elevator, Arthur?"

"Yes, it's lots of fun," answered the fat boy.

"Oh, it seems I am in an elevator," thought the Plush Bear. "Something else new!"

He soon grew used to the motion, and a little later he and Arthur, with Nettie and her Doll, were seated in a big chair on Wheels, and were being pushed along a broad wooden walk by a colored man.

"Isn't there a big crowd on the boardwalk?" said Arthur to his sister, as they were being wheeled along.

"Yes, but not as large as this time last year," replied the little girl.

"Look out, Arthur!" she suddenly cried. "Your Bear is slipping! If he falls under the wheels he'll be run over!"

Arthur made a grab for his toy, which had been resting in his lap, but he was not quick enough. Down out of the wheeled chair slipped the Plush Bear! Down to the boardwalk, and right toward him rumbled another big double chair, in which sat a fat man and a large woman.

"I guess this is the last of me!" thought the Plush Bear.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE SAND

Sometimes things occur very luckily in this world. If it had not happened that the colored man, who was pus.h.i.+ng the big, double, wheeled chair, looked down at the boardwalk and saw the Plush Bear just in time, Mr. Bruin would have been crushed. His spring that made him move his head and paws and the growler inside him would have been broken to bits.

But, as it happened, the colored chair-pusher saw the Plush Bear fall from the lap of Arthur Rowe, who sat beside his sister Nettie in a chair on the boardwalk at the seaside city.

"Hi! My land! Wait a minute!" shouted the colored man.

"Maybe he is going to save me!" thought the Plush Bear, who had seen the rubber-tired wheels coming nearer and nearer.

"What's the matter, Sam?" asked the man in the big rolling chair.

At the same time Arthur leaned forward with a cry of alarm, for he saw his Plush Bear had slipped, as it had slipped from him and out of the car window the day before.

"Li'l boy done drop his play-toy!" answered Sam, the colored man. "I come nigh onto runnin' ober it. Heah it is, li'l man," went on the chair-pusher as he picked up the Plush Bear and handed him back to Arthur.

"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Arthur, while Nettie, who had seen what almost had happened, held her Rag Doll tighter in her arms.

"I'm not going to drop Polinda, not ever!" declared Nettie. Polinda was the name of her doll. When Nettie first received the toy she had wanted to call the doll Polly, but the little girl next door said Lucinda would be a better name. So Nettie mixed up both names and called her doll Polinda, which is a very good name, I think.

With his Plush Bear safe in his arms once more, Arthur leaned back in his rolling chair. He and Nettie smiled at the lady and gentleman in the chair that had almost run over Mr. Bruin, and then the two chairs were pushed on by the men rolling them. Just behind Arthur and his sister, in another chair, were Mr. and Mrs. Rowe, but they had been so busy, looking at the sights along the boardwalk, they had not seen how nearly there was an accident.