Part 8 (2/2)

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.

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