Part 5 (1/2)

”Why, look at my Lamb on Wheels!” went on Mirabell. ”I left her over by the door, and now she has rolled over near the table.”

”I guess the wind must have blown her,” said Arnold.

”But the door wasn't open, nor the windows,” went on Mirabell. ”So how could the wind blow her? Oh, Arnold, once before my Lamb moved when I left her alone! Wouldn't it be wonderful if she could really be alive and move by herself?”

”Yes, it would,” admitted Arnold. ”But your Lamb can't move by herself any more than my Tin Soldiers can.”

However, he little knew what went on after dark, when he and Mirabell were asleep in bed, did he?

”Now we'll go out on the porch and have some fun,” said Arnold, putting his Soldiers back in their box.

It was a warm, sunny day, and soon the two children were having a good time out on the porch of their house. Arnold set his Soldiers in two rows, with the Captain at the head of one row and the Sergeant at the head of the other. Then the boy put some paper bullets in his toy, wooden cannon, and Mirabell wheeled her Lamb to a safe place.

Arnold was just going to shoot his cannon and pretend to have the tin guns of the Soldiers go bang-bang when, all at once, a shower of hard, dried beans fell on the porch. Some struck the Soldiers, some hit the Red Cross Doll, and some pattered on Mirabell and Arnold.

”Oh, some one is shooting bean bullets at us!” cried the little girl. ”This is a bean battle! Are your Tin Soldiers shooting bean bullets, Arnold?”

CHAPTER V

THE CAPTAIN AND THE LAMB

For a few seconds Arnold did not know what to answer. One of the hard, dried beans had struck him on the nose, and, while it did not hurt very much, it made his eyes water and he could not see what was happening.

But the beans kept on falling about the porch, and one struck a Tin Soldier and knocked him over. This Soldier was a very small chap. He was, in fact, the drummer boy.

”But who is shooting the beans at us?” cried Mirabell, as she lay down on the porch behind her Lamb on Wheels.

”I don't know who is pegging beans at us,” said Arnold, looking around and out toward the street. ”It isn't my Soldiers, for their tin guns can only make believe shoot.”

Just then some shouts were heard and more beans came rattling across the porch, some, once more, hitting the Lamb, Arnold, and the Tin Soldiers.

”Oh, look, Arnold!” suddenly called his sister. ”I see who is doing it!”

”Who?” he asked.

”A lot of rough boys! Look! They, have bean-blowers!”

As she spoke more shouts sounded and more beans came flying swiftly over the porch.

”Shoot the Tin Soldiers! Shoot the Tin Soldiers!” cried the rough boys. There were three of them, and, as Mirabell had said, they had long tin bean, or putty, blowers. They were blowing the beans at the boy and his sister on the porch.

Rattle and bang went the hard dried beans, but the Bold Tin Soldier Captain and his men stood bravely up under the shower of bean bullets. The Red Cross Nurse Doll was brave, too, and did not run away, while the Lamb on Wheels stood on her wooden platform and never so much as blinked an eye as bean after bean struck her.

”Shoot the Tin Soldiers! Shoot the woolly Lamb!” cried the bad boys, as they, blew more beans.

”Here! You stop shooting beans at us!” cried Arnold. ”Do you hear me? You stop it!”

”Ho! Ho! We won't stop for you! You can't make us!” shouted the boys, and they were going to blow more beans, but just then Patrick, the gardener next door, came along with some seeds he had been down to the store to buy.