{156}
[Illustration: The Toy Box
THE WORLD IS SO FULL OF A NUMBER OF THINGS I AM SURE WE SHOULD ALL BE
AS HAPPY AS KINGS]
{157}
The Twenty-first Chapter.
_Of the next Morning and how Tommy found a New Joy. Also of the
Questions asked by Helen, and of how her Mamma answered._
[Illustration]
The sun had been up some hours when Tommy awoke in his little bed
at the toymaker’s the next day. Then, oh my, what a surprise he did
have! for the moment he opened his eyes, they looked right into the
loveliest, sweetest eyes in all the world; and he knew that those eyes
belonged to—his dear mother.
Yes, Tommy’s own dear mother was leaning over his little bed in Peter
Poodle’s toy shop. She hugged him ever and ever so tight, and there
were happy tears in her eyes. And, on the other side of the bed,
was—his father!
All in a pop, Tommy’s memory had come back to him; the memory that went
away when he was so sick at the wood-chopper’s house in the hills.
Tommy didn’t know how his father and mother happened to be in Peter
Poodle’s toy shop, and he was too happy to try and think. Then he
remembered that his {158} name wasn’t Tommy. “Oh, Mr. Poodle,” he
said, as he saw the little toy maker come into the room, “I am not a
King any more, because my father is the King. But I am a Prince, Mr.
Poodle, and my name is Arthur.”
“Yes, indeed, you are a Prince,” said Mr. Poodle, “and sometime you
will be King.”
A troubled look now came into Prince Arthur’s eyes. “Will the Toy
people love me when I am a real King, Mr. Poodle?” he asked; “and will
they have me for their King, too? Because I like to be the King of
Toyville, and I want to drive away the King of Grumbletown.”
“Toy people will always love you,” said Mr. Poodle, “because you are
always very kind to them; and when you are a real King, you can ask all
the children to be kind to their toys, and then, pretty soon, there
won’t be any more Grumbletown, because no toys will go there.”
“That is what I will do the very first day I am King,” said the Prince.
“And now I will get up and send the Toyville treasure to the kind lady
in the hills.”
“No need to do that, dear,” said his mother. “The wood chopper and his
good wife are right here, and no longer poor, for the King has rewarded
their care of his boy.”
The Prince looked across the room, and there, sure enough, was the kind
lady, and the wood chopper who now wore a uniform of the King’s Royal
House Guard.
Although the Prince felt tired, from his long journey to Toyville, he
quickly jumped out of bed, and the next minute was giving the kind lady
a big hug. Then he dressed, and by that time Helen came to play with
him.
“I am not a King any more,” he said to Helen, “because, you see, I am
only a King’s son. But I am a Prince, and {159} my name is Arthur. You
may call me Tommy, though, if you wish. Some time I am going to be a
King, and then will you be my Queen, Helen?”
“Yes, I will,” said Helen, “and I am going to call you Arthur, because
that is your really truly name. I wish you would come and play now.
I have brought you Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle, but I couldn’t
bring Rolie Polie, because he is not here any more.”
“Oh, no,” answered the Prince, “it wouldn’t be right for Rolie Polie to
come, because he must stay and be King in Toyville. Thank you, Helen,
for bringing Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle. Why, this is the same
box I carried to the Black Lion! Did the bad men send it to Mr. Poodle?”
“The bad men were captured by the King’s soldiers and are now in
prison,” answered the Queen. “Thanks to the wood chopper’s good wife,
who followed you in your long tramp through the hills, we have our boy
again, and those who stole him away are punished.”
The Prince did not play very hard that afternoon, and by and by he said
to Helen: “I do not know why going to Toyville has made me so tired,
but I suppose being a King is hard work. Do you think it is, Helen?”
“Yes, I do,” said Helen. “I think being a King is very hard, and takes
a big man like your papa. But some time you will be a big man, and then
being a King won’t make you tired any more.”
This happy time of their playing passed all too hurriedly for Helen,
who hardly realized its ending before she found herself saying goodbye
to her little playmate.
“You will come and see me soon, won’t you Helen?” said the Prince, his
lips trembling. “Come very soon {160} Helen, because I want a little
girl to play with and to go with me on journeys; and O, Helen, now I
have a mamma of my own, and perhaps she will read us stories.”
“Yes, indeed, I will read stories to you,” said the Queen, turning from
talking earnestly with Helen’s mamma, who had come to say goodbye to
the Prince, “and Helen is coming to see us very, very soon.”
Then the goodbys were all said, and amidst the cheering of the
townspeople who were lining the streets outside the toyshop, the King
and Queen, accompanied by the Royal House Guards, bore the Prince away
to his new home in the Castle among the hills.
That evening when Helen had been tucked snugly in her little bed, she
said: “Mamma, how did Prince Arthur get lost; did somebody steal him
away from his home?”
“Yes, dear,” said Helen’s mamma. Then she snuggled down on the bed and
hugging Helen close, told her how, a while ago, the young Prince had
been stolen away by the ruffians and left in the forest where he was
found by the good wood chopper.
“Was the Prince ill when he was found?” asked Helen.
“Yes, dear,” answered her mamma, “the Prince was so ill that, when the
fever left him, it took away his memory, and he did not know that he
was a King’s son.”
“Did the wood chopper know that the little boy he found was a Prince,
mamma?”
“No,” said her mamma; “the wicked men had dressed the Prince in ragged
clothes when they left him in the forest to starve, and he did not look
at all like a Prince.”
“How did the King ever find the Prince?” asked Helen. “Did he go to the
wood chopper’s house, mamma?” {161}
“No, dear, he was hunting everywhere for some trace of his lost boy,
and the wood chopper’s wife was hunting too, and she had followed the
Prince almost to this city. Then one day the King met her, and he knew
from what she told him that his Arthur was alive; so he came riding
with his soldiers as fast as ever he could and saw the little Prince
just as he entered the Black Lion Inn. Now dear, it is time for my
little girl to go to sleep!”
But Helen wasn’t one bit sleepy. “Why was the Prince stolen away,
mamma?” she asked.
“I do not know,” answered her mamma. “Some people say that the King’s
brother, Duke Robert, who is called Robert the Red, had him stolen so
his own son would be heir to the throne, but no one knows this for
certain. If Robert the Red did have him taken away, he never can steal
him again, because the King has made the wood chopper the Prince’s own
special guard, and he and his good wife will now live in the Castle.”
“Robert the Red was a wicked man to steal away the Prince, wasn’t he,
mamma!” said Helen. “Will the Prince be a King some day, mamma, and
will he come for me and make me a Queen, like he said?”
“Listen,” said Helen’s mamma, “there is Grandpapa calling me. Good
night, little Wideawake.” Then she gave Helen a hug, and turning the
light low, left the room.
“Mamma didn’t answer my question,” thought Helen. “But never mind, I
know he will, because Tommy said he would,—Prince Arthur, I mean.” Then
she closed her eyes and soon was fast asleep.
{162}
[Illustration: The Sign
Peter Poodle
TOY MAKER TO THE KING]
{163}
_THE CONCLUSION._
Over the front door of Peter Poodle’s shop there now hangs a big and
comical sign on which is painted a chubby little soldier with a red
coat and a black hat. Right over the soldier, in black letters with
curly red capitals, appears the name _Peter Poodle_, and beneath the
soldier are the words, _Toy Maker to the King_. This is how it happened:
One day a big wagon drove up in front of Peter Poodle’s shop; in it
there was a large, flat, wooden box, sealed with the Royal Coat of
Arms. “Does Mr. Poodle live here?” asked the driver. “Yes,” answered
the toy maker.
The next minute, much to the surprise of the little man, he saw the
big box being deposited right in the middle of the floor of his shop.
Mr. Poodle unscrewed the lid with trembling fingers. Inside, packed
carefully, so it would not receive a single scratch, was the beautiful
sign. With the sign also came a great parchment, signed and sealed with
the Royal Arms. On this parchment were letters telling how Mr. Poodle
had been made Toy Maker to the King.
While Mr. Poodle was folding up the papers and wrappings that had come
about the sign, so as to put them all away neatly, a little envelope
dropped to the floor. This likewise bore the Royal Seal, and when Mr.
Poodle had it open, he found a very kind note from the Queen ordering
ever and ever so many toys for the Prince. It also contained an
invitation for Mr. Poodle to come and visit at the Castle, together
with a kind message from the Prince. {164}
And now my story is at an end. I hope you will agree with me that
Peter Poodle received what really was no more than he deserved, which,
indeed, is but the very truth; for a finer little man it would be hard
to find, as you surely would say could you know him as well as I do.
[Illustration] * * * * *
What became of Rolie Polie? Did the little clown make a good King? Did
Helen go to visit the Prince? And did they ever return to Toyville?
Lucky those questions were asked so quickly, for the ink upon my pen
was almost dry and I had drawn my chair to the fire for a little snooze
before dinner.
Yes, Helen visited the Prince, and with Mr. Poodle the two made many
more trips to Toyville, and to the Realm of Mother Goose. Of course,
after the Prince had been away for so long a time the King and Queen
wanted to have him in the Castle near them always, but bye and bye,
when Mr. Poodle came with the toys the Queen had ordered, and brought
Helen with him, the Queen very kindly gave her consent to another trip
to Toyville.
Much to their surprise, upon again entering the Valley of Happiness,
they found the Realm to be ruled not by Rolie Polie, but by King
Hans the First, called by some King Hans the Happy, and by others
Happy Hans. However, their surprise and wonder were soon dispelled
by the Mayor, who told Mr. Poodle how, at the first meeting of the
councillors following the departure of King Tommy and Queen Helen, it
had been suggested that the name Rolie Polie, while being a fine one
for a clown, really seemed too frivolous for a King, so by an act of
Parliament it was changed to Hans the First. {165}
Mr. Poodle highly commended this action, and then asked if the rule of
Hans the First had been a happy one.
The Mayor laughed merrily at that question. “Indeed it has,” said he;
“but you may see for yourself, as the Court Historian has recorded it
all in a big book.”
[Illustration]
Sure enough, when they reached the Castle there was the big book and on
the cover were letters spelling words which read: _A Most Marvellous
History, Wherein is Recorded the Strange and Wonderous Happenings of
Happy Hans_. {166}
Mr. Poodle has often, since then, read all of that history to Helen and
Tommy, and with them has had many a good laugh over its merry tales.
I, too, have enjoyed a laugh over those quaint pages, for Mr. Poodle
brought the book back with him from Toyville, and now keeps it in his
shop, where anybody may read the words as easily as can be, for they
are not at all big or hard to spell.
Sometime, I think I will ask Mr. Poodle to allow me to send that
_History_ to the Printer Man and have more copies made, so that other
little boys and girls can read all about Hans and his strange and
wonderful adventures, of which there is no room to tell anything here,
as anyone can see quite plainly, for there is only space enough left to
print this one little picture.
[Illustration: THE END.]
[Illustration: Toyville]
[Illustration: A Map of the Valley of Happiness and the City of
Toyville Surveyed during the Reign of Happy Hans
A.D. 1906]
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with some
exceptions noted below. Original printed page numbers are shown like
this: {52}. Original small caps are now uppercase. Italics look _like
this_. The transcriber produced the cover image from the original and
hereby assigns it to the public domain. Some liberty was taken in
converting chapter heading pages, which were full-page illustrations,
to text headings for this simple text edition, by inserting punctuation
(full stops).
Several illustrations were moved from within paragraphs to between
nearby paragraphs. This results in some slight inaccuracy in the page
references given in the “The Pictures”—the List of Illustrations—for
the images originally facing pages 68 and 94. The illustration
originally printed across facing pages 70 and 71 is marked herein as
two illustrations, with a caption divided between the two.
Original page images are available from archive.org—search for
“peterpoodletoyma00brad”. Images of two pages, including the
frontispiece _The Banquet_, were missing from the archive.org files;
these two images were provided by the Univ. of Minnesota Libraries,
Twin Cities, Children’s Literature Research Collections.
Page 16. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘knew about Toyville.’.
Page 17. Left quotation mark inserted before ‘Sometimes boys and girls’.
Page 26. Left quotation mark was removed from the paragraph starting:
‘Tommy assisted’.
Page 31. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘name of Grumbletown.’.
Page 32. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘brigands or bandits.’.
Page 36. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘city of Toyville.’.
Page 44. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘least until eight.’.
Page 62. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘plans topsy turvy.’.
Page 71. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘be thought comical.’.
Page 101. Left quotation mark was removed from ‘I tell you “I am a
clever one’.
Page 113. “cannon no the deck” to “cannon on the deck”.
Page 135. “about no enter” to “about to enter”.
Page 136. Left quotation mark inserted before “We” in “shouted the
King. We must”.
Page 159. ‘bringing Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle.” Why, this’ to
‘bringing Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle. Why, this’.