"I will take Theodore," said the little girl, "for I want to get a girl doll just like him."
They rode quite a distance on the train, and then in a carriage, and stopped at a house that made Theodore's heart thump so loudly that he feared they would hear it, for the house was the home of good Mother Munster, and there standing in the doorway was the dear old lady herself.
They went into the kitchen and the little girl put Theodore on a chest which stood in the room.
In the excitement of seeing the doll-shop she forgot to take him with her, and as soon as Theodore found himself alone he slipped off the chest and hid behind it.
When the little girl came back from the shop she had a large doll in her arms and she quite forgot Theodore.
A few days after, when Mother Munster was cleaning her kitchen, she moved the chest, and there was Theodore with his arms stretched up toward her.
Mother Munster picked him up. "Why, it is my boy!" she said. "How ever did you get here?" she asked. Then she thought of the little girl. "I hope she does not send for you," she said, and she held Theodore tightly in her arms.
"So do I," said Theodore, and although he did not speak out loud Mother Munster seemed to understand.
"You'd rather live here, hadn't you?" she asked. "I will put you on this seat in the corner and you shall be my little boy. All the girls have gone to homes of their own, and Jacob and I are very lonely.
"Look, Jacob," she said as he came in the door, "here is the worsted doll I made to send across the water. He has come back to live with us, and so at last we have a son."