"I hate 'em! I hoped maybe you had soldiers. Everything here's for girls!"
"Now, isn't that strange," Blue Bonnet said, untying a parcel with haste. "I brought things for girls last time—seemed sort of natural to buy dolls and dishes, being a girl, but this time I brought the very things you wanted. Soldiers!"
The brown eyes grew round with delight.
"For me? All for me?"
The little hands went out eagerly.
"You may play with them all you like. Perhaps you will want to pass them on to some other little boy when you tire of them."
"I sha'n't never tire of 'em. I just love 'em. Oh, ain't they grand! Why, there's a whole lot, ain't they?"
"A regiment," Blue Bonnet said, delighted with the child's enthusiasm. "And horses! Soldiers must be well mounted, of course!"
The boy was upright in bed now, his face aglow with excitement.
Blue Bonnet made a pillow into a background and put the soldiers in a row before the child. The next moment he was oblivious of her presence.