He went home, happy. Weeks and days passed, and he nodded over to the old house, and the old man nodded back. Then the little boy went over again.
The old man went to find a treasure box that he had with secret drawers, and the toy soldier took this opportunity of speaking once more to the little boy.
"Do you still sing on Sundays?" he asked. "When the curtains are up I can see you all over there at home distinctly. Tell me about my brother. Does he still live? Yes, he is happy then. Oh, I cannot bear it here any longer."
"You are given away as a present," the little boy said. "You will have to stay. Can't you try and make the best of it?"
The old man came in now with the box. Secret springs released the drawers and in these were cards, large and gilded, such as one never sees now. Then he opened the piano. It had landscapes painted on the inside of the lid. It was very hoarse but the old man could play on it and he sang a song too.
"I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!" shouted the toy soldier as loudly as he could, and he threw himself off the cabinet right down on the floor.
Where was he? The old man looked, and the little boy looked, but the soldier was away and he stayed away.
"I shall find him!" said the old man, but he never did. The floor was too open. The toy soldier had fallen through a crack, and there he lay.
The little boy went home, and that week passed, and several weeks too. The windows were frosted; the little boy had to breathe on them to get a peep over at the old house; and snow covered the carved heads over the windows. The old house looked very cold, but now there was no one at home in it. And when the spring came they pulled the house down.
After a while a fine house was built in its place with large windows and smooth white walls. Before it, where part of the old house had stood, a garden was laid out and there were grape vines running along the walks. Birds built their nests in the vines and chattered away to each other, but not about the old house, for they could not remember it, so many years had passed. So many years had gone by that the little boy had grown up to a whole man. And he had just been married and had brought his wife to live in the house here, where the garden was. She had brought a wild flower with her that she found very pretty and he stood by her as she planted it in the garden and pressed the earth around it with her fingers.