“Oh, yes, and more,” spoke Mary. “You see, we are always getting lost, and every one is kind to us, so they start to take us home. But, just as Johnny says, we never seem to get there, except, of course, once in a while.”
“Or, if we do get home, we run out after something or other, and we’re lost again,” said Tommy.
“Well, don’t worry, I’ll take you safely home,” said the man, as he put his hat on his head real tightly, so the wind couldn’t blow it off again.
And then he and the children walked along some more, and, all at once, they came to a toy store. And, oh, what lovely things there were in the windows; toy boats, and toy houses, and dolls, and doll carriages, and toy automobiles, and steam engines that really went “choo-choo!” And there were whirligigs, and clowns that you couldn’t make lie down straight, no matter how you tried, for they always bobbed up again, smiling at you just like the Cheshire cat in the story.
“Oh, what a lovely place!” cried Mary. “Let’s stop here a while, and choose things.”
“Choose things; what do you mean?” asked the man.
“Oh,” said Johnny, “when we haven’t any money we look in the toy shop windows, and we choose the things we’d like to have and make-believe they’re ours. But we always let Mary have first choice, because she’s a girl, you know.”
“That is very nice and polite of you,” said the man. “Boys should always be kind to their sisters, and all other ladies. But since you have no money, and as you have been very kind to help me get my hat, I will take you in the toy shop and buy you each a toy, and you may choose whatever you like, only this will be real, and not make-believe, for you may take the toys home with you.”
“Oh, really?” inquired Mary, in delight.
“Do you mean truly?” asked Tommy, wonderingly.