“Yes,” answered the good-natured gardener. “Come along!”
Back to the garage he went where he had been mending something that was broken on the automobile, taking the Tin Soldier with him and followed by the two boys. Patrick heated a soldering iron in a little furnace in which burned glowing charcoal. Then Patrick took some shining metal that looked like silver, but which was really soft lead.
Solder melts easily, and when some is placed on two pieces of broken tin and heated, it holds together the two pieces of tin just as glue holds together pieces of cardboard or paper.
In a little while the Bold Tin Soldier was mended, and there he stood, straight and stiff, with his sword at his side as before. And where the sword had been soldered on a tiny spot of bright lead showed.
“I can paint that spot over for you tomorrow, when I have some red paint,” said Patrick to Arnold.
“Oh, I know what I can do I” cried Arnold, looking at the shiny spot of lead. “I can pretend that is a medal my Captain got in the battle when his sword was broken.”
“Yes, you can do that,” agreed Dick.
So the toy was mended again, and was almost as good as before, and very glad the Captain was.
“For no matter what your men may say,” he thought to himself, “a Captain without a sword is like an elephant without a trunk–he doesn’t look himself.”
Thanking Patrick very much for what he had done in mending the toy, Arnold went home, taking his set of Soldiers with him. A little later his sister, Mirabell, followed, bringing with her the Lamb on Wheels. And when the two toys were left alone, the children having gone to supper, they talked together–did the Soldier and the Lamb.