It was close to midnight now—the time when all toys are allowed to do as they please, provided no one sees them. No one must ever look at, or watch, the toys at their play. In fact, no one has ever seen them having fun after dark in the big stores.
And the reason for that is this:
When the toys were given the power of coming to life, of talking, moving about, having fun, and behaving just as they would if they were real folk—when they were given this power there was just one thing they were told, and that was:
“No one must ever see you moving about!�
“Oh, no! Of course not!� said all the toys.
And so, from the very beginning, no one has ever seen the toys at play. Just the very moment the eyes of a boy or a girl, or a daddy or a mother, or even an uncle or an aunt, lights on one of the toys, that toy just becomes as still as anything.
If, by some chance, when you weren’t looking a Sawdust Doll should start to dance with a Calico Clown, and you should turn your eyes toward them, they would stop at once, and you’d never know but what they had been motionless all their lives.
Because of this no one has ever seen the toys at play, and the only reason I am allowed to tell you what they did is because I promised not to look. They told me about it afterward—just how it all happened—and that’s why I may put it in a book. But as for looking myself at the toys as they play, or letting any one else look—never! I wouldn’t dream of it!
“Am I going too fast for you?� politely asked the White Rocking Horse of the Sawdust Doll, as he rode her on his back.
“Oh, not at all,� she answered. “I like it.�