"Hold your horses, Sonny."
The teacher in the Red Schoolhouse up the road would have reproved him for this, but the children thought whatever the Toyman said was all right.
Of course he meant not to be too impatient and—but just then the dinner horn sounded, way out over the pond and over the fields, and the children ran into the house, just as you would have done too.
It didn't take long to finish dinner that day. For desert they had blackberry pie, very juicy and nice, and they didn't even wait to wash the red marks of that pie from their faces but just ran for the Crying Tree.
The Toyman felt in all of his six big pockets. And out came needles and thread, and pieces of clean muslin besides.
Stitch, stitch, stitch went his fingers, for a thousand stitches or more. And bye and bye the sails were all cut and sewed and fitted on the three little masts.
Then the Toyman stopped.
"We haven't christened her yet," he said. "We should have done that long ago."
In his pockets he rummaged again, those pockets which always held just the right thing. It was a small bottle this time, all filled with tiny pink pills. Much nicer these were, the children thought, than that yellow stuff in the big bottle they hated so.
The Toyman poured the little pills out.