HE sun had been up some hours when Tommy awoke in his little bed at the toymaker’s the next day. Then, oh my, what a surprise he did have! for the moment he opened his eyes, they looked right into the loveliest, sweetest eyes in all the world; and he knew that those eyes belonged to—his dear mother.
Yes, Tommy’s own dear mother was leaning over his little bed in Peter Poodle’s toy shop. She hugged him ever and ever so tight, and there were happy tears in her eyes. And, on the other side of the bed, was—his father!
All in a pop, Tommy’s memory had come back to him; the memory that went away when he was so sick at the wood-chopper’s house in the hills.
Tommy didn’t know how his father and mother happened to be in Peter Poodle’s toy shop, and he was too happy to try and think. Then he remembered that his {158} name wasn’t Tommy. “Oh, Mr. Poodle,” he said, as he saw the little toy maker come into the room, “I am not a King any more, because my father is the King. But I am a Prince, Mr. Poodle, and my name is Arthur.”
“Yes, indeed, you are a Prince,” said Mr. Poodle, “and sometime you will be King.”
A troubled look now came into Prince Arthur’s eyes. “Will the Toy people love me when I am a real King, Mr. Poodle?” he asked; “and will they have me for their King, too? Because I like to be the King of Toyville, and I want to drive away the King of Grumbletown.”
“Toy people will always love you,” said Mr. Poodle, “because you are always very kind to them; and when you are a real King, you can ask all the children to be kind to their toys, and then, pretty soon, there won’t be any more Grumbletown, because no toys will go there.”
“That is what I will do the very first day I am King,” said the Prince. “And now I will get up and send the Toyville treasure to the kind lady in the hills.”