Half-Past Seven Stories Part 2

Of course, there was a lot of grumbling on the part of the redcoats, and a lot of barking and growling from the big hunter dogs, but the men had to get on their horses and call off their dogs and ride away.

"I guess they knew they were in the wrong," said Jehosophat, after they had tied up Rover and Brownie and Wienerwurst, and taken the stone and board away from Reddy's hole.

Then they looked in the hole-but no Reddy!

Meanwhile the Toyman had gone into the barn.

"Come here!" he shouted.

So they ran in, and there, in the corner, hidden under the hay was Reddy, all muddy from the brook and torn from the briars. His eyes looked very bright, but they looked pitiful too.

The Toyman put out his hand and stroked his fur. At first Reddy showed his teeth and snapped at the Toyman just like a baby wolf. But that hand came towards him so quietly, and the voice sounded so gentle, that Reddy lay still. You see, the Toyman somehow understood how to treat foxes and all kinds of animals just as well as he did boys, little or big.

"What _doesn't_ that man know?" Mother had said once, and right she was, too.

It took some time to train Reddy, for, although he was very small, he was very wild. However, the Toyman managed to tame him. Perhaps it was because the Little Lost Fox was wounded and sore and hurt all over.

Anyway, he seemed to appreciate what the Toyman did for him, for all he was a little wild child of the fields and the forests.

They built him a house, all for himself, and a fence of wire. It was great fun to see him poking his sharp nose through the holes and stepping around so daintily on his pretty little feet.

He always had such a wise look. In fact, he was too wise altogether, for one day he was gone, through some little hole he had dug under his fence.--And they never saw him again--at least, they haven't to this day.

At first the three children felt very sad about this, but when the Toyman explained it, they saw how everything was all right.

"You see," the Toyman said, "he's happier in the woods and fields than being cooped up here."

Marmaduke thought about that for a moment.

"Anyway," he began, "anyway,----"

"Yes?" said Mother, trying to help him out.

"Anyway, I'm glad we saved him from the ole redcoats," he finished.

And maybe Reddy will visit them again some day. Stranger things than that have happened. So, who knows!

II

THE BIG BOBSLED

Teddy the Buckskin Horse and Hal the Red Roan had just come in the yard. They were drawing a big load of lumber from the mill which stood in the woods on the north branch of the River.

Just before he unloaded the boards and planks back by the barn, the Toyman picked out a few of the finest and carried them into his shop.

That did look mysterious and suspicious--very pleasantly suspicious.

"I'll bet that's for us," declared Marmaduke.

"You just bet it is!" said his brother.

So each day for almost a week, they lingered around the shop, after school was out. But the Toyman never appeared until long after five.

He had his cornhusking to do, and he wanted to get all the fall jobs finished before cold weather.

One week went by, then another. It was very provoking, thought the boys, to have to wait so long for that secret.

Jehosophat did try once to find out about it. He stopped the Toyman as he was coming from the barn with a pail full of bubbly milk.

"Say, Toyman, what are those boards for?"

"What boards?" asked the Toyman--just as if he didn't know.

"Those boards you put in your workshop," both the boys answered together. It sounded like some chorus they had learned for Commencement.

"Ho ho!" laughed the Toyman, "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

He was hopeless. He was forever making queer answers and queerer rhymes which Miss Prue Parsons the school teacher didn't at all approve. But Father said it didn't hurt the children as far as he could see--it just entertained them.

So the Toyman was answering:

_"Ask me no questions an' I'll tell you no lies; Gooseberries are sour but make very sweet pies."_

The boys had to be content with that information, but it was very hard waiting.

There came a day when it rained, and the Toyman couldn't work in the fields, or paint the house, or mend the leaks in the roof of the barn.

Of course, he might have fixed Old Methusaleh's harness, which badly needed repairs, but he looked at the sky and said,--

"It looks like snow. I ought to get at that--"

Then he bit his lip and the secret was still safe.

Very mysteriously he unlocked the door of his workshop. And the boys peeked in.

"Where's your ticket, Sonny?" he asked, seeing their two heads in the doorway. That was his way, you see, making a game out of everything.

"We haven't any, but oh, Toyman, let us in, _plee-a-sse_."

"All right, but don't talk more than forty words to the minute, or I can't plane this straight," he said, working away at the boards.

They couldn't yet guess what _IT_ was. And it took a good many hours from his work and ch.o.r.es for the Toyman to finish IT, whatever IT was. But after about a week they saw standing against the wall four boards about two feet long, curved like this:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And four more cross-pieces of a very ordinary shape:

[Ill.u.s.tration]