Half-Past Seven Stories | Page 2

and boats, and jokes and happiness and laughter.
His face is as brown as saddle leather, with a touch of apple red in it from the sun. There are creases in it, too, because he laughs and jokes so much. Sometimes when he appears to be solemn you want to laugh most, for he's only pretending to be solemn. And, best of all, if you hurt yourself, or if your pet doggie hurts himself, the Toyman will know how to fix it, to "make it all well" again.
The Three Happy Children love him. That's what we always call them, though they, too, have other names--funny ones, you will think,--Jehosophat, Marmaduke, and Hepzebiah Green, but they are family names and came from some very old uncles and aunts.
They still live in the White House with the Green Blinds by the Side of the Road--that is, when they aren't sliding down hill, or fishing in the Pond, or riding on the hay, or to town with the Toyman and Ole Methusaleh. Mother and Father are still there. Home wouldn't be home without them. And they have many playmates and friends--of all sorts --two-legged and four-legged, in serge and corduroy, in feathers and fur.
[Illustration: "When they aren't riding on the hay, or to town with the Toyman and Ole Methusaleh."]
What they all did, the fun they had, and the trouble they got in and out of, you'll find if you turn these pages.
One thing more--a secret--in absolute confidence, though.--After all, it isn't really so very necessary to read these stories at _Half-Past Seven_. You can read them, or be read to, "any ole time," as the Toyman used to say--Monday morning, Thursday noon, or Saturday night--as long as it doesn't interfere with those lessons.
Still, the very best time is at twilight in summer when the lights and the fireflies begin to twinkle through the dusk, or in the winter around the fire just before you go to bed--with Father or Mother--or the Toyman.
* * * * *
P.S.--
The Toyman says to send his love and "The Top o' the Morning."

I
THE LITTLE LOST FOX
Marmaduke was sitting on the fence. He wasn't thinking of anything in particular, just looking around. Jehosophat called to him from the barnyard,--
"Come'n an' play 'I spy.'"
But Marmaduke only grumbled,--
"Don't want to."
"Well, let's play 'Cross Tag' then," Jehosophat suggested.
"Don't want to," repeated his brother again, not very politely.
Jehosophat thought for a moment, then he suggested something worth-while:
"I'll tell you what, let's play 'Duck-on-the-Rock.'"
Now as every boy in the world--at least in America--knows, that is a wonderful game, but Marmaduke only said very crossly,--
"I don't want to play any of your ol' games." Now when Marmaduke acted that way there must have been something the matter. Perhaps he had gobbled down his oatmeal too fast--in great big gulps--when he should have let the Thirty White Horses "champ, champ, champ," all those oats. They were cooked oats, but then the Thirty White Horses, unlike Teddy and Hal and ole Methusaleh, prefer cooked oats to raw.
Perhaps he had eaten a green apple. Sometimes he did that, and the tart juice puckered his mouth all up, and--what was worse--puckered his stomach all up, too.
Any way, he felt tired and out-of-sorts; tired of his toys, tired of all the games, even such nice ones as "Duck-on-the-rock" and "Red Rover."
There was nothing to do but sit on the fence.
Still, the world looked pretty nice from up there. It always looked more interesting from a high place, and sometimes it gave you an excited feeling. Of course, the big elm was a better perch, or the roof of the barn, and Marmaduke often wondered what it would be like to see the world from a big balloon, but the fence was good enough. It curved up over a little hill, and he could see lots of the world from there.
He looked over towards the West, where the Sun marched into his barn every night. Fatty Hamm declared that the Sun kept a garage behind that hill, but Marmaduke insisted it was a barn, for he liked horses best, and the Sun must drive horses. There was a real hill there, not little like the one where he sat on the fence, but a big one, 'most as big as a mountain, Marmaduke thought. Sometimes it was green, and sometimes grey or blue, and once or twice he had seen it almost as purple as a pansy.
But it was Fall now, and the hill had turned brown. Over it he could see little figures moving. He looked at them very carefully, with one eye shut to see them the better. Then he decided that the bigger ones were men on horses, the little ones dogs. They all looked tiny because they were so far away.
As they came nearer and the sun