Half-Past Seven Stories | Page 6

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 chores 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:
[Illustration]
And four more cross-pieces of a very ordinary shape:
[Illustration]
And one cross-piece with handles:
[Illustration]
Then one very long one like this:
[Illustration]
The thing to do was to guess what they would make when put together.
Just then the Toyman arrived with three barrel hoops. And he worked
away with his tools until the hoops were almost straight. Then he made
little holes in them and nailed them with little nails, very neatly, on the
four long curved pieces of wood. Then he fastened these curved pieces
together by nailing the cross-pieces between. He fastened the other pair
in the same way, and the affair began to look something like
catamarans, those funny boats the geographies say folks use in
Australasia.
[Illustration]
But when he nailed the big board on and attached the steering gear, it
was easy to see what all the time the Toyman had been planning to
make. And when he painted the runners yellow with a little blue edge
running around them, and the seat bright red, with a white star on it,
they decided it was the finest bobsled in the world.
And, oh yes, he had to paint the word "Scud" in blue letters, right near
the star.
[Illustration]

Yes sir, there was