Tell Me Another Story | Page 5

stayed away.
"I shall find him!" said the old man, but he never did. The floor was too open. The toy soldier had fallen through a crack, and there he lay.
The little boy went home, and that week passed, and several weeks too. The windows were frosted; the little boy had to breathe on them to get a peep over at the old house; and snow covered the carved heads over the windows. The old house looked very cold, but now there was no one at home in it. And when the spring came they pulled the house down.
After a while a fine house was built in its place with large windows and smooth white walls. Before it, where part of the old house had stood, a garden was laid out and there were grape vines running along the walks. Birds built their nests in the vines and chattered away to each other, but not about the old house, for they could not remember it, so many years had passed. So many years had gone by that the little boy had grown up to a whole man. And he had just been married and had brought his wife to live in the house here, where the garden was. She had brought a wild flower with her that she found very pretty and he stood by her as she planted it in the garden and pressed the earth around it with her fingers.
Oh, what was that? She had pricked her finger. There sat something pointed, sticking straight out of the soft mould.
It was--yes, guess--it was the toy soldier who had tumbled and turned about among the timber and the rubbish, and had lain for many years in the ground.
The young wife wiped the dirt off the soldier, first with a green leaf, and then with her fine handkerchief. It was just as if the toy soldier had awakened from a dream. Then the young man told his wife about the old house and the old man and the toy soldier that he had sent over because the old man had been so lonely.
"Very, very lonely!" said the toy soldier, "but it is delightful not to be forgotten!"

THE LITTLE BOY WHO WANTED A CASTLE
There was once a boy who thought a great deal about castles. He had a very beautiful picture book with coloured pictures of castles that showed how large and different and fine they were, and, presently, after thinking a long time about it, the boy decided that a castle was where he would like, most of all, to live.
So very early one morning, when it was a sunny day and pleasant enough for any sort of an adventure, the boy made up his mind that he would go out for a little journey and try to find himself a castle.
He told his mother about it, for he always told her everything, and she smiled down into his face as she buttoned his coat.
"Are you sure that you can find a castle?" she asked.
"Oh, yes indeed, very sure," the boy answered. "And if I can't I'll ask some one on the road and he'll be able to tell me."
"Well, don't go so far away from home as to be late for supper," said his mother, kissing him good-bye. And the boy said good-bye to his mother and started off, but he made up his mind that probably he wouldn't be home that night because he would be having his supper in his castle.
The road was wide, and long, and winding, and the boy went down it for a long way. He saw no great golden castle, only pleasant little white houses with gardens, and people passing by with loads of vegetables and fruit and flowers going to the town. At last he came to a sharp turn in the road, and he saw an old man standing there with his dog.
"Please, sir," asked the boy, "I am taking a journey to find a castle. Can you tell me how to find one?"
The old man looked surprised. "I've heard about castles around here," he said, "but I don't know as you'll find one in a day. You'll know one, though, by the gold on the roof," he explained.
So the boy went on farther still, and he came to another turn in the road. A girl with her flock of geese stood there, and the boy spoke to her. "I am taking a journey to a castle," he said. "Can you tell me how to find one?"
The girl laughed. "You'll know it by the garden," she said. "All castles have very pretty gardens."
So the boy went farther still, and where the road curved he met an old granny walking toward him with her knitting in her hand.
"Please, granny," said the boy. "I am