The Story of a Plush Bear | Page 5

Outside the Northern Lights glowed faintly, and inside only a little candle was left gleaming, its beams reflected in some shiny gold stars that were to go on the tops of Christmas trees later on.
[Illustration: "Be Careful, Everybody!" Said the Plush Bear.
Page 12]
"Hello, everybody!" softly called the voice of the Flannel Pig, as he peered out from the roof of a toy dog house, where he had been put by one of the workmen. "Now we can have some more fun!"
"We must be sure every one is gone," said the Plush Bear, as he began to swing his head from side to side. For he had been wound up, and now the wheels and springs inside him were beginning to move.
"Oh, every one is gone," said the Wax Doll. "And this time they will stay away all night. Now we can have our usual fun."
"Is there any snow left?" asked the Polar Bear. "I should like to wash the face of the Plush Bear."
"And I'd wash yours, too!" laughed the Plush Bear. "But the little men swept out all the snow and closed the windows. There isn't so much as an icicle left."
"Too bad!" sighed the Polar Bear. "Well, we'll have fun some other way. Let's see, what shall we do? Have any of you ever seen me turn somersaults?" he asked, after a moment's pause.
"No. Can you do it?" asked the Plush Bear.
"You should see me!" boasted the big white Bear. "I don't believe anywhere in North Pole Land you will find a better somersault turner than I. Watch me!"
The Plush Bear and the other toys leaned forward from the shelves and tables where they sat or stood to see what would happen. If they had not been so eager to see what the Polar Bear was going to do some of them might have noticed a small, dark figure stealing up outside the workshop of Santa Claus, and stopping beneath one of the ice windows.
This little figure was that of an Eskimo boy--the same little chap, all dressed in sealskin and fur, who had looked in and almost reached through the window to take out the Plush Bear when he had interrupted the toys in the midst of their snowball fight.
"Ah, now is my chance!" murmured the little Eskimo boy, as he stepped softly over the snow, coming nearer and nearer to the workshop of Santa Claus. "If I can open a window I'll take out that Plush Bear, cart him off to the igloo, and have a lot of fun."
The Eskimo boy lived with his father and mother in a house made of blocks of snow and ice. This house was called an "igloo," and it takes its name from the house built by the seals in the far North. The Eskimos build their houses the same shape as the houses made in the ice by the seals. If you cut an orange or an apple in half, and put the flat side down on a table, you will see exactly how an Eskimo igloo is shaped.
"Oh, if I can only get the Plush Bear!" thought the Eskimo boy, as he stepped softly nearer and nearer to the workshop of Santa Claus.
It was not very dark in North Pole Land just then. Though the sun had gone down, and the long winter had set in, still there were the Northern Lights, which glowed and flickered in the sky and made enough of a gleam for the Eskimo boy to see his way over the snow. The snow, too, helped to make it less dark.
Ever since he had seen the Plush Bear through the window of Santa Claus' workshop that day, the Eskimo boy had wanted the plaything. So after his supper of seal fat and blubber, with a piece of tallow candle, which was to him what candy is to you, the boy, well wrapped in fur, started out from his igloo.
All this while, or at least after Santa Claus and his men had gone, the Plush Bear and the other toys were having fun among themselves. As I have told you, the Polar Bear was getting ready to turn somersaults to amuse the other toys.
"Watch me now!" cried the Polar Bear, as he leaned over and got ready to stand on his head.
"Say, why don't you turn some somersaults?" the Flannel Pig asked of the Plush Bear.
"Maybe I will after he gets through," the Plush Bear answered.
The Eskimo boy was now at one of the windows of the shop--a window which had for a pane a clear sheet of ice. The Eskimo boy blew his warm breath on this window pane, close to the place where, inside, there was a catch to hold the window shut.
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" breathed the Eskimo boy on the glass. And