ldier lay close to Harold's watch that
was tick, tick, ticking the time away, but Harold loitered, and at last
he stopped to play a game of marbles with another little boy whom he
met. "I don't care if I am late for school," he said.

"Oho!" thought the Toy Soldier, and as the two little boys played he
dropped out from under Harold's coat and into the gutter. When Harold
reached school, late, the Toy Soldier was gone.

Joe found the Toy Soldier in the gutter and ran home with him to his
mother.

"I have a Toy Soldier!" he said.

"How brave he looks," said Joe's mother.

All the rest of the day the Toy Soldier went about with Joe and
listened to what he said and watched what he did.

"I can't go to the grocer's; I'm afraid of his dog."

"I can't put in that nail. I am afraid that the hammer will slip and
hit my finger." This was what the Toy Soldier heard.

Then it was Joe's bedtime, and the Toy Soldier went upstairs with him
to bed, but Joe cried all the way.

"I'm afraid of the dark!" he said.

When Joe was asleep the Toy Soldier slipped out of his hand and fell
into a scrap basket. He knew very well that he couldn't stay with a
child who was a coward.

No one saw the Toy Soldier when the basket was emptied in the morning.
He went with the scraps into a huge bag, and then into a wagon, and
then into a factory where men sorted the cloth to make it into paper.
One of these men found the Toy Soldier and took him home to his little
boy, who was lame and had to stay alone all day.

"Has it been a good day, John?" his father asked.

"Oh, yes!" laughed John as he hugged the Toy Soldier.

"You have my supper ready just in time," his father said, watching the
soup bubbling in a shining pot on the stove.

"And I cleaned a little and set the table," John said.

"Has your back hurt you very much to-day?" asked his father.

"A little, but I don't mind that," John said. "See how fine the Toy
Soldier looks standing on the table!"

"Oho!" thought the Toy Soldier, "now I have found a place where I can
stay. Here is another soldier, cheerful and willing to work, and
brave!"

WHAT HAPPENED TO DUMPS

BY CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY

Once upon a time there was a queer little elf named Dumps, who lived
all by himself in a dark little house down in a valley. Ever since he
could remember, things had gone wrong with him.

He shivered in the cold and kicked the coal bucket when the fire
wouldn't burn. He howled wh