the Colonel, Sam was
watching on the veranda for his father's return, and was quick to spy
the parcel under his arm, and many were the wild guesses he made as to
its contents. The Colonel left it carelessly upon the hall table, and
Sam could easily have peeped into it, but he would as soon have thought
of cutting off his hand.

"What's in that box in the hall, Colonel Jinks?" he asked in an
embarrassed voice at supper, as he fingered the edge of the tablecloth
and looked blushingly at his plate.

"Oh, that?" replied his father with a wink--"that's a bombshell." And a
bombshell indeed it proved to be for the Jinks family.

The box was put upon a table in the room in which little Sam slept with
his parents, and he was told that he could have it in the morning. He
was a long time going to sleep that night, trying to imagine the
contents of the mysterious box. Not until he had quite made up his
mind that it was a farmyard did he finally drop off. At the first break
of day Sam was out of bed. With bare feet he walked on tiptoe across
the cold bare floor and seized the precious box. He lifted the lid at
one corner and put in his hand and felt what was there, and tried to
guess what it could be. Perhaps it was a Noah's Ark; but no, if those
were people there were too many of them. He would have to give it up.
He took off the cover and looked in. It was not a farmyard, at any
rate, and the corners of his mouth became tremulous from
disappointment. No, they were soldiers. But what did he want of
soldiers? He had heard of such things, but they had never been anything
in his life. He had never seen a real soldier nor heard of a
toy-soldier before, and he did not quite know what they were for. He
crept back to bed crestfallen, his present in his arms. Sitting up in
bed he began to investigate the contents of the box. It was a complete
infantry battalion, and beautiful soldiers they were. Their coats were
red, their trousers blue, and they wore white helmets and carried
muskets with bayonets fixed. Sam began to feel reconciled. He turned
the box upside-down and emptied the soldiers upon the counterpane. Then
he noticed that they were not all alike. There were some officers, who
carried swords instead of rifles. He began to look for them and single
them out, when his eye was caught by a magnificent white leaden plume
issuing from the helmet of one of them. He picked up this soldier, and
the sig