Chapter XXI. JOY.

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The Twenty-first Chapter.

_Of the next Morning and how Tommy found a New Joy. Also of the Questions asked by Helen, and of how her Mamma answered._

The sun had been up some hours when Tommy awoke in his little bed at the toymaker’s the next day. Then, oh my, what a surprise he did have! for the moment he opened his eyes, they looked right into the loveliest, sweetest eyes in all the world; and he knew that those eyes belonged to—his dear mother.

Yes, Tommy’s own dear mother was leaning over his little bed in Peter Poodle’s toy shop. She hugged him ever and ever so tight, and there were happy tears in her eyes. And, on the other side of the bed, was—his father!

All in a pop, Tommy’s memory had come back to him; the memory that went away when he was so sick at the wood-chopper’s house in the hills.

Tommy didn’t know how his father and mother happened to be in Peter Poodle’s toy shop, and he was too happy to try and think. Then he remembered that his {158} name wasn’t Tommy. “Oh, Mr. Poodle,” he said, as he saw the little toy maker come into the room, “I am not a King any more, because my father is the King. But I am a Prince, Mr. Poodle, and my name is Arthur.”

“Yes, indeed, you are a Prince,” said Mr. Poodle, “and sometime you will be King.”

A troubled look now came into Prince Arthur’s eyes. “Will the Toy people love me when I am a real King, Mr. Poodle?” he asked; “and will they have me for their King, too? Because I like to be the King of Toyville, and I want to drive away the King of Grumbletown.”

“Toy people will always love you,” said Mr. Poodle, “because you are always very kind to them; and when you are a real King, you can ask all the children to be kind to their toys, and then, pretty soon, there won’t be any more Grumbletown, because no toys will go there.”

“That is what I will do the very first day I am King,” said the Prince. “And now I will get up and send the Toyville treasure to the kind lady in the hills.”

“No need to do that, dear,” said his mother. “The wood chopper and his good wife are right here, and no longer poor, for the King has rewarded their care of his boy.”

The Prince looked across the room, and there, sure enough, was the kind lady, and the wood chopper who now wore a uniform of the King’s Royal House Guard.

Although the Prince felt tired, from his long journey to Toyville, he quickly jumped out of bed, and the next minute was giving the kind lady a big hug. Then he dressed, and by that time Helen came to play with him.

“I am not a King any more,” he said to Helen, “because, you see, I am only a King’s son. But I am a Prince, and {159} my name is Arthur. You may call me Tommy, though, if you wish. Some time I am going to be a King, and then will you be my Queen, Helen?”

“Yes, I will,” said Helen, “and I am going to call you Arthur, because that is your really truly name. I wish you would come and play now. I have brought you Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle, but I couldn’t bring Rolie Polie, because he is not here any more.”

“Oh, no,” answered the Prince, “it wouldn’t be right for Rolie Polie to come, because he must stay and be King in Toyville. Thank you, Helen, for bringing Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle. Why, this is the same box I carried to the Black Lion! Did the bad men send it to Mr. Poodle?”

“The bad men were captured by the King’s soldiers and are now in prison,” answered the Queen. “Thanks to the wood chopper’s good wife, who followed you in your long tramp through the hills, we have our boy again, and those who stole him away are punished.”

The Prince did not play very hard that afternoon, and by and by he said to Helen: “I do not know why going to Toyville has made me so tired, but I suppose being a King is hard work. Do you think it is, Helen?”

“Yes, I do,” said Helen. “I think being a King is very hard, and takes a big man like your papa. But some time you will be a big man, and then being a King won’t make you tired any more.”

This happy time of their playing passed all too hurriedly for Helen, who hardly realized its ending before she found herself saying goodbye to her little playmate.

“You will come and see me soon, won’t you Helen?” said the Prince, his lips trembling. “Come very soon {160} Helen, because I want a little girl to play with and to go with me on journeys; and O, Helen, now I have a mamma of my own, and perhaps she will read us stories.”

“Yes, indeed, I will read stories to you,” said the Queen, turning from talking earnestly with Helen’s mamma, who had come to say goodbye to the Prince, “and Helen is coming to see us very, very soon.”

Then the goodbys were all said, and amidst the cheering of the townspeople who were lining the streets outside the toyshop, the King and Queen, accompanied by the Royal House Guards, bore the Prince away to his new home in the Castle among the hills.

That evening when Helen had been tucked snugly in her little bed, she said: “Mamma, how did Prince Arthur get lost; did somebody steal him away from his home?”

“Yes, dear,” said Helen’s mamma. Then she snuggled down on the bed and hugging Helen close, told her how, a while ago, the young Prince had been stolen away by the ruffians and left in the forest where he was found by the good wood chopper.

“Was the Prince ill when he was found?” asked Helen.

“Yes, dear,” answered her mamma, “the Prince was so ill that, when the fever left him, it took away his memory, and he did not know that he was a King’s son.”

“Did the wood chopper know that the little boy he found was a Prince, mamma?”

“No,” said her mamma; “the wicked men had dressed the Prince in ragged clothes when they left him in the forest to starve, and he did not look at all like a Prince.”

“How did the King ever find the Prince?” asked Helen. “Did he go to the wood chopper’s house, mamma?” {161}

“No, dear, he was hunting everywhere for some trace of his lost boy, and the wood chopper’s wife was hunting too, and she had followed the Prince almost to this city. Then one day the King met her, and he knew from what she told him that his Arthur was alive; so he came riding with his soldiers as fast as ever he could and saw the little Prince just as he entered the Black Lion Inn. Now dear, it is time for my little girl to go to sleep!”

But Helen wasn’t one bit sleepy. “Why was the Prince stolen away, mamma?” she asked.

“I do not know,” answered her mamma. “Some people say that the King’s brother, Duke Robert, who is called Robert the Red, had him stolen so his own son would be heir to the throne, but no one knows this for certain. If Robert the Red did have him taken away, he never can steal him again, because the King has made the wood chopper the Prince’s own special guard, and he and his good wife will now live in the Castle.”

“Robert the Red was a wicked man to steal away the Prince, wasn’t he, mamma!” said Helen. “Will the Prince be a King some day, mamma, and will he come for me and make me a Queen, like he said?”

“Listen,” said Helen’s mamma, “there is Grandpapa calling me. Good night, little Wideawake.” Then she gave Helen a hug, and turning the light low, left the room.

“Mamma didn’t answer my question,” thought Helen. “But never mind, I know he will, because Tommy said he would,—Prince Arthur, I mean.” Then she closed her eyes and soon was fast asleep.

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_THE CONCLUSION._

Over the front door of Peter Poodle’s shop there now hangs a big and comical sign on which is painted a chubby little soldier with a red coat and a black hat. Right over the soldier, in black letters with curly red capitals, appears the name _Peter Poodle_, and beneath the soldier are the words, _Toy Maker to the King_. This is how it happened:

One day a big wagon drove up in front of Peter Poodle’s shop; in it there was a large, flat, wooden box, sealed with the Royal Coat of Arms. “Does Mr. Poodle live here?” asked the driver. “Yes,” answered the toy maker.

The next minute, much to the surprise of the little man, he saw the big box being deposited right in the middle of the floor of his shop. Mr. Poodle unscrewed the lid with trembling fingers. Inside, packed carefully, so it would not receive a single scratch, was the beautiful sign. With the sign also came a great parchment, signed and sealed with the Royal Arms. On this parchment were letters telling how Mr. Poodle had been made Toy Maker to the King.

While Mr. Poodle was folding up the papers and wrappings that had come about the sign, so as to put them all away neatly, a little envelope dropped to the floor. This likewise bore the Royal Seal, and when Mr. Poodle had it open, he found a very kind note from the Queen ordering ever and ever so many toys for the Prince. It also contained an invitation for Mr. Poodle to come and visit at the Castle, together with a kind message from the Prince. {164}

And now my story is at an end. I hope you will agree with me that Peter Poodle received what really was no more than he deserved, which, indeed, is but the very truth; for a finer little man it would be hard to find, as you surely would say could you know him as well as I do.

Sure enough, when they reached the Castle there was the big book and on the cover were letters spelling words which read: _A Most Marvellous History, Wherein is Recorded the Strange and Wonderous Happenings of Happy Hans_. {166}

Mr. Poodle has often, since then, read all of that history to Helen and Tommy, and with them has had many a good laugh over its merry tales. I, too, have enjoyed a laugh over those quaint pages, for Mr. Poodle brought the book back with him from Toyville, and now keeps it in his shop, where anybody may read the words as easily as can be, for they are not at all big or hard to spell.

Sometime, I think I will ask Mr. Poodle to allow me to send that _History_ to the Printer Man and have more copies made, so that other little boys and girls can read all about Hans and his strange and wonderful adventures, of which there is no room to tell anything here, as anyone can see quite plainly, for there is only space enough left to print this one little picture.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with some exceptions noted below. Original printed page numbers are shown like this: {52}. Original small caps are now uppercase. Italics look _like this_. The transcriber produced the cover image from the original and hereby assigns it to the public domain. Some liberty was taken in converting chapter heading pages, which were full-page illustrations, to text headings for this simple text edition, by inserting punctuation (full stops).

Several illustrations were moved from within paragraphs to between nearby paragraphs. This results in some slight inaccuracy in the page references given in the “The Pictures”—the List of Illustrations—for the images originally facing pages 68 and 94. The illustration originally printed across facing pages 70 and 71 is marked herein as two illustrations, with a caption divided between the two.

Original page images are available from archive.org—search for “peterpoodletoyma00brad”. Images of two pages, including the frontispiece _The Banquet_, were missing from the archive.org files; these two images were provided by the Univ. of Minnesota Libraries, Twin Cities, Children’s Literature Research Collections.

Page 16. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘knew about Toyville.’.

Page 17. Left quotation mark inserted before ‘Sometimes boys and girls’.

Page 26. Left quotation mark was removed from the paragraph starting: ‘Tommy assisted’.

Page 31. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘name of Grumbletown.’.

Page 32. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘brigands or bandits.’.

Page 36. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘city of Toyville.’.

Page 44. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘least until eight.’.

Page 62. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘plans topsy turvy.’.

Page 71. Right quotation mark was inserted after ‘be thought comical.’.

Page 101. Left quotation mark was removed from ‘I tell you “I am a clever one’.

Page 113. “cannon no the deck” to “cannon on the deck”.

Page 135. “about no enter” to “about to enter”.

Page 136. Left quotation mark inserted before “We” in “shouted the King. We must”.

Page 159. ‘bringing Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle.” Why, this’ to ‘bringing Captain Pinkle and Captain Poddle. Why, this’.