hur, the fat boy, as he ran
into the house as soon as the auto stopped. "I have a Bear that growls!"

Nettie, his little sister, who was running to meet her brother, carrying
in her arms a Rag Doll, stopped when Arthur began to open the bundle he
had carried from Mr. Mugg's store.

"I don't like growly bears!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, this bear is nice! He's a Plush Bear," Arthur said. "He wobbles his
head and he jiggles his paws, and he growls, but it's only a
make-believe growl. Look at my new Bear, Nettie!"

Arthur quickly took the wrappings from the Plush Bear and wound up the
spring as Mr. Mugg had shown him. Then, when the Bear was set down on
the floor, the toy began to wave his paws, to shake his head from side
to side, and from his red mouth came several growls.

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Nettie, who had knelt down beside her brother to
look at the Bear. "I don't like him when he growls!"

"Oh, he won't hurt you, Nettie!" laughed the fat boy Arthur. "See, he's
waving his paw to you, and he only growls like your rubber doll squeaks.
My Plush Bear is nice, Nettie."

And when the little girl found that the Bear did no harm, but only
growled in a make-believe, jolly fashion, she decided to make friends
with him. She sat down on the floor close beside him, and when the
clockwork inside the toy had run down, and the Bear was still, Nettie
took him up in her arms and loved him.

"Isn't he nice?" asked Arthur.

"Yes, pretty nice," agreed Nettie. "But he isn't as nice as my Rag
Doll."

"Well, girls like dolls and boys like Plush Bears. That's the best way,
I guess," said Arthur.

Then he and his sister played some more with the Plush Bear, winding him
up, listening to his pretended growls, and watching him wave his paws
and shake his head.

That night after the children had gone to bed and the Plush Bear was in
the closet of the playroom with the Rag Doll, the Bear leaned over and
whispered to the Doll:

"What sort of place is it here?"

"Oh, very nice!" the Rag Doll answered. "Two better children than Nettie
and Arthur you could not wish for! And every Summer they go to the
seashore."

"The seashore? Where is that?" asked the Plush Bear. "Is it near the
North Pole?"

"Oh, my, no!" answered the Rag Doll. "It is so long since I was at the
North Pole, where I once lived in the shop of Santa Claus, that I have
almost forgotten about it. But the seashore is quite different. I have
been there with Nettie for two