hinking of Joe's Nodding Donkey. But my Bear wags his head."

"Maybe he won't now, after all that happened," suggested Nettie.

"Oh, I guess he will," said Arthur. "But I'll wind him up and see."

He turned the key that wound up the spring, and as soon as it was tight
enough the Plush Bear began to move his paws, shake his head from side
to side and growl in a gentle voice, just as Santa Claus had intended he
should do.

"He's all right," said Arthur.

"Thank goodness for that!" exclaimed the Plush Bear to himself. "One
never knows what may happen when one falls out of a car window and then
from a wheeled chair to the boardwalk. I might have got a lot of slivers
in me, or have loosened a wheel! I'm glad I'm all right."

After an hour spent on the boardwalk, seeing the many sights and looking
at the waves of the ocean rolling up on the sandy beach, Arthur and his
sister, with their father and mother, went back to their hotel. Evening
was coming on and it was time for supper, or dinner as it is called in
fashionable seaside hotels, for the principal meal is served in the
evening instead of at noon.

"I wish we could go down and play on the sand," said Nettie, as she and
her brother got out of the wheeled chair. "My Rag Doll wants to go
barefoot on the beach."

"And I think my Plush Bear would like it, too," said Arthur.

"You may go down and play in the sand all day to-morrow," promised their
mother.

"Oh, won't we have fun!" cried Nettie. "Maybe my Rag Doll can learn to
swim."

"Well, swimming won't hurt _her_," said Arthur; "but I'm not going to
let my Plush Bear get in the water. I'm going to make a sand cave for
him to live in."

"Well, it seems I am to have some fun," thought the toy, as he was taken
up in the elevator.

The Plush Bear did not like the elevator very much. It gave him a queer
feeling among his wheels and spring; and his grunter, by means of which
he growled, seemed to be turning over and over. But this did not last
long, and while Arthur and Nettie, with their parents, were at dinner in
the hotel, the Bear and the Doll had a chance to talk.

"How do you like it at this fashionable seaside hotel?" asked the Bear.

"Quite well," answered the Doll, lifting her eyebrows the way she had
seen some ladies doing in the hotel parlor as she was carried in. "I
wish Nettie would put a different dress on me, though," the Doll added.
"It is fashionable to dress here in the evening, but she has lef