"bldtn10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hope Laura Lee)

"That is strange," thought the tin Captain, as the girl clerk was
wrapping him and his men up in a large paper. "Very strange! Where
have I heard those names before--Dick and Arnold? I wonder--I
wonder----"

But just then the girl turned the box upside down to tie a knot in
the string she was putting around it, and the Captain and his men
had all they could do to keep in their places.

"Stand fast, every one of you!" said the Captain in a low voice to
his tin men. "We are perhaps going on a long trip."

The boy paid over his dollar of pocket money, his father added
another dollar, and then the box of toy Tin Soldiers was taken away.

Just what happened on their trip from the store of course the
Captain and his men did not know. They could feel themselves being
jiggled about, and at one time they were put on the seat of an
automobile, though they did not know it. And finally they were set
down with a jingle and a jangle, the guns of the men rattling
against the tin legs of the soldiers, and the sword of the Captain
tinkling in its scabbard.

"Now I'll have some fun with my Soldiers!" cried the boy, whose name
was Arnold.

The paper was taken off, the box was opened, and once more the Bold
Tin Soldier and his men saw the light of day. They looked about them
curiously.

The Captain and his men saw that they were in a pleasant, sunny
room. The box, which might have been called their "barracks," was on
a table, and, bending over it, was the boy, Arnold.

"Forward--March!" called Arnold, and one by one he took the Tin
Soldiers out of the box and set them in rows on the table, with the
Captain at the head of his men. That is the proper place for a
Captain, you know.

Of course if Arnold had not been there, and if no other human eyes
had been looking at the Tin Soldiers, they could have marched out of
the box by themselves. But, as it was, Arnold had to lift them out.
He did not know, of course, that his toys, and all other toys, have
the power of pretending they are alive at certain times.

As Arnold was standing his Soldiers in rows on the table, the door
of the room opened and a little girl came in.

"Oh, Arnold! what did you get?" she asked. "Oh, aren't they nice!"