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

"Dear me, how dreadful! Was he hurt?" eagerly asked the Lamb on
Wheels, rolling over a little closer to the table on which stood the
Tin Soldiers and their Captain. None of the Soldiers spoke while
their Captain was talking, as that was not considered polite.

"No, the Clown wasn't exactly hurt," said the Captain, "but his
trousers were scorched."

"Oh, his lovely red and yellow trousers!" bleated the Lamb. "How
sad! Tell me about it, please!"

"Well, you see, the Clown was doing a few tricks to amuse us, and----"

"Hush, sir! Quiet if you please, sir!" exclaimed the Sergeant,
saluting his Captain. "Some one is coming, sir! I hear them, sir!"

And just then the door opened and Mirabell and Arnold came running
back into the room, the boy carrying a little wooden cannon and his
sister with a Wooden Doll in her hand--the doll that was to be a Red
Cross Nurse.

"Oh, Arnold! Look!" cried Mirabell.

"What's the matter?" asked her brother, as he began gathering up the
Tin Soldiers.

"Why, look at my Lamb on Wheels!" went on Mirabell. "I left her over
by the door, and now she has rolled over near the table."

"I guess the wind must have blown her," said Arnold.

"But the door wasn't open, nor the windows," went on Mirabell. "So
how could the wind blow her? Oh, Arnold, once before my Lamb moved
when I left her alone! Wouldn't it be wonderful if she could really
be alive and move by herself?"

"Yes, it would," admitted Arnold. "But your Lamb can't move by
herself any more than my Tin Soldiers can."

However, he little knew what went on after dark, when he and
Mirabell were asleep in bed, did he?

"Now we'll go out on the porch and have some fun," said Arnold,
putting his Soldiers back in their box.

It was a warm, sunny day, and soon the two children were having a
good time out on the porch of their house. Arnold set his Soldiers
in two rows, with the Captain at the head of one row and the
Sergeant at the head of the other. Then the boy put some paper