“What do you want?” asked Mother, smiling at her two children as she left the elevator with them. “What would you like, Richard?” she asked; for that was Dick’s real name. “A rocking horse,” he answered. “I’d like a big rocking horse, and then I could make believe I was a soldier captain going to war.” “Yes, we’ll look through the toy department,” promised the mother, and then happy looks came over the faces of Dick and Dorothy. On the shelves and counters where, a little while before in the half-darkness, the Sawdust Doll, the Calico Clown, and the other toys had had such fun, they now sat or stood, as stiff as the ramrod in the gun of the Tin Soldier. Not one of them moved, and the White Rocking Horse just stared straight in front of him, looking at the blackboard. “Oh, Mother, here are the dolls!” cried Dorothy, and she pointed to a shelf back of the counter on which the Calico Clown stood near the Bold Tin Soldier. “See the dolls on the shelves! Oh, what pretty ones!” “Would you like to look at the dolls?” asked the girl behind the counter. She worked in the store, and now she lifted down the Sawdust Doll who had, only an hour or so before, been riding on the back of the White Rocking Horse. “Here is a very pretty doll,” said the girl clerk, who was pretty herself. “Her eyes open and shut.” “And they’re brown, too, just like Dick’s!” whispered the little girl to her mother, as she took the doll in her arms. “Oh, please may I have her?” “I’ll see,” answered the mother, and from the way she said this, and because of the smile on her face and the look in her eyes, the little girl clapped her hands. I think she knew her mother was going to get her the doll she wanted. For a moment the Sawdust Doll thought the little girl was going to buy her and take her home. “I’d just love to go with her,” thought the Sawdust Doll to herself. “She looks like a kind, good little girl, and I’m sure she wouldn’t leave me out in the rain all night to get soaked through. I wonder if I shall go to her house to live?” “Dear me!” thought the Tin Captain to himself, “I hope the Sawdust Doll isn’t going to leave. I shall be lonesome if she goes.” Just then there was a shout and some jolly laughter down on the floor of the toy department. “Oh, this is what I want! This is what I want!” cried Dorothy’s brother, Dick. “Here’s the White Rocking Horse I want!” And the next moment he had leaped to the saddle, and then he rocked to and fro on the back of the white horse. The stirrups jingled and the boy shook the reins that were fast in the wooden mouth of the horse. “Gid-dap, White Rocking Horse!” cried the boy. “I’m a cowboy! Gid-dap!” “I thought you were going to be a soldier captain,” said the little girl, who had run from the doll counter when she heard her brother’s joyous laughter.