Produced by David Edwards, Paula J. Franzini and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) [Illustration] THE TOY SHOP MARGARITA SPALDING GERRY [Illustration: THE _MAN_ WAS LEAVING HIS OWN FRONT DOOR] _The_ TOY SHOP A ROMANTIC STORY OF LINCOLN THE MAN BY MARGARITA SPALDING GERRY [Illustration] HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMVIII Copyright, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ Published September, 1908. _The child is eternal, and so are toys and tears and laughter. When the house is put in order by strange men, when the clothes that were worn and the tools that were used are put away, there will be found an upper room full of toys. These remain._ [Illustration] _THE TOY-SHOP_ The Man was leaving his own front door. On the steps he paused and looked sombrely back. The white pillars of the facade rose before him in stately fashion. They reminded him of the care he was evading for the moment, and he sighed. Though he shut his eyes determinedly, he knew that another grim building just beyond, the usual end of his journeying, demanded him, and he sighed again. This time there was something more than weariness in the sound. From around the corner of the house, which almost hid from view the white tents of the Home Guard, ran a child. He was bright-faced, and magnificent in a miniature officer's uniform. "Oh, papa-day!" he cried. "Never mind the curtains for my stage. You are always too busy now to see my plays, anyway--!" He interrupted himself to fling this in petulantly: "But get lots of soldiers--and one company of cavalry. I can't get him surrounded without two more companies--and six cannon!" The child lisped so in his eagerness that no one but his father could have understood him, and his father was so lost in his gloomy thought that he did not know the child had spoken. When the expected reply did not come, the boy looked his wonder. "Papa-day--papa-day!" he cried, giving the man a little push. "I want some soldiers!" Startled out of his sadness, the father looked at the child. "Soldiers? All right, son; I'm off for a walk now. I saw a shop the other day."