Madame Bonnet’s shop was so small that if you hadn’t known it was there you might easily have walked past it and never seen it at all.

It was one story high, with a low front door, and panes of glass in the one window so tiny that it was difficult to see the wares that Madame Bonnet had for sale. But if you shut one eye and pressed the other close to the glass, you were well repaid for your trouble, for Madame Bonnet kept a toy shop the like of which was not to be found anywhere, though you traveled the world over in search of it.

It was not that the shop was large, because it wasn’t. It was not that Madame Bonnet had many toys for sale, because she hadn’t. But the children said you could buy at Madame Bonnet’s what you couldn’t buy anywhere else. And though the grown people sometimes stated, and perhaps truly, that Madame Bonnet hadn’t bought a penny’s worth of new stock in twenty-five years, the children were well satisfied, and no doubt that is the true test of a toy shop, after all.

“Oh, Phil,” cried Susan, pressing one eye against the window, “do look at the china doll carriage, and the little doll’s lamp with a pink shade and all, and that beautiful pair of vases that would just go on the mantel in my doll’s house. I mean if I had a doll’s house,” added Susan truthfully.

But Phil, twisting and turning and almost standing on his head, was calling out:

“Look at the china boy rowing in the boat—with all his bundles, too. What do you think is in them, Susan? Do tell me. What is in that yellow striped bundle? What do you think is in that one?”

“Something for him to eat, I guess,” said Susan sensibly. “Let’s go inside and look around.”

Madame Bonnet was comfortably knitting in the rear of the shop, and didn’t think of getting up to wait upon her customers.

“Well, Susan Whiting,” said she, gazing at the children over her spectacles. “How do you do? Is your grandmother well? And so your grandfather is going to call by for you. I suppose he came in to the Court-House on business. And this is the little boy who has come to live next door to you, is it? Well, my dears, I hope you will find something you like here. Just walk around, and if you want to know about anything bring it to me. My knee has been so bad with rheumatism that I don’t get up if I can help it.”

And Madame Bonnet returned to her knitting, apparently forgetting the children, who walked about on tiptoe eyeing the toys and handling everything within reach.

Madame Bonnet had been born and brought up in the town of Green Valley and had never journeyed farther away than fifty miles. People were somewhat surprised, therefore, when, one fine day, the girl they had always known as Mary Bonnet had opened her little shop, and had raised over the front door a sign which boldly read, “Madame Bonnet.”

“There is French blood in me somewhere, I’m sure,” said she. “And I don’t see why I shouldn’t call myself ‘Madame,’ if I like.”

And now that Madame Bonnet was an old lady with white hair and spectacles, most people had forgotten that she had ever borne any other name.

“Phil,” said Susan, standing entranced before a low shelf, “won’t you come and look at this doll?”

In the center of a large square of cardboard was sewed a bisque doll, whose long flaxen braid hung over one shoulder and reached to the tips of her dimpled toes. Surrounding her, also sewed on the card, was her wardrobe, consisting of a pink dress, a pink hat, and a pair of pink kid boots, a similar costume in blue, a Red Riding Hood cape, and a green silk umbrella.

Susan fairly held her breath before this vision of loveliness. But Phil was spellbound at the other end of the shop—and no wonder.

In a long glass tube, full of water, was a little red imp, even to horns and tail, and, instructed by Susan how to press upon the rubber top, Phil soon learned to make the imp execute a gay dance or move slowly up and down in his narrow, watery prison.

“Come along,” urged Susan, tugging at Phil’s arm. “There are lots more things to see. Look at this little piano. It has four keys—tink-a-link-a-link! And here’s a swimming boy—how pretty he is!” And Susan carefully lifted the light little figure, who lay with rosy hands and feet outstretched all ready for a splash.

“I like the animals.”

And Phil paused before a table laden with small trays on each of which reposed a family of tiny bisque animals. There sat demure Mrs. Pussy and her five tortoise-shell kittens. Four timid little lambs huddled close to the Mother Sheep as if asking protection from a herd of big gray elephants, who, in turn, trumpeted silently with upturned trunks, at the disgrace of being placed next a placid family of black-and-white pigs. There were ducks and chickens, camels and donkeys, cows and horses—sitting, standing, and lying side by side in a peaceful and united frame of mind not often to be met with in this world.

Phil carried a tray of fat snub-nosed little animals back to Madame Bonnet to find out what they were.

“Land sakes!” exclaimed Madame Bonnet. “Don’t you know what they are? They’re dogs, pug dogs. Didn’t you ever see one? Susan, didn’t you ever see a pug dog? Well, I don’t know as they are as common as they used to be. Ladies used to like them for pets.” And Madame Bonnet shook her head over the way times had changed since she was a girl.

The children wandered round and round, entranced afresh at each table and shelf.

There was a small wooden clock, like the timepiece in Susan’s kitchen at home, whose pendulum swung gayly to and fro if only you helped it a little with your finger. There were dolls’ hats made by Madame Bonnet herself, that varied in style from a knitted tam-o’-shanter to a strange turban-like affair with a jaunty chicken feather in the top. There was sheet after sheet of paper dolls that surely belonged to the days of long ago, for the ladies wore their hair in a way that Grandmother would have recognized as a waterfall, and the little girl dolls had droll pantalettes hanging below their skirts.

There was a beautiful sawdust and china doll, whose wavy black china hair was piled high upon her head, whose strapped china boots gracefully took “first position” when she was held upright, and whose rosy lips smiled sweetly in spite of the fact that her bright green silk dress was neatly pasted on, so that it wouldn’t come off, no matter what the emergency. Perhaps the fancy gilt paper trimming on dolly’s frock kept her cheerful. Perhaps Susan’s open admiration warmed her chilly little china heart and helped her to forget any discomfort she might suffer.

At any rate, Susan passed reluctantly from her side to view the doll’s furniture, and there she entered into such a delightful wilderness of chairs, beds, tables, and sofas as would be difficult to describe. Parlor sets with red and blue velvet trimmings; bedroom sets quite complete, down to the cradle rocking comfortably away beside the mother’s big bed; rocking-chairs; baby’s high chair; a bookcase filled with tiny paper books; a stove with lids that really lifted off.

“Oh, I can’t go home!” cried Susan, when Grandfather opened the door and, stooping low to save his head, came into the shop.

“Five minutes more,” said Grandfather, as he sat down for a little talk with his old friend Madame Bonnet.

“Oh, Phil, only five minutes more.” And in that five minutes Susan flew around like a distracted hen, making up her mind what her purchase should be.

Phil had been absorbed for some time in a pile of paper books with gay red-and-white pictured covers, and he now came forward with his selection. “The Story of Naughty Adolphus,” read Grandfather, and gazed with interest upon the picture of Adolphus, to whom “naughty” seemed a mild word to apply. For not only was Adolphus dancing up and down in a fit of temper, and all but striking his meek and shrinking little nurse who stood terror stricken close by; but it was very evident that Adolphus refused to have his hair brushed, his face washed, or finger nails trimmed. All this the picture showed quite plainly, and innocent Phil gazed at it with a virtuous air, for, in his worst moments, he felt sure he had never even approached “Naughty Adolphus.”

“It looks interesting,” announced Grandfather soberly. “I think you’ve made a good choice. Susan, are you ready?”

“Look,” murmured Susan, faint with admiration. “Look what I’ve found.”

It was a white china egg, and, lifting off the top, there lay a little dolly, as snug as could be.

“It’s beautiful,” said Susan. And bold with gratitude, she stood on tiptoe and placed a kiss upon Madame Bonnet’s wrinkled cheek.

“Well!” said Madame Bonnet, taken aback for the moment, but liking it nevertheless. “If I had a good knee I’d step down cellar for a bottle of my raspberry vinegar to treat you all. How are your knees, Mr. Whiting?”

“Young as a boy’s,” returned Grandfather, rubbing them as he spoke. “But here’s Parson Drew. Suppose we let him step down. He doesn’t know that he has any knees.”

So Parson Drew, as fond as Susan of raspberry vinegar, obligingly “stepped down cellar,” and brought up a tall rosy bottle the contents of which, under Madame Bonnet’s careful eye, he poured into thin little glasses with a gold band about the top.

“Well,” said Grandfather, after he had actually turned the bottle upside down to prove to Susan and Phil that there was not a single drop left in it, “I’m afraid the time has come for us to go.”

And after many good-byes and messages for Grandmother, the party moved toward the door.

Parson Drew led the way, and, as he opened the door, something from outside, with a clatter and clash, darted into the shop, whirled down the aisle, and subsided with a jangle into a dark corner at the back of the store.

Madame Bonnet, completely forgetting her bad knee, mounted her chair in a twinkling and stood holding her skirts about her feet, calling—

“Help! Help! Help!”

Susan, clutching tight to her eggshell baby, tried to climb up into Grandfather’s arms, while Phil, making himself as small as possible, hid under a convenient table.

Grandfather was peering into the dark corner where the clattering object, now silent and motionless, could be faintly seen.

Suddenly Grandfather put back his head and laughed.

“It’s a cat,” said he; “a poor forlorn little gray cat. And we were all afraid of a cat.”

He gave a second look, and then he spoke in a different tone.

“Tut, tut, tut,” said Grandfather, as if he were angry.

He gently moved toward the trembling pussy, but before Madame Bonnet could step down from her chair or Phil come out from under the table, in from the street walked Mr. Drew, whom no one had missed until now. He held by the coat-collar a freckled, red-headed boy, and he was pushing him along in no very gentle way.

“This is the boy who did the deed,” said Mr. Drew, and he sounded angry in the same way Grandfather did. “I thought I would catch him enjoying his fun if I stepped outside, and, sure enough, there he was, doubled up with laughter and slapping himself on the knee at the joke. A fine joke,” added Mr. Drew, giving the boy a little shake, “a fine joke—tormenting a poor cat.”

“The other boys were in it, too,” whined the culprit, squirming, “only they ran away.”

“That doesn’t excuse you,” answered Mr. Drew sternly. “I have a notion to tie the tin can on you. ‘It’s only for a joke,’ you know. That is what you told me.”

“No, no,” whimpered the boy, jerking and twisting about. “Let me go. I’ll give you five cents if you do. I’ll give you ten cents if you let me go.” And he pulled from his pocket a handful of coins and held them out on his grimy palm.

“Is it yours?” asked Mr. Drew. “Is it your money?”

The boy nodded.

“Good!” said Mr. Drew. “Then I’ll take it.” And he coolly slipped the coins into his pocket.

“Now,” said he to the boy, tightening his grip on his collar, “you come with me, and we will spend this money on a treat for poor pussy. And you shall watch her enjoy it, too.”

When Mr. Drew returned with his unwilling companion, he found Madame Bonnet composedly knitting in her chair, the rest of the group eyeing pussy, still motionless in her corner.

“Now, Tim,” said Parson Drew cheerfully, to his sulky, red-haired friend, “you shall have the pleasure of giving pussy the milk and the cat-meat which you bought for her with your money.”

Tim silently spread the feast and retreated a few steps.

“Come, puss, puss,” encouraged Madame Bonnet in her comfortable voice, “drink your milk.”

And pussy timidly put out her pink tongue and drank the milk thirstily.

“You needn’t be afraid to leave her to me,” observed Madame Bonnet to Grandfather, who was looking at his watch. “I like a cat, when I know it’s a cat and not a whirlwind. I’ll take off the can when she is more used to me, and I’ll keep her here a bit till I find her a home.”

Outside the shop, the party halted once more.

“Don’t play any more tricks like this, will you, Tim?” asked Mr. Drew. “And shake hands.”

Tim nodded and thrust out his hard little hand. He grinned cheerfully up at Mr. Drew, and was off down the street, whistling shrilly between his fingers as he ran.

“When I get home,” confided Susan in Grandfather’s ear, as she sat on his lap on the homeward ride, “I’m going to tell Snowball all about it, and about that bad boy, and then I guess she will be glad that she has lost her tail. Don’t you?”