title="[Pg 23]"/>good care of him," remarked Angelina, as she moved the big toy farther front on the shelf. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "His back is all dusty!"

"Dusty!" cried Geraldine. "Did you let him fall on the floor?"

"Indeed I did not! He hasn't been off this shelf or moved since he was taken out of the box last night."

"Then I wonder how this dust got on his back."

"I haven't the least idea," answered Angelina. "But I'll take it off with a brush." This she did.

Of course you know how the dust got on the Elephant's back. It came from the toys who rode him along the shelf. And, though neither of the Mugg sisters knew it, the Elephant had moved from his place on the shelf. He had walked all about it.

People began to come into the store to look about for Christmas. As Santa Claus is so busy nowadays he has to let some of the toy buying be done by the grown folks, and a number of them came in to see what their little boys and girls would like.

Among those who passed by the shelf on which the Stuffed Elephant stood, was a jolly-looking man, wearing a big fur coat, for the day was cold and it was snowing outside.

"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the man, as he saw the Stuffed Elephant. "This is just what my son Archie wants—an Elephant! I'll get this for him, as he wrote Santa Claus a letter saying he wanted a Stuffed Elephant more than anything else."

"This Elephant is just from the shop of Santa Claus," said Angelina Mugg, as she stepped up to wait on the man.

"Is he, indeed?"

"Yes, he was taken out of the box only last night. He is well made and strong, and he has heaps and heaps of cotton stuffing inside him. Even if he fell over on a little baby, this big Elephant would do no harm, as he is so soft."

"He is, indeed," said the man, feeling the toy. "I suppose he doesn't bite?" he added, looking at Miss Angelina and smiling.

"Oh, of course he doesn't bite!" laughed Miss Mugg. "Shall I have him sent to your house so your son Archie will get him for Christmas?"

"Thank you, it is so near Christmas that I think I had better take the Elephant with me," said Mr. Dunn. "I have my auto outside, and as it is a closed car the Elephant will not take cold."

"I'm glad of that," said Miss Angelina. Very often she used to make believe the toys were real, and alive, and could take cold, and become ill. Of course she did not know that the toys really could move about after dark, when no one saw them.

"Yes, I'll take the Elephant with me," went on Mr. Dunn. "I'll hide him away in the attic until Christmas, and then let Santa Claus give him to Archie. That boy of mine just loves animal toys!"

A little later the Stuffed Elephant was standing in among some other packages in the back of the auto. On the front seat Mr. Dunn was guiding the car through the storm, for it was now snowing hard.

"My! This reminds me of North Pole Land!" thought the Elephant, as he looked out of the windows of the car and saw the white flakes swirling about. "The ground is covered, too!"

It had been snowing some time before Mr. Dunn went to the toy store, and now he was having hard work to make his machine plow through the drifts on the way home.

"They took me away in such a hurry I had no time to say good-bye to any of my toy friends," thought the Elephant, as he snuggled down in the blanket in the rear of the auto. For elephants need to be kept warm, you know—that is, real ones, and this Stuffed Elephant made believe he was real.

"But of course I shouldn't have dared say anything while people were around," thought the toy. "I hope I see some of them again, for it wasn't very polite to come away as I did."

All at once, as the auto was rolling along quite fast, it came to a sudden stop, with a bump and a jerk.

"Hello! We're stuck!" cried the man. "I must see if I can break through the snowdrift."

He backed the car and started ahead again, with the motor going full speed.

Bang! the car struck the snowdrift. There was a crash of glass.

"Oh, dear!" whispered the Elephant to himself, for he went toppling, legs over head, out through a broken window of the car. Into a deep snowdrift stuck the poor Stuffed Elephant.

The Stuffed Elephant Stuck in a Snowdrift.

"Oh, this is terrible!" sighed the toy. "Oh, I am freezing to death!"

CHAPTER III

UP IN THE ATTIC

Banging puffing, and grinding noises sounded all about the Stuffed Elephant. Around him swirled the white flakes of snow, but he could hardly see them, for part of his head, part of his trunk, and one eye were stuck in the drift.

Mr. Dunn's automobile had lurched to one side as Archie's father tried to send it through a big, white drift. And the noise was made by the motor, or engine, of the car, working its best to force the car ahead. The glass window of the automobile had broken as it tipped to one side, a piece of ice flying through.

And it was through the broken window that the Stuffed Elephant had been tossed, right out into a snowdrift!

"Oh, but it's so cold! So cold!" said the Elephant, shivering.

Of course it was cold up at the North Pole where Santa Claus has his workshop, and there was more snow and ice than near Archie's home. But up there the Elephant had been inside the warm shop, just as he had been kept in the warm toy store, and, until a few minutes ago, in the warm auto.

"Well, I guess I'll have to back up and go around another way," said Mr. Dunn, after a while. "I can't make my machine go through that snowdrift. No use trying! I'll upset if I do! Hello, one of the windows is broken, too! I'm sorry about that, but I can go on with a broken window, which I couldn't do if I had a broken wheel. And I guess the toys won't take cold. Yes, I must back up and go home by another road."

Starting the car slowly, Mr. Dunn backed it out of the drift. The front wheels and the radiator, where the water is, were covered with masses of white flakes, but aside from the broken window no damage had been done.

"I'd better hurry home, too," said Mr. Dunn, talking to himself, a way some jolly men have. "It's snowing worse, and I don't want to be kept out here all night. I want to get back with the Christmas presents. Archie will surely like that Stuffed Elephant."

And then, never thinking that the Elephant had been tossed out of the broken window into a bank of snow, Mr. Dunn started his car off on another road, leaving the poor Elephant stuck in the drift.

"Oh, this is dreadful! Terrible!" thought the Elephant. "I am freezing to death! Santa Claus wanted me to have adventures, but none like this, I'm sure! What shall I do?"

If the Elephant had only been allowed to come to life and call out when Mr. Dunn was around all would have been well. For, though Archie's father might have been surprised at hearing a toy speak, he never would have gone away and left it in the snow.

But the toy Elephant did not dare call out,