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“Be careful, Sonny!” called his mother, as she watched him. “The waves are getting higher and higher. I wish your father would come and give you your swimming lesson.”

“Oh, I’m having fun!” laughed the fat boy. “My Plush Bear likes me to carry him out, but I won’t let him fall in the ocean.”

Once more the little fat boy started to wade down the beach. Nettie had gone back to sit with her mother and, for a moment, Arthur was all by himself. Except, of course, he had the Plush Bear with him.

“Look and see how big the ocean is, Mr. Bear,” said Arthur, holding his toy up above the waves. And just then a bigger wave than any that had yet rolled up the beach broke right at Arthur’s feet.

In an instant the big wave had knocked the little fellow down. Arthur gave a scream, and his father, who had just arrived in his bathing suit, ran to get his little boy. Arthur had let go the Plush Bear when the wave knocked him down.

Into the water fell the toy, and, a moment later, when the wave washed back into the ocean, it took Mr. Bruin with it. Right out to sea the Plush Bear was washed, on the top of the big wave!

“Oh! Oh, dear! What is going to happen to me now?” thought the poor Plush Bear.

CHAPTER X

SAVED AT LAST

When the big wave knocked Arthur down and the little fat boy dropped the Plush Bear into the sea, that toy expected he would at once sink to the bottom and be drowned. It was the first time he had ever fallen into the water. At the North Pole, where he had been made in the workshop of Santa Claus, it is so cold nearly all the time that all water is frozen into ice, and there is very little into which one may fall.

“This is the last of me!” thought the poor Plush Bear, as he felt the water closing over his head. Faintly he heard the screams of Arthur, as the waves rolled the fat boy over and over on the beach. But Arthur’s father quickly sprang in and picked up his little fat son, saving him.

There was no one at hand just then to save the Plush Bear.

“Yes, this is the last of me!” thought Mr. Bruin. But, to his surprise, he found that, after his first drop into the ocean when the waters closed over his head, he bobbed up again and floated nicely like a piece of wood.

Much of what was inside the Plush Bear was sawdust and cork, making him very light, so that, though he did not know it, he was a better floater than was Arthur.

The Plush Bear had been careful not to breathe when he fell into the sea, so he did not sniff any water up his nose. And after the first shock he did not feel bad. The water was warm, and by keeping his mouth closed the Plush Bear did not taste any of the salt. There he was, floating on his back, his big, yellow eyes staring up at the sun and the blue sky. And now, as the tide had turned and was going out, the Bear was carried out to sea with it.

Back on the beach there was much excitement when Arthur’s father had pulled the fat boy out of the sea. But it was soon found that Arthur was all right, except that he had swallowed a little salt water.

“But where’s my Plush Bear?” Arthur cried, when he had been dried and comforted by his mother. “Where’s my Plush Bear?”

Where, indeed? Well might Arthur ask that, for his Plush Bear was being carried far, far out to sea on the waves.

“Oh, Arthur! did you drop Mr. Bruin when the wave knocked you down?” asked Nettie.

“I guess–I guess I did!” answered her brother sadly.