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Daddy and Mother talked softly together a moment, and then Mother hurried away to come back with something that made Jim’s eyes sparkle and open wide.

For she had a little toy engine, which could be wound up with a key and sent whizzing along. And there was a fine Jumping Jack, which jiggled almost as nicely as did the Calico Clown.

“Here are two toys that Arnold and Mirabell are through with,” said Mother, with a smile at Jim. “They are not broken, and they will each go. Perhaps you will like them almost as much as you did the Calico Clown.”

“Oh, golly!” cried Jim. “We’ll like ’em better! ‘Cause dere’s two of ’em–one fo’ each of us! Oh, we’s eber so much obligedness.”

Clasping the two toys in his little brown hands, away Jim raced in the darkness to tell his sister the good news. The Jumping Jack was for her and the toy engine for him. And I may as well tell you now that the two children were made perfectly happy with their toys–just as happy as they would have been with the Calico Clown.

“Well, thank goodness, I think my adventures are over for the night,” thought the Clown, as he was taken into Mirabell’s house and the dirt brushed off his red and yellow trousers. “This has been such a day! Oh, SUCH a day!”

And indeed it had been from the time he fell out of the tree into the Man’s coat pocket until Jim stumbled with him and he fell into the hole.

“Sidney will be glad to get his Clown back,” went on Arnold, when the toy had been set on the table where Daddy took his place to tell the evening story.

“I wish we could take it to him now,” said Mirabell.

“Mayn’t we?” asked her brother.

“It is getting late,” said their mother. “You may take the toy over the first thing in the morning.”

“But all the while Sidney will be wondering where his Clown is,” objected the little girl.

“I know what we can do!” exclaimed Arnold. “We can telephone and tell him it’s here.”

“Yes, we can do that,” said Daddy.

So, a little later, Sidney was told, over the telephone, that his lost Calico Clown had been found. The story was briefly told of how it had got into the wash-basket after having been found in Daddy’s pocket and taken to the office.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Sidney. “I’ll be over the first thing in the morning to get him.”

“But what I’m wondering about is how the Clown got in my pocket,” said Daddy, with a puzzled look on his face. “If you children didn’t put it there, who did?” and he looked at Mirabell and Arnold.

And I might say that this was always a mystery, as much so as the Clown’s riddle about what made more noise than a pig under a gate.

Daddy told Mirabell and Arnold their usual good-night story. Then the children went to bed and Mother put the Calico Clown on the mantelpiece where he would be safe for the night.

“Whoever sees Sidney first in the morning,” said Mother, as she, too, got ready to go to bed, “may be the one to give him his toy.”

Then the lights were put out and the house was still and quiet. Ordinarily, when this time came, the Calico Clown, like the other toys, would have been at his liveliest. But now he was so tired, with all his adventures of the day, that he just gave a long sigh and said:

“I am not going to stir! I am just going to lie down here and sleep until morning! Enough has happened for one day.”

So he stretched out, with a pen wiper for a cushion, and went to sleep.

Bright and early the next morning Sidney ran over to the house of his cousins.

“Is my Calico Clown here?” he cried.

“Yes,” answered Arnold, who was also up. “I’ll get him for you.”