Arthur made a grab for his toy, which had been resting in his lap, but he was not quick enough.  Down out of the wheeled chair slipped the Plush Bear!  Down to the boardwalk, and right toward him rumbled another big double chair, in which sat a fat man and a large woman.

“I guess this is the last of me!” thought the Plush Bear.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE SAND

Sometimes things occur very luckily in this world.  If it had not happened that the colored man, who was pushing the big, double, wheeled chair, looked down at the boardwalk and saw the Plush Bear just in time, Mr. Bruin would have been crushed.  His spring that made him move his head and paws and the growler inside him would have been broken to bits.  But, as it happened, the colored chair-pusher saw the Plush Bear fall from the lap of Arthur Rowe, who sat beside his sister Nettie in a chair on the boardwalk at the seaside city.

“Hi!  My land!  Wait a minute!” shouted the colored man.

“Maybe he is going to save me!” thought the Plush Bear, who had seen the rubber-tired wheels coming nearer and nearer.

“What’s the matter, Sam?” asked the man in the big rolling chair.

At the same time Arthur leaned forward with a cry of alarm, for he saw his Plush Bear had slipped, as it had slipped from him and out of the car window the day before.

“Li’l boy done drop his play-toy!” answered Sam, the colored man.  “I come nigh onto runnin’ ober it.  Heah it is, li’l man,” went on the chair-pusher as he picked up the Plush Bear and handed him back to Arthur.

“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed Arthur, while Nettie, who had seen what almost had happened, held her Rag Doll tighter in her arms.

“I’m not going to drop Polinda, not ever!” declared Nettie.  Polinda was the name of her doll.  When Nettie first received the toy she had wanted to call the doll Polly, but the little girl next door said Lucinda would be a better name.  So Nettie mixed up both names and called her doll Polinda, which is a very good name, I think.

With his Plush Bear safe in his arms once more, Arthur leaned back in his rolling chair.  He and Nettie smiled at the lady and gentleman in the chair that had almost run over Mr. Bruin, and then the two chairs were pushed on by the men rolling them.  Just behind Arthur and his sister, in another chair, were Mr. and Mrs. Rowe, but they had been so busy, looking at the sights along the boardwalk, they had not seen how nearly there was an accident.

“Is your Bear all right?” asked Nettie of her brother, as they were wheeled along.  “I mean will his head nod?”

“His head doesn’t exactly nod,” replied Arthur.  “I guess you’re thinking of Joe’s Nodding Donkey.  But my Bear wags his head.”

“Maybe he won’t now, after all that happened,” suggested Nettie.

“Oh, I guess he will,” said Arthur.  “But I’ll wind him up and see.”