“I wonder what sort of place I am coming into?” thought the Nodding Donkey, as he felt himself being carried inside a house.  Wrapped up as he was, of course he could see nothing.  But he could feel that the house was warm, for being out in the cold air was almost like the time he had been tossed from the sleigh of Santa Claus into the snowdrift.

“Now I’ll have some fun!” cried Joe, as he took the paper off his toy.  “Will you please get me my Noah’s Ark, Mother?  I’ll take the animals and have a circus.”

Joe sat down to a table and placed the Nodding Donkey in front of him.  Up and down and sidewise bobbed the loose head of the toy.  And, as he nodded, the Donkey had a chance to look about him.  His new home was quite different from the gay toy store he had been taken from.  Here was only a plain house, though it was neat and clean and pretty.

“I think I shall like it here,” said the Donkey to himself.  “I believe Joe will be good and kind to me.  I am going to be lonesome at first, but that cannot be helped.”

However, the Nodding Donkey was not lonesome now, for Joe’s mother set on the table in front of the boy a rather battered old Noah’s Ark.  From this Joe took out an elephant, a tiger, a lion, a camel and many other animals.  They were not as large or as fine as the Nodding Donkey, and they looked at him in a rather queer way, did these animals from the Noah’s Ark.  Of course they did not dare say or do anything as long as Joe was looking at them.

“Now I will pretend that this table is the circus ring,” said Joe, talking to himself, as he often did.  “I will put the Nodding Donkey in the middle and all the other animals around him.  Then I’ll be the Ringmaster and make believe they are doing tricks.”

So Joe put the Nodding Donkey in the very center of the table, where the new toy bobbed his head up and down and sidewise, just as he had done in the store of Mr. Mugg and in the workshop of Santa Claus.

“Now comes the Tiger,” said Joe, going on with his circus play, and he set that striped animal down near the Donkey.  “And then the Lion.  I hope they don’t bite my new Donkey.”

But the Noah’s Ark animals were very good and kind, and they did not so much as open their mouths at the Nodding Donkey.  Joe played away and had lots of fun at his pretend circus, while his mother got the supper ready.  Once when she came into the room where the lame boy sat at the table, Mrs. Richmond said: 

“I just saw some friends of yours going past, Joe.”

“Who were they?” asked Joe.

“Arnold and Sidney,” was the answer.  “Arnold had his Bold Tin Soldier, and Sidney was carrying his Calico Clown.”

“Oh, I want to see them!” cried Joe.  “They have such fun with their toys, and I want them to come in and see mine.”

“I’m afraid it is too late—­they have gone on home,” answered Mrs. Richmond, but Joe took his crutches, which stood near his chair, and hobbled into the front room, where he could look out in the street to see the boys of whom his mother had spoken.