"And that's sixpence," said the voice that seemed now to be right at her elbow. "You didn't save the price of the tinkering after all."
She turned and there was the Hillman, standing right beside her, his little green cap in his hand, and laughing with all his might. Before she could catch him, he was off and out through the kitchen door.
But after that the saucepan was just as good as any other one.
Once upon a time there was a little painted tin top that lay in a toy shop window. It was a most beautiful tin top with a painted stripe of red, and a painted stripe of yellow, and a painted stripe of green. The tin of which it was made was as bright and shining as silver, and it had one little pointed toe upon which it could dance most merrily when its string was unwound.
But more wonderful than the colors of the tin top, or the shine of it, or its one little tin toe, was its voice. The very moment that it began to dance it began, too, to sing in a sweet, cheerful humming kind of way. And it kept on singing as long as it kept on dancing, and its voice was never less sweet or less cheerful.
One day Gerald came to the toy shop with his mother because it was his birthday and he was to select a new toy. A boy who is to have a new toy should smile, but Gerald frowned. He had so many toys at home that he could not decide which new one to choose.
"Will you have a box of toy soldiers?" asked his mother.
"No, I'm tired of soldiers," Gerald said crossly.
"Will you have a new ball?" asked the toy man.
"I don't want any more balls," Gerald replied quite crossly.
"Games are stupid," Gerald answered most crossly.
"Then, listen!" said the toy man taking the little tin top from its place, winding it up, pulling off the string and then setting it down upon the floor. Away danced the bright little top upon its one little tin toe and as it danced it sang its sweet, cheerful, humming song.
Gerald listened. Then the ugly frown left his face and in its place there came a happy smile. He clapped his hands as the little tin top circled, and whirled, and tripped, and hopped around his feet.
"May I buy the top that sings?" he asked and his mother said that he might. So they paid a bright ten cent piece for it and the toy man put the little tin top into Gerald's hands. As they left the toy shop, Gerald still smiled and he hopped along beside his mother as he remembered how the little tin top had hopped. And his mother made up a song about it that they hummed softly together: