Excerpt from The Toymakers It was the day before Christmas - the year was long ago, so which particular one it was does not matter. Dr. Bunch had been to Dun moor to buy some needed medicines, and some gifts, to be credited to the generosity of Santa Claus, for the little Bunches, of whom there were six - the eldest twelve. The main road in Middleton ran almost paral lel with the river, and Dr. Bunch scanned the frozen Quick, expecting every moment to see his son and namesake, Benjamin, glide by upon his skates. His eye-quest was futile, and he turned his attention to his old horse Peter, who he longed to the stop-ever breed. He did not wait until he reached the foot of a hill - the sight of one in the distance was sufficient to give him a partial paralysis. The Middleton boys said that the Doctor pushed with the reins, and that if the Doctor's gig had been put before old Peter, so many patients would not have died before he got there. But this was only village raillery. Hallo! Cried the Doctor, as an old, doubled up specimen of humanity came in sight in a. Cross-road. How's your rheumatiz? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.