The story of a sawdust doll, by Laura Lee Hope

Toy Town was not a little city off by itself on the shore of some winding river. Nor was Toy Town a place up near the North Pole, where Santa Claus has his workshops for making presents. The Toy Town I am going to tell you about was in a big store. To get to it you went up in an elevator, and, once you were there, you saw the most wonderful and beautiful things you ever dreamed of! There were all sorts of toys, drums that beat a rub-a-dub-dub[2] all by themselves, funny clowns who banged tinkly brass things together when you pushed a spring near their neckties, and many other fascinating playthings.

One night, when the elevators had stopped sliding up and down, and when the doors of the big store were closed, and when the lights had been turned low, there was a rattling, a clattering, a rustling and bustling and a whispering and talking on the shelves and counters of Toy Town.

“Has everybody gone?” asked a Sawdust Doll, as she sat stiffly up near a Bold Tin Soldier, whose sword shone faintly in the light of one little electric lamp. The Sawdust Doll was stiff because she had been lying on her back all day.

“Yes, I think every one has gone,” answered a White Rocking Horse, as he[3] moved slowly to and fro on the floor, just under the toy counter. He was too large to be put up on the shelf. Besides, he might accidentally have kicked a hole in the drum. Mind you! I’m not saying he would have done it on purpose, but he might have done it by accident.

“I don’t see any one,” said the Bold Tin Soldier, and he waved his sword over his head.

“Isn’t he just wonderful!” whispered the Candy Rabbit to the Calico Clown. “I wish I were as brave as he! If any one has stayed behind in Toy Town to try to watch what we do after store hours, I’m sure they’ll be glad enough to run away when they see the sword of the Tin Soldier.”

“Yes, he is a bold chap,” answered the Calico Clown, and he felt the least bit jealous because the Candy Rabbit thought the[4] Tin Soldier chap was so fine. “I always wanted to be a soldier,” went on the Calico Clown, “but when I was small I began playing tricks and making jokes, so—look what I am!” and he held out his two long arms, on the end of each of which was a round, shiny piece of brass. These brasses were called “cymbals,” and they tinkled together with a clanging sound. “No use for me to wish to be a soldier,” sighed the Calico Clown. “My life is a joke!”

“I like you best as you are. You’re real jolly, I think,” chattered a Monkey on a Stick, as he climbed up and then climbed down again. “We must have some fun in this world, as well as being guarded by Tin Soldiers.”

“That is very true,” remarked a Lamb on Wheels, as she rolled over toward the White Rocking Horse. “I love jolly times. That’s why I’m always so glad when night[5] comes and we toys may do as we please.”

“We may, if there is no one to watch us,” said the Sawdust Doll, as she got up on her feet, rather stiffly, for, as I have said, she had been lying on her back all day, and you know how tiresome that is. “But we must be very careful not to start our fun until every one is away,” went on the Sawdust Doll.

“I’ll come with you,” said the Calico Clown. “If we find that any boys or girls, or their fathers or mothers, have hidden themselves away in our Toy Town, to spy on us at our play, I’ll bang my cymbals together.”

[6]“If it doesn’t, I’ll just gallop toward them,” said the White Rocking Horse. “That will make them run!”

So the Bold Tin Soldier and the Calico Clown climbed down off the toy counter and walked slowly, and a little stiffly, over the floor toward the elevators. The one light shone dimly, and by its rays they could see that no one was in the store—not even the watchman. He was down on the first floor, near the perfumery counter. He loved the smell of perfumery, did that watchman.

“No one is here!” said the Bold Tin Soldier, as he came marching back with the Calico Clown.

“Not a soul to watch us? That’s fine!” shouted the Monkey on a Stick. “Now I’m going to have some fun!” and he began to run up and down so quickly that the Sawdust Doll cried:

“All right! I’ll go more slowly,” kindly offered the Monkey. “But when you’ve had to keep still all day, because so many boys and girls are watching you, when they’re not picking you up and punching you to see what you’re made of—I say when you’ve been that way all day, you want to go fast when you get the chance.”

“I suppose so,” agreed the White Rocking Horse. “I feel like kicking my heels, too.”

“Well, just wait a moment, if you please,” put in the Bold Tin Soldier. “I want to march some of my men out into the middle of the floor and have a little parade. After I get them past you, why, then you may kick up your heels as much as you please.”

“All right,” whinnied the White Horse.[8] “March away! I’m glad to do a favor.”

The Bold Tin Soldier nimbly jumped up on the counter, where he had been standing all day in a box with his tin soldier men. He waved his sword over his head until it flashed in the gleam of the one light like a star on a frosty night, and the Sawdust Doll covered her eyes with her hand, because it was so shiny.

Every one of the tin soldiers in the box sprang up straight and stiff and held his gun to his shoulder.

The tin soldiers stepped into line behind him, and, one after another, they followed him as he jumped off the counter to the floor. Past the White Rocking Horse they marched, each one as brave as his captain.

[9]“Now you may kick your heels as high as you please, Mr. White Rocking Horse,” called the captain. “We are safely out of your reach.”

“All right!” came the answer. “Here I go!” And with that the toy horse, which was built to make some boy happy, began rocking to and fro.

“If any one wants a ride on my back, now’s his chance!” called the White Rocking Horse.

“I do!” cried the Sawdust Doll, and with the help of the Calico Clown she got down off the counter and climbed up and sat on the saddle.

And, for a few moments, all that could be heard in Toy Town was the faint sound of the marching feet of the tin soldiers, the rumble of the Rocking Horse and the tinkle of the Calico Clown’s cymbals.

It was close to midnight now—the time[10] when all toys are allowed to do as they please, provided no one sees them. No one must ever look at, or watch, the toys at their play. In fact, no one has ever seen them having fun after dark in the big stores.

When the toys were given the power of coming to life, of talking, moving about, having fun, and behaving just as they would if they were real folk—when they were given this power there was just one thing they were told, and that was:

And so, from the very beginning, no one has ever seen the toys at play. Just the very moment the eyes of a boy or a girl, or a daddy or a mother, or even an uncle[11] or an aunt, lights on one of the toys, that toy just becomes as still as anything.

If, by some chance, when you weren’t looking a Sawdust Doll should start to dance with a Calico Clown, and you should turn your eyes toward them, they would stop at once, and you’d never know but what they had been motionless all their lives.

Because of this no one has ever seen the toys at play, and the only reason I am allowed to tell you what they did is because I promised not to look. They told me about it afterward—just how it all happened—and that’s why I may put it in a book. But as for looking myself at the toys as they play, or letting any one else look—never! I wouldn’t dream of it!

“Am I going too fast for you?” politely asked the White Rocking Horse of the Sawdust Doll, as he rode her on his back.

“That’s good,” he replied. “Oh, look at the Monkey, will you?” he called.

“Isn’t he funny?” said the Sawdust Doll. “Do you know, he’ll make some little boy or girl laugh, I’m sure of it!”

“But I would like to stay here among my toy friends a little longer,” said the Sawdust Doll.

“Yes, it is nice here,” said the Calico Clown, as he softly banged his cymbals. “Say, let’s have a little party!” he went on. “It is getting close to Christmas now. Some of us are sure to be bought and taken away. Some of us may never see the others again. We ought to celebrate in some way.”

“That’s what I say!” came from the[13] Candy Rabbit. “Of course, I’m not so likely to go until near Easter time. But you never can tell. Let’s have a party, I say,” and the Candy Rabbit wiggled his ears.

“You can beat us all at that,” remarked the Sawdust Doll. “You jump around so I never can tag you.”

“I’ll go slowly this time,” promised the Monkey. “Come on—let’s have a game of tag!”

“Or hide-and-go-seek!” said the Calico Clown. “I know a dandy place to hide,” he whispered to the Candy Rabbit. “There’s a hole in the counter near the Jack-in-the-Box, and he won’t tell where we are.”

The Sawdust Doll was just getting off the White Rocking Horse to join in the fun when, all at once, the Candy Rabbit cried:

“Oh, some one is coming! Some one is coming! Quiet, everybody! Don’t move!”

And as each and every toy stiffened out, to look as unlifelike as possible, a scratching, squeaking noise was heard all through Toy Town.

“Dear me! What is it? What can it be?” whispered the Sawdust Doll to the White Rocking Horse.

“Hush! Quiet! Don’t say a word,” the Horse whispered back. “If it’s the watchman, or any people coming back after something they have forgotten, they must never know that we can move about and have fun when they aren’t looking.”

“Oh, no! Of course not!” agreed the Sawdust Doll, in a whisper, and then she sat very quietly on the back of the Rocking Horse, for she had no chance, so suddenly had the alarming noise sounded, to[16] get back to her place on the toy counter.

Pitter and patter, squeak and bang, rattle and rustle went the noise that had so frightened all the toy friends who were just getting ready for a party.

“Is it the watchman?” the Monkey on a Stick wanted to know. He had crouched down near a toy fire engine, and he was wishing he might shower some water on a stuffed elephant near by.

“Or is it some of the shoppers who have forgotten some toy they bought during the day?” asked the Candy Rabbit.

And then, all of a sudden, the Sawdust Doll, looking down at the floor, cried out:

“Oh, it’s a rat! It’s a great big rat! Oh! Oh-e-e-e-e-e!” and she squealed like the little Green Pig on the top shelf, only,[17] as he was asleep just then, he didn’t do any squealing himself.

“Gracious! I hope he doesn’t nibble off one of my ears,” said the Candy Rabbit, and he tried to hide behind the Calico Clown, who had managed to get back to his place on the counter.

“Forward, march! Take aim! Charge bayonets,” a voice suddenly called through the dim darkness of the toy store.

“Oh, it’s the Bold Tin Soldier!” cried the Sawdust Doll. “Oh, protect us! Save us from the rat!” she begged.

“Of course I will!” the Tin Soldier answered. “Where is he? Let me and my men get at him!”

“Here he is! Right over by the White Rocking Horse!” answered the Sawdust Doll.

“Squeak! Squeak!” went the rat. “What’s all the trouble here? Can’t a fellow[18] look for something to eat without having such a fuss made over it? What’s the matter?”

“Matter enough!” exclaimed the Bold Tin Soldier, marching up with his tin men. “It’s true you are not a boy or a girl or a grown person; so we aren’t afraid to have you see us in motion. But you must get out of here!”

“What for?” asked the rat, and he looked hungrily at the ears of the Candy Rabbit. The rat was very fond of sweet things. “Why must I run away?” he asked.

“Because you don’t belong here,” answered the Tin Soldier. “Your place is down in the cellar near the coal bin and the furnace. This is the toy department. There is nothing to eat here, and we are going to have a party.”

“How can you have a party without[19] something to eat?” asked the rat, with a cunning look, for these creatures are very sly.

“It isn’t going to be that kind of party at all,” said the Sawdust Doll. She felt rather safe up on the back of the White Rocking Horse. “We’re just going to play tag, and do things like that,” she went on.

“And not going to have anything to eat!” exclaimed the rat. “Pooh! I don’t call that any kind of party at all! I’m hungry!”

“Then you’d better run away!” said the Bold Tin Soldier, and he flashed his sword so daringly, and his soldiers pointed their tin guns and bayonets so sharply at the rat that, after showing his teeth once or twice, he switched his tail and ran back to the hole by which he had gnawed his way into Toy Town.

“So am I,” said the Candy Rabbit. “I am sure he wanted to see how I tasted.”

“Well, I don’t know that you can blame him,” remarked the Calico Clown. “You surely are the sweetest thing here! Ha! Ha! Here we are again, boys and girls!” he cried.

“That’s it! We must have fun!” laughed the Calico Clown. “Here is another joke! What kind of toes never wear any shoes?” he asked.

“The idea!” said the Sawdust Doll. “There aren’t any kinds of toes but what have shoes to cover them. My toes are covered with kid shoes, and the Tin Soldier’s toes are covered with tin shoes, and[21] the Monkey’s toes are covered with plush, and——”

“I mean pota-toes!” laughed the Calico Clown. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Pota-toes never wear shoes!” and he doubled up in the middle, because he thought his joke was so funny.

“Well, that isn’t such a bad one,” said the Rocking Horse. “You must have been in a circus, Mr. Clown.”

“No, not yet, but I want to be,” was the answer. “I’m hoping some boy will buy me and put me in a sawdust ring. That’s where I belong as a Calico Clown. In a sawdust ring!”

And the Calico Clown banged his cymbals together and felt so jolly that he sang a little song like this:

“What’s that? What’s that?” asked the Bold Tin Soldier. “‘Song a sing’?”

“It’s just the same as sing a song only I do it backwards by standing on my head,” answered the Calico Clown.

“Don’t pay too much attention to him,” whispered the Sawdust Doll. “He’s cutting up to-night.”

“I should say he was!” exclaimed the Tin Soldier. “Song a sing! The idea! Next we know he’ll be tuning a whistle instead of whistling a tune, and they aren’t the same thing at all—even backwards.”

“Indeed not!” agreed the Sawdust Doll. “But I’m so glad you drove that rat away,” she added, and she looked kindly[23] at the Bold Tin Soldier. “We never could have had any fun while he was here.”

Then the good times began. They played tag and hide-and-go-seek and a new game they made up among themselves. They called it “Jump the Jack.”

Each one had to take a turn jumping over the Jack-in-the-Box, and the Jack would reach up and try to tag them as they leaped over his head. If he touched any one of them, that toy had to stand on one foot and sing a song. And they had lots of fun when the Calico Clown was touched by the Jack-in-the-Box, for the Clown sang such a funny song, all backwards with the words mixed up like pickles.

Of course the White Rocking Horse was too big to get up on the counter and jump around with the Candy Rabbit and the Sawdust Doll, but he had fun staying on the floor near the toy blackboard and[24] watching the chalk draw funny pictures. For not only the toys that are in the shape of animals and persons have fun when no one is watching them, but the others, also, like the roller skates and the velocipedes, have good times among themselves at these midnight frolics.

And so the fun went on. The Sawdust Doll was having a lovely time, playing on a little toy piano for the Monkey on a Stick to dance with the Calico Clown, and the Candy Rabbit was listening to a Stuffed Duck tell how she learned to swim in the Goldfish bowl when all at once the Tin Soldier cried:

“What’s the matter? Is the rat coming again?” asked the Sawdust Doll, as she stopped playing the toy piano.

“No, but it is getting daylight,” was the[25] answer. “I can see the gleam of the sun in the eastern windows. Soon the store will be open and people will be coming in to buy—perhaps some one may buy me and my brave men.”

“Oh, I hope not!” sighed the Sawdust Doll. “If you go away, what shall we do if the rat comes back?”

“Maybe I can stop up his hole before I go away,” the Bold Tin Soldier answered. “But quick, now! Everybody back on shelf or counter! Here comes the sun!”

And as the sun rose and filled the world with light, the doors of Toy Town opened. The clerks came in to dust the different things and set them to rights, for it was the Christmas season and many people would come to buy.

“Well, I suppose that is why I was put in Toy Town,” answered the Doll. “I want to do my duty, and make some little girl happy.”

“Yes, that’s what we’re for,” laughed the jolly Calico Clown. “It’s fun to make boys and girls happy. I only wish I could crack some of my jokes for them, but it isn’t allowed. I know one about an ear of corn and——”

“Hush!” whispered the Sawdust Doll. “Here comes the girl who has charge of our counter!”

Then all the toys stopped talking among themselves and became straight and stiff. They were waiting—just waiting for some one to come in and buy them.

Into the store came a little girl, her mother, and a little boy. They took their places in the elevator and were lifted up, just like a balloon, only different, of course.

“May we stop in the toy department, Mother?” asked the little girl. “I want to look at some dolls.”

“Because my birthday is next week, Dick,” answered the little girl, whose name was Dorothy. “It’s my birthday, and maybe I’ll get a doll then, or for Christmas.”

[28]“It isn’t my birthday until after Christmas,” said Dick. “But I don’t want a doll either of those times.”

“What do you want?” asked Mother, smiling at her two children as she left the elevator with them. “What would you like, Richard?” she asked; for that was Dick’s real name.

“A rocking horse,” he answered. “I’d like a big rocking horse, and then I could make believe I was a soldier captain going to war.”

“Yes, we’ll look through the toy department,” promised the mother, and then happy looks came over the faces of Dick and Dorothy.

On the shelves and counters where, a little while before in the half-darkness, the Sawdust Doll, the Calico Clown, and the other toys had had such fun, they now sat or stood, as stiff as the ramrod in the gun[29] of the Tin Soldier. Not one of them moved, and the White Rocking Horse just stared straight in front of him, looking at the blackboard.

“Oh, Mother, here are the dolls!” cried Dorothy, and she pointed to a shelf back of the counter on which the Calico Clown stood near the Bold Tin Soldier. “See the dolls on the shelves! Oh, what pretty ones!”

“Would you like to look at the dolls?” asked the girl behind the counter. She worked in the store, and now she lifted down the Sawdust Doll who had, only an hour or so before, been riding on the back of the White Rocking Horse.

“Here is a very pretty doll,” said the girl clerk, who was pretty herself. “Her eyes open and shut.”

“And they’re brown, too, just like Dick’s!” whispered the little girl to her[30] mother, as she took the doll in her arms. “Oh, please may I have her?”

“I’ll see,” answered the mother, and from the way she said this, and because of the smile on her face and the look in her eyes, the little girl clapped her hands. I think she knew her mother was going to get her the doll she wanted.

For a moment the Sawdust Doll thought the little girl was going to buy her and take her home.

“I’d just love to go with her,” thought the Sawdust Doll to herself. “She looks like a kind, good little girl, and I’m sure she wouldn’t leave me out in the rain all night to get soaked through. I wonder if I shall go to her house to live?”

“Dear me!” thought the Tin Captain to himself, “I hope the Sawdust Doll isn’t going to leave. I shall be lonesome if she goes.”

[31]Just then there was a shout and some jolly laughter down on the floor of the toy department.

“Oh, this is what I want! This is what I want!” cried Dorothy’s brother, Dick. “Here’s the White Rocking Horse I want!”

And the next moment he had leaped to the saddle, and then he rocked to and fro on the back of the white horse. The stirrups jingled and the boy shook the reins that were fast in the wooden mouth of the horse.

“Gid-dap, White Rocking Horse!” cried the boy. “I’m a cowboy! Gid-dap!”

“I thought you were going to be a soldier captain,” said the little girl, who had run from the doll counter when she heard her brother’s joyous laughter.

“I’ll be a cowboy part of the time and[32] a soldier the other part,” he said. “And if you get a doll, Dorothy, I’ll let her ride on my horse. Please, Mother, buy me this!” he begged.

“Not now, Dick,” was Mother’s answer. “But, if you like, you may write Santa Claus a letter telling him you’d like this horse for Christmas.”

All day long boys and girls and fathers and mothers and uncles, aunts and cousins came to the toy department to look, and some bought different things which they took away with them, or had sent.

And though many dolls and clowns and candy rabbits and monkeys on sticks were taken from the shelves or the counters, the particular friends about whom I have told you were not sold. Once a lady came in, and the Calico Clown was taken up and shown to her.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” thought the Calico Clown to himself. “When I’m bought I want to be bought by a boy or a girl. I can have more fun with them.”

And so the day passed. It began to get dark and lights glowed in the store. The stream of shoppers thinned out, and the tired girls who waited behind the counters put away their aprons and left for home. The porters began to sweep, and then the lights were put out one by one and only the watchman was left in the store.

“Well, another day has gone!” said the Sawdust Doll, as she sat up and waved her hand to the Bold Tin Soldier.

“Yes, and it came nearly being your last day with us,” remarked the Calico Clown. “I heard what the little girl said. I believe she is going to take you away.”

[34]“Well, I shall be sorry to leave you, my friends, of course,” said the Sawdust Doll. “But that little girl looked kind and good. I should not mind if she owned me.”

“Her brother was a jolly chap, too,” said the White Rocking Horse. “He jumped on my back and had a ride, but he was very gentle with me. If I go to anybody, I hope I go to him.”

“Yes, you two seem to be going to have nice homes,” said the Candy Rabbit. “I hope I find as good a place.”

“So do I,” said the Calico Clown. “Well, all I want is to make some one jolly! That’s the life for me! Whoop de-doodle-do!” and he banged his cymbals and shouted, as he could do, for there were no boys or girls or grown folks there to watch.

“What was that joke you were going to tell us about an ear of corn?” asked the[35] Sawdust Doll. “May we not hear it now? Let’s be jolly again! Let’s have another party! Soon we may part, perhaps never to meet again,” and she spoke rather sadly.

“Oh, don’t say that!” begged the Tin Soldier, as he polished his sword on his sleeve. “Don’t say that!” and he looked at the Sawdust Doll.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the Calico Clown. “Here’s a joke! How does the lima bean succotash know when it’s time for dinner?”

“Pooh! I don’t call that a joke,” said the White Rocking Horse. “How can succotash know when it’s time for dinner?”

“Because it hears the bell with the ear of corn!” laughed the clown. “That’s the time I fooled you! Well, now let’s have another party!” he went on, jumping[36] down from his shelf and pulling the tail of the Monkey on a Stick.

The toys were having grand fun again, and the Bold Tin Soldier was helping the Candy Rabbit up on the back of the White Rocking Horse for a ride, when, all of a sudden, the door of the toy department opened and a big man came in.

“Oh! Oh!” shrieked the Sawdust Doll, and the Calico Clown jumped behind the Jack-in-the-Box so quickly that his cymbals rattled on the wooden nose of the Lamb on Wheels.

Just as soon, of course, as the door opened and the man came in, all the toys at once stopped moving about, and they stopped talking and having fun. That is because the man looked at them, and you know I told you the moment a real, live person looked at the toys, the Doll, Clown, Rocking Horse, and all the others became just like clothes-pins—they couldn’t and wouldn’t move by themselves.

Slowly the big man walked into the middle of the toy department and looked about him. His eyes glanced at the Sawdust Doll, and from her they went to the[38] Tin Soldier. Neither of them so much as wiggled a fingernail.

“But I was wondering, all the while,” said the Sawdust Doll afterward, “if that man was a burglar.”

“This is queer! When I was on the floor below I thought surely I heard a noise up here! I thought some one was in here trying to get the Christmas things. But that shan’t happen as long as I am watchman here! No, indeed!”

The big man looked all around to make sure no bad persons were hiding away to take the toys after he had left. He looked very sharply at the Calico Clown, the man did.

“I thought surely I heard the rattle of those cymbals the clown holds,” said the man. “But perhaps it was the wind blowing them, or a rat running over them. There are rats in this store.”

[39]The toys knew that very well, for they had seen a large one. And wasn’t it queer that the man had thought he heard the cymbals jingle?

“He really did hear them, for I banged them on the Lamb’s nose when I jumped down,” said the Calico Clown afterward.

But of course the man did not know that the toys could come to life and have a party among themselves when no one was looking, and so he thought the wind or a rat had made the cymbals tinkle.

And when he was gone the Sawdust Doll slowly raised her head from where she had lain down on a shelf and said:

“Fancy now! How foolish I was to think he was a robber! He is the good, kind watchman of this store.”

“But of course we can’t allow him to see us moving about, or hear us talk, any more than we can let the girls and boys,”[40] said the Calico Clown, and he made such a funny face that the White Rocking Horse swung to and fro in laughter.

“Well, now that he’s gone, let’s have some more fun,” cried the Candy Rabbit. “Go on with the party.”

“That’s what I say!” chattered the Monkey on a Stick, as he quickly climbed up and down, so rapidly that the Sawdust Doll cried:

“Yes, behave yourself,” said the Bold Tin Soldier. “We can’t all be as lively as you. Now, if you like, I’ll march out my men and we will parade for you. How will that do?”

“Oh, fine!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll. “I love parades! Don’t you?” she asked the Calico Clown.

“Yes, they’re very nice,” he answered. “And when the drum goes ‘Boom! Boom!’[41] I feel like jumping up and down and banging my cymbals.”

“Well, you may do that,” said the captain of the Tin Soldiers. “We should all be as jolly as we can, for there is no telling now, from day to day, with Christmas coming on, when one of us may be taken away.”

The Sawdust Doll thought of the little girl who had wanted her so much, and she thought of what the mother had said:

“I wonder if she will really buy me for her little girl,” thought the Sawdust Doll.

And the White Rocking Horse remembered the boy who had jumped on his back and had taken a ride there in the store.

[42]“Well, now for the parade!” called the Bold Tin Soldier smartly. “Fall in, my men!”

“Fall in! Ha! Ha! Does he want them to fall into the Goldfish tank?” laughed the Calico Clown.

“Hush! Be quiet!” begged the Sawdust Doll. “When a captain tells his soldiers to ‘fall in’ he means for them to stand in a straight line so they may march.”

And that is just what the Tin Soldiers did. They stood in line behind their captain, who drew his shining tin sword, and then they marched in and out among the tables, counters and shelves of the toy department.

They right-wheeled and left-wheeled and halted and went on the double-quick and then they all stood up and fired their guns—make-believe, of course, for the guns[43] were only of tin, and had no powder in them, not even talcum powder.

“But it’s lots of fun to make believe!” said the Sawdust Doll, when the parade had ended.

“Yes, it certainly is!” said the Calico Clown. “And, speaking of fun, reminds me of a joke. What part of a doll’s house is hot and cold at the same time?”

“Ho! Such a thing can’t be!” exclaimed the White Rocking Horse. “Nothing can be hot and cold at the same time.”

“Yes, it can!” said the Calico Clown. “It’s the front door of the doll’s house. The outside part of the door is cold, and the inside part, nearest the fire, is hot. Ha, Ha!” and he rattled his cymbals like anything.

And so the make-believe party of the toys went on in the night. It was make-believe only to such persons as you and[44] me and the watchman. To the toys the party was real enough, for they could talk among themselves, and move and jump about. But if any one had looked at them, even a little baby, the toys would have been as still and quiet as a hairpin. That’s the funny part of it.

The Sawdust Doll was just having a little dance with the Calico Clown, and the Monkey on a Stick was asking the White Rocking Horse to give him a ride around the floor when, all of a sudden, the Lamb on Wheels came rolling back from where she had gone to look out of a window.

“The sun is coming up! The sun is coming up!” cried the Lamb. “Back to your places, every one of you. It will soon be daylight and the people will begin coming in.”

And, surely enough, a little while after that, when all the toys were back in their[45] places, the store opened, the clerks took their stand behind counters and in front of shelves, and once more the busy shopping day began.

“I wonder if anything will happen to me to-day,” thought the Sawdust Doll as she sat on her shelf, with other dolls and toys around her. “I wonder if I shall ever have any adventures. I wonder——”

And just then she was surprised to see, coming toward the doll counter, the same lady who, the day before, had been in with the little girl Dorothy and the boy Dick.

“Where is that pretty doll I looked at yesterday?” asked the lady of the girl clerk. “I mean the one with the brown eyes?”

“This is it, Madam,” was the answer. “I put it aside for you,” and the girl lifted down the Sawdust Doll. To look at her you never would have thought that, a few[46] hours before, she had been dancing around with the Calico Clown.

“Yes, that is the doll I want for my little girl,” said the lady. “It is one of the most beautiful I have seen in the store. Her brown eyes are so very pretty. I’ll take her.”

And then began some adventures for the Sawdust Doll. She was dusted off with a soft brush, and it tickled her face so that she wanted to sneeze, but she knew she would not dare do that with all the people around. Then the clerk wrapped some soft paper around her, and more paper on the outside of that and tied it with a string.

She wished she might have a chance to say good-bye to the White Rocking Horse, and to the Candy Rabbit, the Monkey on[47] a Stick, the Bold Tin Soldier, the Lamb on Wheels, and the Calico Clown.

But of course this could not be done while all the people were looking on. But the Tin Soldier, the Calico Clown, and others were thinking to themselves rather sad thoughts.

“There goes our Sawdust Doll!” thought the Clown. “I suppose I’ll never see her again.”

“And I’ll never have another chance to drive a bad rat away from her with my tin sword,” thought the Tin Soldier.

“She used to like to watch me go up and down on my stick,” whispered the Monkey to himself; “that is, when I didn’t go too fast.”

[48]“She used to feel my soft wool,” was what the Lamb on Wheels thought to herself.

But the lady who had bought the Sawdust Doll knew nothing of this. She took the package the clerk gave her, and, with it in her arms, got into her automobile.

“We’ll go home now,” said the lady to the man who sat at the steering-wheel. “I have the doll for Dorothy, so we’ll go home.”

And, a moment later, the Sawdust Doll was rolling smoothly over the streets on her way to have new adventures. But she could not help feeling sad when she thought of the toys she had left behind in the store.

The Sawdust Doll could not see, of course, all the things that happened on her automobile ride, for she was wrapped in paper from the store. But she could feel the big machine gliding along on its rubber-tired wheels, and she knew she was having a ride.

“It may be nicer than a ride on the back of the White Rocking Horse,” thought the Sawdust Doll, “but it isn’t so much fun, cooped up here as I am. I wish we’d get where we’re going.”

And, soon enough, she had her wish. Through the different streets rolled the[50] automobile, and soon it came to a stop near a pretty house in front of which was a lawn. The lawn was green in summer, but now, as it was near Christmas, there was white snow on the grass.

“You may put the auto up now,” said the lady to the driver. “I shall not be going out again to-day. I must get ready for Dorothy’s birthday party.”

And then the Sawdust Doll was carried into the house. The lady hurried up the stairs, holding the package under her fur coat.

“Yes,” was the answer. “Stay there! I’ll be with you in a moment. Is Dick there?”

“Yes, I’m here!” Dick answered. “I’m making believe a chair is a rocking horse. Did you bring me a rocking horse,[51] Mother?” he asked, and he came to the door of the playroom.

“It isn’t Christmas yet,” Mother answered, with a laugh. “Here, Martha,” she quickly said to the maid. “Take this doll. It’s for Dorothy’s birthday to-morrow. Hide it away on top of a closet shelf where Dorothy’ll not see it.”

The doll was laid away on a shelf in a dark closet. That is, it was dark for a time, but, after a while, the Sawdust Doll began to see things faintly, just as she used to look at things on the shelves and counters of the toy store.

“Hello! Who’s there?” suddenly asked a voice of the Sawdust Doll, and she knew, right away, that it was a toy, like herself, speaking. But all she could dimly see was a small, square box in one corner of the top clothes’-press shelf.

[52]“Hello!” answered the Sawdust Doll politely. “But I can’t see any one,” she added.

“And no wonder! My spring is broken, and I can’t put my head out to see you, either,” the voice went on. “But I can look at you through a crack.”

“I’m Jack-in-the-Box,” the voice continued. “I used to live in a toy store, and I was bought last Christmas for the boy who lives in this house. But after he had played with me awhile, watching me jump out of my box every time the lid was lifted, my spring broke. I couldn’t jump any more then, and the boy grew tired of me. So I was put away on this shelf. Goodness,[53] how lonesome I’ve been! I’m glad you came to keep me company. How long are you going to stay?”

“I hope your spring isn’t broken, and that you are not put here because you aren’t of any more use as a toy,” said Jack-in-the-Box.

“No, I haven’t any springs,” answered the Doll. “I’m full of sawdust.”

“That’s better than having a spring inside you,” said Jack. “You can’t break sawdust.”

“No, but you can spill it,” the Doll went on. “And that’s what I’m always afraid of, that some day there’ll be an accident and all my sawdust will run out.”

“Oh, let us hope not!” exclaimed Jack. “But, really, I’m glad you have come. I was dreadfully lonesome here! Tell me[54] about yourself. Tell me about your adventures.”

“I haven’t had many yet,” the Sawdust Doll replied. “We used to have fun playing party in the store after all the real folks were gone. But I’d like to hear about you. Having your spring broken must be a very wonderful adventure indeed.”

“Yes, it’s wonderful, all right,” sighed Jack. “But it isn’t much fun. If my spring were not broken I could look out now from the top of my box and see you and talk to you much better. As it is, I have to whisper through the crack.”

“It isn’t much fun talking through a crack,” agreed the Sawdust Doll. “But tell me about your spring.”

So Jack told how one day the boy pushed him into the box too hard, and slammed the cover down so quickly that[55] there was a snip and a snap, and poor Jack’s spring broke. Never after that could he jump out of his box with a squeak whenever the lid was lifted.

“And now I want to hear about you,” said Jack. So the Sawdust Doll told about her friends in the store, and how the Bold Tin Soldier had driven the rat back to his hole.

For some little time the Jack-in-the-Box and the Sawdust Doll remained on the closet shelf, talking together in the make-believe language of toys—a language no real persons ever hear, any more than they can see the toys at play.

Then, the next day, the closet door suddenly opened, and a flood of light came in.

[56]“Oh, no, my days are over,” was the Jack’s reply. “Nobody wants to play with a broken toy. I’ll stay here a long time, I suppose. But your adventures are just beginning.”

And that is just what happened. The Sawdust Doll was lifted down off the shelf, and a beautiful dress was put on her. It was made of silk, and was the color of a rose.

“You are as nice a doll as any little girl could wish,” said Martha, the maid, as she tied a blue sash on the Sawdust Doll.

There was a looking-glass in the room where the maid was dressing the toy for the birthday party, and the Sawdust Doll had a look at herself in the mirror.

“My, how nice I look,” thought the doll. “This is much nicer than wearing nothing but a bit of cheese cloth, as I did in the store. I won’t catch cold now.”

[57]The rose silk dress was fastened on the doll, and then Mother came to get the toy.

“It is almost time for Dorothy’s party,” said Mother. “I hope she will like her doll. I’ll take it down.”

Down the stairs the Sawdust Doll was carried, and a moment later, she found herself in a room that was filled with little girls and boys. The girls all wore pretty dresses and the boys had their hair combed, so the Sawdust Doll began to think it was a party. And when she heard the guests say to Dorothy that they wished her “many happy returns,” the Sawdust Doll knew it was a birthday party.

“Here you are, little daughter!” said Mother to Dorothy. “Here is a present for you,” and the Sawdust Doll was handed to the little girl.

Dorothy’s eyes shone in delight, and she[58] danced up and down as she hugged the toy close in her arms.

“Oh, she’s the very doll I wanted!” cried Dorothy. “It’s the same one I saw in the store! Look, Dick!” she called to her brother, showing him her new pet. “Don’t you remember? This doll was in the store where you rode the White Rocking Horse!”

“Yes, and I wish I had the Rocking Horse now!” exclaimed Dick. “But dolls are all right for girls, and I’m glad you have a new one, Dorothy,” he added, feeling he had not been very polite. “She is pretty.”

“Indeed she is!” cried all the other girls. And though each one of them had a doll, none was any prettier or more beautifully dressed than the Sawdust Doll.

[59]Then the party fun began. The boys and girls played games and danced to music. Some of the girls even danced with the Sawdust Doll, and I think it was very good of Dorothy to let them play with her beautiful new doll. But they were very careful.

“I like birthday parties,” thought the Sawdust Doll. “I wish the Bold Tin Soldier and the Calico Clown were here to enjoy this one.”

After the children had played games they had good things to eat, for that is one of the best things at a party. And while the children ate cake and ice cream the Sawdust Doll was laid aside. She found herself lying on a table near a big pin-cushion that was tied with a yellow ribbon.

“I hope none of the pins or needles come out and stick me,” thought the Doll, as she looked at them. “If I get a hole in[60] me all my sawdust will run out, and that would be dreadful.”

Dorothy’s new toy, lying on a table near the pin-cushion in a side room, could hear the joyous shouts and laughter of the children at the birthday party. She could hear the rattle of spoons and of the ice-cream dishes.

All of a sudden, when it was very still and quiet in the room where the Sawdust Doll was lying, there came a growling noise.

“Gracious me!” thought the Sawdust Doll, “I wonder if that is Buster the Bear whom Jack was telling me about. I wonder!”

She started to rise and look around, but she was afraid to do this for fear some prying boy or girl might be looking. And the toys never dare move if any one looks at them.

“That can’t be a bear!” thought the Sawdust Doll. “Bears don’t bark—they growl. But I remember there was a Fuzzy Dog in Toy Town. He used to growl and wag his tail when he was wound up. I wonder if the Fuzzy Dog could be here? I wish I dared look.”

And then something dreadful happened. At least it was dreadful to the Sawdust Doll. For a shaggy dog, one she knew was real and not a toy, rushed up to her, growling and barking. And the next moment the Sawdust Doll was caught up in the dog’s mouth, dragged from the table and carried away!

Carlo, the shaggy dog, who lived in the same house with Dorothy and Dick, was not a bad dog. But he liked to find new things to pick up in his teeth, shake, and then carry off. Sometimes he hid the things he carried off in this way, and they were not found for a long time afterward. Often he would take the ball Dick played with and run off with that. But when Dick saw Carlo doing this he chased the dog and got back the ball.

However, this time no one saw Carlo taking away the Sawdust Doll. The dog had watched his chance, and when he saw[63] Dorothy and the other girls and boys in the dining-room, eating cake and ice cream, Carlo just thought to himself:

“Now I can run in and grab something! I saw Dorothy put something up on the table. Maybe it’s a ball that I can have fun with!”

So Carlo hurried into the room where he had seen Dorothy lay something down, and, as the table was not very high, Carlo jumped right up on it.

“Oh, here’s something fine for me to carry away!” said the dog to himself, and then he picked up the Sawdust Doll.

Out of the room, down the hall and past the dining-room where the children were having such jolly times ran Carlo with the Sawdust Doll in his mouth. He did not hurt her, for he did not really bite her. He only carried her as a mother cat carries her kittens by the backs of their necks.[64] Besides, being stuffed with sawdust as she was, the Doll could not feel pain. Of course her feelings were hurt a little when the dog grabbed her up so suddenly, but she seemed to know she would not really be harmed.

“There you are!” said Carlo, in dog language, as he dropped the Sawdust Doll down in the straw of his kennel, or house, at the end of the yard. “There you are! No one will find you here!”

The Sawdust Doll did not answer the dog, even though she may have known what he said. Pet animals and toy pets do not speak the same sort of talk, at least to one another. And pet animals can move about and bark or mew whether any real folks are looking at them or not. Toy dolls, rocking horses, and monkeys are not like that. They never move, or do anything if you watch them.

[65]Carlo scuttled around in the straw until he had covered the Sawdust Doll from sight in his kennel. Then, wagging his tail, as though he had done something smart, he went back to the party.

Carlo liked parties—there were always stray bits of cake dropping on the floor and Carlo could pick them up. He didn’t mind it because they had been on the carpet. And it was good for the carpet to have him pick them up.

So, leaving the Sawdust Doll in his kennel, Carlo ran back to the house. He wagged his tail as he thought of the good things the boys and girls might give him. And they sometimes did give him good things. As soon as he trotted in through the kitchen, where the door had been left open to bring in another freezer of ice cream, Carlo found a piece of cake on the[66] floor. That made him wag his tail harder than before.

But the poor Sawdust Doll! Think of her left all alone out in the straw of the dog’s kennel, with her new rose-colored silk dress on! Wasn’t that too bad?

“This certainly is an adventure!” said the Sawdust Doll to herself. “I’m glad this straw is nice and warm, or I might get cold. But I don’t exactly like it here. It was better even on the closet shelf with Jack-in-the-Box, though he did have to talk through a crack to me.”

For some time the Sawdust Doll lay in the straw of the dog kennel. She sat up and looked about her, for, there being no one there with human eyes to watch, the toy could do as she pleased. She even got up and walked about, though it was hard work because the long pieces of straw were tangled in her feet. She went to the door[67] of the kennel and looked out, first making sure no one was in the yard to see her.

“Dear me! I never could walk back to the house through the snow,” said the Sawdust Doll to herself. “If it were summer time I might try it after dark, when every one had gone to bed. But I never could do it now in the snow. I’d simply catch cold and have the sawdust fever. No, I shall have to stay here until some one comes for me. I hope that nice girl Dorothy misses me soon, and comes and gets me.”

And, surely enough, Dorothy did miss her doll shortly after that. The cake, ice cream, and other good things had been eaten, and after some games had been played by the boys and girls, Dorothy said:

“Now let’s get my new doll again, girls! She must be lonesome waiting for us to get through with our cake and ice cream.”

“What is gone, Dorothy?” asked Mother. “Your piece of cake? You shouldn’t have left it on the table, my dear.”

“No, Mother, I didn’t leave any cake on the table,” Dorothy said. “It was my new Sawdust Doll. I left her here, and now she is gone!”

“Oh, that is too bad!” said Dorothy’s mother. “But are you sure you left your doll on this table?” she asked the little girl.

“Did you take my doll?” she asked him suddenly. “Did you take my new doll that mother just gave me for my birthday?”

“Course I didn’t!” cried Dick. “Why should I take your doll? I don’t play with dolls!”

“Dorothy thought perhaps you had taken it in fun,” gently said Mother. “If you didn’t, perhaps Martha laid it in another place. We must look for the Sawdust Doll.”

“I don’t want my Sawdust Doll made into a game!” exclaimed Dorothy, who was feeling sad.

“It is only in fun, and make believe,” said Mother. “That will be a good way to[70] find your pet, my dear. Come, children, look for Dorothy’s doll.”

The Sawdust Doll was not the only one Dorothy had, but as it was her newest toy she wanted that just then more than any of the others. So she helped her boy and girl friends look in the different rooms for the missing doll. The maid said she had not taken the Sawdust Doll away, and no one could imagine where she was. And the tears came into Dorothy’s eyes as minute after minute passed and the new toy was not found.

And now we must see what is happening to the Sawdust Doll. For some time, after going to the door of the kennel to look out, she lay quietly in the straw. It kept her warm, for there was no fire in Carlo’s house, as there was in the house where Dorothy and Dick lived.

After a while the Sawdust Doll heard[71] some one walking toward the kennel. She knew the sound of human footsteps, for she had often heard them in the department store. And she knew it was not the Bold Tin Soldier or the Calico Clown coming toward her now.

“I wish it were one of my friends,” thought the Sawdust Doll; “but it cannot be. This person walks just like the watchman in the store. I wonder who it is.”

“Well, well! I almost forgot about putting some clean straw in Carlo’s kennel! That straw he has must be all wet with the snow. I’ll rake that out and put in fresh for the dog. It will keep him warmer to-night.”

Something long and black, with sharp iron teeth, was thrust into the kennel, and the next moment the straw was raked out,[72] and the Sawdust Doll went with it. Out she came in the midst of the straw.

The big gardener, for he it was who was going to give Carlo clean straw, examined what he had raked out. He saw something pink, and, looking at it, he said:

“Why! Why, it isn’t a bone after all!” exclaimed the gardener, as he picked it up and looked at it more carefully. “It’s a doll! A Sawdust Doll! I wonder where she came from!” and he turned the toy over and over in his hands.

The Sawdust Doll felt much better when the gardener had picked her out of the straw that he had raked from Carlo’s kennel. For, though the Sawdust Doll was only make-believe alive, she knew when real persons handled her. Surely she ought to, for she had been handled enough times since she was first made in the workshop of Santa Claus.

“Thank goodness some one has me in charge besides that fuzzy little dog!” said the Sawdust Doll to herself. “I don’t like him at all, though I don’t suppose he really meant to be mean to me. But I’m glad the[74] gardener has me. I hope he likes dolls, and doesn’t throw me into the ash-barrel!”

The gardener was not going to do anything like that. He knew a good, new doll when he saw one. And as he looked at the rosily dressed toy in his hands, and then glanced toward the house, the man shook his head.

“I think some of the boys must have been playing tricks on the girls at the party,” said the gardener. “Some of the boys must have hidden this doll out in the straw. I’m glad I found her. I’ll take her back. Dorothy will know to which little girl she belongs.”

So, dropping the rake with which he had been cleaning out Carlo’s kennel, the gardener walked up to the house, and, wiping his feet at the back kitchen door, as he[75] knew the cook did not want her floor made dirty, in the gardener went.

The cook was beginning to wash the cake and ice-cream dishes, for the eating part of the party was over.

“Look here, Mary,” said the gardener to the cook, holding out the Sawdust Doll. “See what I found in Carlo’s kennel.”

“Oh, for the love of peach pie!” cried the jolly cook. “That’s Dorothy’s doll! Where ever did you find her? The whole house has been upset looking for her. Where was she?”

“Out in the dog’s kennel. Some of the boys must have carried her there for a joke.”

“Ho! Ho! It wasn’t any of the boys!” laughed the cook. “It must have been Carlo himself. That dog is up to so many tricks. He carried off Dorothy’s doll!”

“Well, the doll isn’t harmed any,” said[76] the gardener. “She was in the clean straw. Will you take her to Dorothy?”

“Indeed I will, the poor little dear! She’s been crying for fear her new doll was lost. Thank you, Patrick! I’ll tell Dorothy you found her doll for her.”

And when the cook went into the room where Dorothy and her little guests were still hunting for the missing doll, you can easily guess what joyous shouts there were.

“Oh, there she is! There she is!” cried Dorothy, when she saw her new birthday toy. “Where did you find her, Mary?” she asked, taking the Sawdust Doll in her arms.

“Oh, Carlo! You bad dog!” cried Dorothy, and she shook her finger at the curly poodle, who had come back to the house to see if he could not get another piece of[77] cake. “You’re a very bad dog to take my doll away!”

And though perhaps Carlo did not know what it was all about, he must have felt that he had done something wrong, for he ran out of the house and crawled into his kennel, where, by this time, Patrick had put some new straw.

“Where’s that thing I left here a while ago?” said Carlo to himself, as he fussed around in the straw. “Where’s that pink thing I took off the table? I was going to have some fun with it, but now it’s gone!”

And of course it was gone, for Dorothy had her Sawdust Doll back again, and Carlo was very much surprised to find his plaything gone.

“Now we can have some nice games,” said Dorothy, when she had smoothed out the pink dress of her toy. For the dress had been a little wrinkled by Carlo’s teeth.

[78]And then what fun there was at the birthday party! Dorothy did not feel unhappy any longer, and she and the boys and girls played games.

“Did you have a nice time at your party, Dorothy?” asked Mother, when the little girl was going to bed that night.

“Oh, I had a lovely time!” was the sleepy answer. “And so did my Sawdust Doll. Thank you very much, Mother, for giving her to me.”

The Sawdust Doll did not go to sleep right away, though. She remained awake, even though it was very dark in Dorothy’s room, only a little night-light gleaming in the hall.

“I do wish some of my friends from Toy Town were here,” thought the Sawdust Doll to herself, as she lay in the bed[79] with Dorothy. “I wish I could talk to the Calico Clown and the Bold Tin Soldier, and tell them of my adventures. I’m sure neither of them was ever carried off by a dog and hidden in a kennel. That is a most wonderful adventure, I’m sure!”

And, after a while, when Dorothy was sound asleep, and it was all still and quiet in the house, after the party, the Sawdust Doll did just as she had done in the store—she made believe come to life and moved about. For there was no one to watch her—she took good care of that. And Carlo was out in his kennel, so he could not carry her off again.

Softly and carefully the Sawdust Doll got out of Dorothy’s bed, climbed down by a chair, and walked over to the room where, on a shelf in the closet, the poor, broken Jack-in-the-Box had to stay.

There was a long scarf hanging from[80] the shelf down to the floor, and the scarf had holes in it like a piece of lace. So, as the Sawdust Doll was not very heavy, and as the Monkey on a Stick had taught her something about climbing, the Sawdust Doll climbed the scarf-ladder until she reached the shelf.

“It is I,” answered the Sawdust Doll. “I came to tell you about my adventure.”

“Oh, that is very kind of you,” said Jack. “I wish I could spring up and see you, but I’ll just have to look at you through a crack in my box. You have no idea how troublesome it is to have a broken spring.”

“Yes, I can well imagine that it isn’t very jolly,” said the Sawdust Doll. “But I’ll come close to your crack so I can whisper through it, and tell you all about the[81] party and my adventure in the dog kennel.”

So up there in the dark, on the closet shelf, where no one could see them any more than the toys in the store could be seen at their midnight frolics, the Sawdust Doll and the Jack-in-the-Box talked to one another.

“Dear me! That was quite remarkable,” said Jack, when the Sawdust Doll had finished her story. “Just fancy! I never had anything like that happen to me!”

“But then, you see, you are not stuffed with sawdust,” returned the Doll, though not at all proudly.

“No, of course that makes a difference,” the Jack-in-the-Box said. “But once, when I was shut up in my box, the black[82] cat came and began to play with the cover. She touched the catch with her paw, open flew the box, and I jumped out right in her face! Say, Miss Sawdust Doll, I wish you could have seen that cat run! I just wish you had been there!”

“Did she go fast? I should say she did! I never saw a toy train go any faster. But of course that was in the long-ago days, before my spring was broken,” sadly said Jack.

“I am sorry for you,” softly said the Sawdust Doll. “Maybe, some day, you will be mended.”

So he and the Sawdust Doll talked together until, all of a sudden, Jack called out:

“The cook is grinding the coffee,” was the answer. “That means she is up and getting breakfast. It will soon be daylight. You had better go back where you came from. It would never do for you to be seen moving about. Folks would think you were alive.”

Down the scarf-ladder she went, and soon she was in bed with Dorothy again, and when the little girl awakened she never knew that her Sawdust Doll had been wandering about in the night, talking to Jack-in-the-Box.

“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Dorothy, when, fully awake, she looked at her Sawdust Doll on the pillow. “You have a big spot of ice cream on your new rose-colored[84] silk dress! That must have happened at the party. Oh, dear! But I know what I can do! I’ll make you a gingham dress to wear around every day. Yes, that’s what I’ll do! I’ll make you a gingham dress!”

And after breakfast the little girl asked her mother if it would not be a fine thing to make an every-day dress for the Sawdust Doll.

“I think it would be very nice,” Mother answered. “You may take my rag-bag. You’ll find some odd pieces in it and you can, very nicely, make a doll’s dress from them.”

So Dorothy got the rag-bag and, placing her doll down on a low bench near her, began to measure her new toy for a gingham dress.

“Then if you drop ice cream on yourself it won’t be so bad,” said the little girl. “A gingham dress will wash.”

[85]All the morning long Dorothy sewed away on the dress for the Sawdust Doll. She had it nearly done, while the Doll lay on a pile of cloth near the rag-bag ready to be fitted.

Dorothy was just sewing a sleeve in the gingham dress, and thinking how nice it would look on her doll, when there came a ring at the door, and Mirabell, a little girl who lived in the next house, came in.

“Can you come over a minute, Dorothy?” asked Mirabell. “My mother is baking, and she said I could make a little pie all by myself. And there’s enough dough so you can make one, too! Come on over!”

“Oh, that will be fun!” cried Dorothy, and, forgetting for a moment all about her Sawdust Doll and the new gingham dress, up jumped Dorothy and away she ran with Mirabell, leaving the pieces of cloth, rags,[86] rag-bag, Doll and everything on the floor.

When Martha, the maid, came in a little later and saw the pile in confusion on the floor, she just bundled everything up together—new gingham dress, rags, Doll, and all—and stuffed them into the rag-bag.

“Dorothy forgot to pick up her playthings,” thought the maid, as she stuffed the odd pieces of cloth into the rag-bag. “I’ll do it for her.”

And the maid never knew that she had also put the Sawdust Doll into the rag-bag.

“Dear me!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll to herself, as she felt that she was being stuffed into the rag-bag. “Dear me! This is dreadful! What sort of an adventure am I going to have now?”

The maid carried the rag-bag to the cellar, where there was a much larger bag, containing more rags, pieces of old carpet and other trash.

“It is nearly time Patrick sold the rags,” said the maid, as she emptied the contents of the small rag-bag into the larger one. The small rag-bag was kept in the sewing-room, where odds and ends[88] were put into it day by day until it was filled. Then it was emptied into the larger bag down in the cellar, and, when that was full, it was sold to the junk man. Patrick, the gardener, usually attended to this, and he divided the money he got from selling the rags with Martha, the maid, who emptied the smaller bag.

“I must tell Patrick to sell the rags to the first junk man he sees,” said Martha to herself, as she emptied the small bag, Sawdust Doll and all, into the larger bag in the cellar.

The poor Sawdust Doll was tumbled out from one bag to the other in the midst of bundles of cloth, and the poor thing dared not say a word, or try to get out, for if she had Martha, the maid, would have seen her, and that isn’t allowed, you know.

“Patrick! Patrick!” called Martha to the gardener, as he was putting up a[89] clothes line in the yard, for the laundress was washing out the napkins the children had used at the little girl’s birthday party. “Oh, Patrick!” called Martha.

“Yes, yes! What is it?” asked the gardener, as he finished tying the line to the clothes post.

“You’d better sell the rags to the first junk man that comes along,” answered Martha. “I just emptied some more into the big bag, and there’s quite a lot now. The bag is nearly full.”

And a little while after that, before Dorothy had come home from Mirabell’s house where she had gone to help make a little pie, the jingling-jangling bells on a junk wagon were heard out in the street.

“Hi there! Hi there!” called Patrick, who, having finished tying the clothes line,[90] was out in the garage. “Hi there, junk man! Come here! I have some rags to sell you!”

He came in with his own big bag, and into that all the rags from the bag in the cellar were emptied. And nobody saw the Sawdust Doll tumbled out, in the midst of the rags, from one bag to the other. Patrick did not see the Sawdust Doll, nor did Martha, the maid, nor the junk man. He thought he was just buying rags—not a Sawdust Doll.

The rags were weighed, paid for, and tossed into the junk man’s wagon. Then he drove off with them—drove off with the Sawdust Doll in the middle of his old bag of rags, and he didn’t know a thing about it!

But the Sawdust Doll, herself, very well[91] knew that something strange was happening to her.

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “I don’t know whether I like this adventure or not! I wonder what will happen next!”

Away rattled the junk wagon, the ragged man on the seat calling from time to time:

He bought almost anything, did that junk man, but he never before, that he knew of, had bought a Sawdust Doll.

When Dorothy came back from the house next door, after having helped Mirabell bake a little pie, the first thing she thought of was her Sawdust Doll.

“I must finish making her gingham dress,” thought the little girl. But when she hurried to the playroom and saw nothing of the pile of rags she had left there,[92] with her thimble and needle on a table near by, and when she saw nothing of her doll, the little girl cried:

“My Sawdust Doll,” answered Dorothy, and tears began to gather in her eyes. “I left her here asleep on a pile of rags while I went to Mirabell’s house. Now she’s gone! My Sawdust Doll is gone! Oh, maybe Carlo carried her off again!”

“If he did we shall soon find her,” answered Mother. “I’ll help you look.”

But Carlo was not around, and, a little later, when Dick came in, he said the dog had been down the street, playing with him.

“But who did?” asked Dorothy. “I[93] left her right near the little rag-bag, after I got some pieces from it to make her a gingham dress.”

It did not take long to find out what had happened. When Martha, the maid, heard Dorothy asking about the small rag-bag and the pile of goods that had been on the playroom floor, the maid exclaimed:

“Oh, I picked them up! I picked up the rags, put them in the little rag-bag, and emptied them into the big bag in the cellar. I must have picked up the Sawdust Doll, too, though I didn’t notice her.”

“Well, she must be down in the cellar bag, then,” said Mother. “Don’t worry, Dorothy. We’ll soon have your doll back.”

But when Dorothy, Mother, and Martha went to the cellar they saw the big bag limp and empty, hanging on a nail.

And when they asked Patrick about it, of course that was what he had done; just as Martha had told him to do.

“I’ll get her back!” cried Patrick. “I’ll keep watch, and when I see that junk man going past again I’ll get your doll back, Dorothy.”

“Can’t you find him now?” asked the little girl. “I want my new Sawdust Doll awful much! Something is always happening to her! First Carlo took her off to his kennel, then she got ice cream on her dress, and now a junk man has her! Oh, dear!”

“I’ll get her back! I’ll get the Sawdust Doll back!” said Patrick, and he hurried out to the street, thinking perhaps the junk man might be just around the corner.

But the junk man was not in sight.[95] With his wagon filled with rags and bundles of newspapers, with the Sawdust Doll all wrapped up in pieces of cloth in one of his bags, the junk man was far away.

All day long the junk man drove through different streets buying odds and ends, and, all this while, he never knew he had the Sawdust Doll.

And poor Dorothy was crying her eyes out for her pet. She had other dolls, but she wanted, most of all, to have her birthday present back again.

At night the junk man drove to his shop, where he kept many piles of rags, bottles, old automobile tires and different things that he sold to other men.

After supper the bag, in which was the Sawdust Doll, was brought from the wagon into the junk shop, and emptied out on the floor.

“Want to help me sort the rags, Tinka?”[96] called the junk man to his little girl.

“Oh, yes, I love to sort the rags,” Tinka answered. She was about as old as Dorothy, but she did not live in such a nice house. “I will sort the rags,” said Tinka. “If I find a pretty one, may I have a piece for a hair-ribbon?”

“Yes,” answered her father, and he and Tinka began sorting over the rags to pick out the silk and woolen ones from the linen and cotton.

“Oh, look what I’ve found!” she exclaimed. “A doll! A real doll! Oh, Papa! I have found a doll and she’s new! A doll with a pink dress!”

The junk man dropped a bundle of rags he was sorting and came around to the side of the table where Tinka stood with the Sawdust Doll in her arms. The little girl was crooning to the Doll a lullaby that was sung in ancient times by an ancient people.

“I will not wake her up,” and the junk man smiled at his little daughter. “I will be careful not to wake her up.”

Then Tinka handed her father the Sawdust[98] Doll. The junk man turned her over and over in his hands, which were not very clean. Junk men cannot keep their hands clean when they work any more than the coal man can.

“Dear me!” thought the Sawdust Doll as she felt herself being turned over and over in the grimy hands of the junk man. “I hope he doesn’t soil my rose-colored silk dress any more than it is. But then I am going to have a new gingham one, anyhow. Oh, no! How can I have the new gingham dress if I stay here in this junk shop?” thought the Sawdust Doll.

You see, though Tinka made believe the Sawdust Doll was asleep, Dorothy’s pet was really awake, and knew what was going on. Though, of course, the Sawdust Doll would not move or speak as long as Tinka and her father were looking on.

“Yes,” said the junk man slowly, “this[99] is almost new. And yet she was in a bag of rags. There must be some mistake.”

The junk man laid the Sawdust Doll on the table, and began thinking over in his mind the different houses he had called at that day to get bags of rags and bundles of papers. Tinka slowly came around from her side of the table, and gently picked up the Sawdust Doll again.

“She is still asleep,” whispered the little girl. “But I will sing to her once more.”

“Yes, sing, Tinka,” replied the junk man. “Sing to the Doll, and then we must put her away, for I shall take her back in the morning.”

“Take her back! Oh, Papa! Are you going to take away the new Doll I found in the rags?” and tears came into Tinka’s eyes.

“Yes, little daughter, she is not our Doll,” sadly answered the junk man. “I[100] bought the rags, not the Doll. Some little girl owns her, and wants the Sawdust Doll as much as you do. It would not be right for us to keep her.”

Tinka said nothing for a moment. She just held the Sawdust Doll in her arms and looked at her, and she looked at the pretty rose-colored silk dress. And Tinka never saw the ice-cream spot on it. If she had seen it she would not have cared.

“I must take the Doll back to-morrow,” said the junk man slowly. “I remember now where I bought the rags in which the Sawdust Doll must have fallen or been put by mistake. A gardener at a big house called me in and sold me the rags. He has sold me some before. In the morning, before I go anywhere else, I will take the Sawdust Doll back.”

“Oh, Papa!” exclaimed Tinka, and that was all she said, but she hugged the Sawdust[101] Doll tightly in her arms. And when the junk man saw that he said:

“You may hold the Doll until it is time for you to go to bed, Tinka. You may hold her and sing to her. I will sort the rags myself.”

So Tinka sat down on a pile of old papers and rocked herself slowly to and fro, singing the old sweet lullaby to the Sawdust Doll. And the Sawdust Doll closed her eyes and seemed to go to sleep. But she was really awake, and she was thinking of many things.

“This junk shop is not as nice a place as the home I had with Dorothy,” thought the Sawdust Doll. “But Tinka loves me, and, after all, that is what counts. If ever I see my old friends in the store, of what an adventure I shall be able to tell them! Quite wonderful! How surprised the Bold Tin Soldier will be, and how the[102] Calico Clown will laugh when he hears I was in a rag-bag!”

The junk man looked across the room and saw Tinka nodding sleepily. Gently he took the Sawdust Doll from her arms and laid the toy on a piece of paper up on the mantel. Then he carried Tinka to her own bed, and the little girl murmured in her sleep:

So the Sawdust Doll was laid by herself on the mantel, and she thought many thoughts as the night passed. She could have moved around if she had wanted to, for no one was watching her now.

“But what is the use?” she asked herself. “There is no one here to play with—only bags of rags, bundles of paper, and such things as that. There is not even a broken Jack-in-the-Box for me to talk to.[103] I shall sleep. In the morning I may have more adventures.”

And very early the next morning, before Tinka was awake, the junk man drove off. And, on the seat beside him, wrapped in a paper, was the Sawdust Doll.

“I certainly am getting more than my share of rides,” thought the Sawdust Doll. “I wonder what is going to happen now!”

All the while the Sawdust Doll had been away on the junk-shop adventure, about which I have told you, poor Dorothy was almost heart-broken over the loss of her toy.

“I hope you may get her back,” said Dorothy’s mother. But really Mother had very little hope.

“There are so many junk men, and they all seem to look alike,” she told Dorothy’s[104] father. “I don’t believe Patrick will find the one to whom he sold the bag of rags with the Sawdust Doll in it.”

But Dorothy kept on hoping, and every time the bell rang she ran to the door, expecting it was her Doll come back. But night came, and the Sawdust Doll was still missing. Dorothy cried herself to sleep.

At last morning came, and Patrick, going out to sweep off a light snow that had fallen in the night, saw a junk wagon stopping in front of the house.

“Ha, there he is! There’s the man I sold the Sawdust Doll to!” cried the gardener. “There’s the junk man!”

The junk man got down off his seat and started up the path with something in his hand.

“I bring her back!” broke in the rag-buyer. “My little girl, Tinka, found a[105] Sawdust Doll in the rags when she sorted them. I bring her back—the Doll.”

“Well, thank goodness!” cried Patrick. “Dorothy will be glad of this! Wait a minute, junk man!” he called back as he ran into the house.

When Dorothy saw her Sawdust Doll the little girl clapped her hands in joy and cried:

“There she is! There she is! My Sawdust Doll has come back, and with her same rosy silk dress. I don’t care if it has an ice-cream stain on it! I love her!”

“Did the junk man bring the Doll back?” asked Dorothy’s mother, as the little girl held her toy in her arms.

When she heard how Tinka had found[106] the Doll in the rags, and how she had wanted to keep the toy for herself, Dorothy’s mother said:

“I think Dorothy will want to send Tinka a doll. Not the Sawdust Doll, for that is a birthday present. But I’ll find a doll for Tinka if you will take it to her. You will, please?” and she smiled at the junk man, who smiled and nodded in return.

When she was told about the junk man’s little girl, Dorothy picked out one of her best dolls—the one Santa Claus had brought her the Christmas before—and took it out to the junk man.

“Ah, Tinka will be happy!” said the man. “She will thank you a thousand times!”

And when the junk man went home that night with a doll that Tinka could keep[107] for her very own, the little girl, as she helped her father sort the rags, said:

“And I’m never going to lay you down in a bundle of rags again, not even to bake a strawberry shortcake!” she said. “Oh, how happy I am!”

“Oh, yes. And may I take my Sawdust Doll?” asked the little girl. Her mother said she might, and they set off.

By this time Dorothy, with the help of Martha, the maid, had made a new blue dress for the Sawdust Doll. It was of[108] muslin, and would wash, so that even if ice cream dropped on it not much harm would be done.

“Are you going to get me the White Rocking Horse?” asked Dorothy’s brother, when he saw his mother and sister going out shopping.

“I’ll see,” was all the answer given him, but, somehow, because of the way his mother smiled, Dick felt happy.

So Dorothy and her mother went back to the same store where the Sawdust Doll had been purchased. Up they went in the elevator to the toy department.

And there the Sawdust Doll saw her old friends. There stood the Lamb on Wheels, as woolly and kinky as ever. And the Bold Tin Soldier, at the head of his men, was ready to drive away any rats that might scurry out of their holes. The Calico Clown almost seemed to be whispering[109] to the Monkey on a Stick, and the Candy Rabbit was looking down at the White Rocking Horse.

“Oh, everything is just as I left it!” thought the Sawdust Doll. “How I wish I could talk to my friends! But we dare not speak or move by ourselves as long as any one is watching. However, I am happy just to visit my friends again!”

And as Dorothy held the Sawdust Doll in her arms, and as Mother looked about the store, suddenly a loud noise sounded off to one side of the toy department. There was some shouting, and Dorothy dropped her doll on the floor and ran, with her mother, to see what was the matter.

When Dorothy hurried away with her mother to see what all the noise and shouting was about, the little girl, as I told you, dropped her Sawdust Doll on the floor. But, luckily, the Doll fell on a footstool that had been left near the White Rocking Horse so little boys would find it easy to climb up on his back. The stool was soft, and the Sawdust Doll was not hurt in the least, though a bit shaken up.

And as Dorothy and her mother hurried out of the toy department, so did the other shoppers and the clerks, so that the place was left all to itself for a few minutes.

[111]“Oh, now we have a chance to talk!” exclaimed the Monkey on a Stick. “Dear Sawdust Doll, how glad we all are to see you again! Tell us where you have been and what has happened to you. Have you had any adventures?”

“Adventures!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll, as she sat up on the footstool, for there were no prying eyes to watch the toys now, and they could do as they pleased. “Adventures? I should say I have had them! It has been nothing but adventures since I left here.”

“Oh, tell us about them!” begged the Calico Clown. “Were they funny ones?”

“Some were, and some were not,” answered the Sawdust Doll, and she told everything that had happened to her from the time she left the store until she had come back on this visit.

“Just fancy!” cried the Bold Tin Soldier.[112] “Being in a junk shop! If I had been there I would have cut a way for you out of the bag with my sword!” he said.

“Thank you,” said the Sawdust Doll. “But, after all, everything came out all right as it was. I am back with Dorothy again, and happy.”

“I wonder what all the excitement is about,” said the White Rocking Horse, as he rocked to and fro.

“Oh, it’s just a man doing some magical tricks to amuse the children,” said the Monkey on a Stick. “I can see him from here. He comes every year at Christmas time to make it jolly for the children.”

“Now tell me some news!” begged the Sawdust Doll. “What has happened here since I went away?” and she softly patted the wool of the Lamb on Wheels. “Have you had any adventures?”

“Not many,” answered the Calico[113] Clown. “We have just been waiting for some one to buy us and take us away, as you were taken away.”

“I was almost sold yesterday,” said the White Rocking Horse. “But the boy who got on my back to try me kicked me with his heels and scratched some of my paint. I was glad when his father said he guessed he would buy the boy a bicycle instead of me. I wouldn’t want that kind of master—one who would kick you with his heels.”

“No, indeed!” said the Sawdust Doll. “My Dorothy is as kind as she can be.”

“I have thought up a new joke since you went away,” cried the Calico Clown. “It’s a riddle. Why does a bean bag——”

“Hush!” suddenly called the White Rocking Horse. “To your places, every one! Here come the People!”

And as Dorothy and her mother returned from having gone to see the magician[114] take things out of a hat, the Sawdust Doll and the other toys were as quiet and motionless as if they had never moved or spoken.

“Oh, look, Mother!” cried Dorothy. “I dropped my Sawdust Doll on this cushion and she’s right here yet!”

Dorothy held her Sawdust Doll in her arms, and the little girl never knew of the happy little visit her play toy had had with the old friends.

“How much is this White Rocking Horse?” asked Dorothy’s mother of the clerk behind the counter. And when she had been told the price Mother smiled and said: “I must send Daddy to look at it. This is just the kind Dick wants.”

When the shopping was finished the little girl went down in the elevator with her mother. The Calico Clown and the Bold Tin Soldier, as well as the other toys,[115] wished they might call out a “good-bye” to the Sawdust Doll as they saw her being carried away. And they wished they might tell her to come again. But they did not dare, with all the people around.

One day when it was snowing so hard that Dorothy and her brother could not go out to play, Dick climbed into a rocking chair in the middle of the playroom floor.

“I’m going to make believe this is a rocking horse,” he said. “I’m going to take a long ride,” and he swayed to and fro. “Do you want to ride with me, Dorothy?” he asked.

“Thank you, no. I am going to make a new dress for my Sawdust Doll,” was the answer. “I’ll leave her here a minute till I get some thread.”

Dorothy, leaving her doll down on the floor, went to the sewing-room, where her mother and Martha, the maid, were busy.[116] Dick began to sway backward, and forward in the rocking chair.

Then, all of a sudden, the chair swung to one side and one of the rockers went right over the Sawdust Doll. It tore a hole in her back and the sawdust began to run out.

“Oh, my!” cried Dick, when he saw the accident. “Oh, what will Dorothy say? Oh, I’m sorry!”

He got down off the chair and looked at the Doll on the floor. A little stream of sawdust was running out over the carpet.

“Oh, dear me!” cried Dorothy, when she came back and saw what had happened. “Oh, dear me! Oh, Mother! Dick has run over my Sawdust Doll and she’s bleeding! Oh, dear me!”

[117]She picked up her toy. The sawdust kept on running out, and the doll became very limp in Dorothy’s hands.

Mother came running in to see what the matter was. And, noticing the sawdust running out of the Doll, she exclaimed:

“Oh, but my doll is spoiled!” sobbed the little girl. “What made you run over her, Dick, with your rocking-chair horse?”

“I’ll get some new sawdust for her from the carpenter shop around the corner,” was the answer. “You get a needle and thread, Mother, and I’ll go after the sawdust.”

Dorothy dried her tears and watched while her mother got ready a needle, with a long thread, and her thimble. By that time Daddy had come back with something in a bag.

“Here is plenty of sawdust for the doll that fainted, Dorothy,” he said with a jolly laugh.

Through the hole made in the cloth by the rocking chair, the new sawdust from the carpenter shop was stuffed into the Doll. Then Mother sewed her up.

“And I’ll give you a ride on my make-believe rocking horse,” said Dick. “Come on, Dorothy!”

[119]“All right,” answered the little girl. “I’ll wait until to-morrow about making Dollie another dress.”

“Dear me!” thought the Sawdust Doll, “my adventures seem to keep up. Just fancy fainting because of an accident! How I should like to tell the Calico Clown and the Bold Tin Soldier about it. I don’t believe either of them ever fainted away.”

And as Dick and Dorothy and the Sawdust Doll rode on the rocking-chair horse, the little boy asked his father:

“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if you did,” was the answer. “What kind would you like?”

“A white one,” the boy answered. “Just[120] like the one I saw in the store where Dorothy’s Sawdust Doll was bought.”

And whether the little boy got his wish you may find out in the book that comes after this. It is called “The Story of a White Rocking Horse,” and it tells about the many adventures he had.

As for the Sawdust Doll, she lived with Dorothy for a number of years, and you may be sure many things happened to her—more than I have room to tell of in this book.

So I will say good-bye now, but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if you heard something more about the Sawdust Doll, as well as about the White Rocking Horse.

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CHAPTER	PAGE
I.	Fun in Toy Town	1
II.	Just Waiting	15
III.	The Little Girl	27
IV.	In an Automobile	37
V.	The Birthday Party	49
VI.	In the Dog House	62
VII.	In the Rag-Bag	73
VIII.	In the Junk Shop	87
IX.	A Happy Visit	97
X.	“Oh, Dear Me!”	110

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The story of a sawdust doll

THE STORY OF A SAWDUST DOLL

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
FUN IN TOY TOWN

CHAPTER II
JUST WAITING

CHAPTER III
THE LITTLE GIRL

CHAPTER IV
IN AN AUTOMOBILE

CHAPTER V
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

CHAPTER VI
IN THE DOG HOUSE

CHAPTER VII
IN THE RAG-BAG

CHAPTER VIII
IN THE JUNK SHOP

CHAPTER IX
A HAPPY VISIT

CHAPTER X
“OH, DEAR ME!”

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The story of a sawdust doll

THE STORY OF A SAWDUST DOLL

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I FUN IN TOY TOWN

CHAPTER II JUST WAITING

CHAPTER III THE LITTLE GIRL

CHAPTER IV IN AN AUTOMOBILE

CHAPTER V THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

CHAPTER VI IN THE DOG HOUSE

CHAPTER VII IN THE RAG-BAG

CHAPTER VIII IN THE JUNK SHOP

CHAPTER IX A HAPPY VISIT

CHAPTER X “OH, DEAR ME!”