IN THE TOY-SHOP
The first thing that Dorothy did was to draw a long breath over her
narrow escape, and the next thing was to look up into the air to see
what had become of the tree, and she saw the braided floor of the garden
floating away, far above her head, with the flapping trunks of the trees
dangling from it like a lot of one-legged trousers. This was a rather
ridiculous spectacle, and when the floor presently shriveled up into a
small brown patch, like a flying pancake, and then went entirely out of
sight, she said "Pooh!" very contemptuously and felt quite brave again.
[Illustration: "'IT IS A SHELF!' SHE EXCLAIMED."]
"It wasn't half so solemn as I expected," she went on, chattering to
herself; "I certainly thought there would be all kinds of phenomeners,
and, after all, it's precisely like nothing but a big basket of old
clothes, blowing away. But it's just as well to be saved, of course,
only I don't know where I am any more than I did before. It's a kind of
wooden floor, I think," she added, stamping on it with her little shoe;
"and, dear me! I verily believe it's nothing but a shelf. It _is_ a
shelf!" she exclaimed, peeping cautiously over the edge; "and there's
the real floor ever so far away. I can never jump down there in the
world without being dashed to destruction!"--and she was just thinking
how it would do to hang from the edge of the shelf by her hands and then
let herself drop (with her eyes shut, of course) when a little party of
people came tumbling down through the air and fell in a heap close
beside her. She gave a scream of dismay and then stood staring at them
in utter bewilderment, for, as the party scrambled to their feet, she saw
they were the Caravan, dressed up in the most extraordinary fashion, in
little frocks and long shawls, and all wearing sunbonnets. The
Highlander, with his usual bad luck, had put on _his_ sunbonnet
backward, with the crown over his face, and was struggling with it so
helplessly that Dorothy rushed at him and got it off just in time to
save him from being suffocated. In fact, he was so black in the face
that she had to pound him on the back to bring him to.
[Illustration: "THE HIGHLANDER, WITH HIS USUAL BAD LUCK, HAD PUT ON HIS
SUNBONNET BACKWARD."]
"We're disguised, you know," said the Admiral, breathlessly. "We found
these things under the bed. Bob Scarlet isn't anywhere about, is he?" he
added, staring around in an agitated manner through his spy-glass.
"About?" said Dorothy, trying to look serious. "I should think he was
about five miles from here by this time."
"I wish it was five thousand," exclaimed Sir Walter, angrily, smoothing
down his frock. "Old Peckjabber!"
"Why, what in the world is the matter?" said Dorothy, beginning to laugh
in spite of herself.
"Matter!" exclaimed the Admiral, his voice fairly trembling with
emotion; "why, look here! We was all shrinking away to nothing in that
wanishing garden. Bob Scarlet himself was no bigger than an ant when we
came away."
"And we wasn't any bigger than uncles," put in the Highlander.
"_You're_ not more than three inches high this minute," said Sir Walter,
surveying Dorothy with a critical air, with his head cocked on one side.
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Dorothy, with a start. "It seems to me
that's extremely small. I should think that I'd have felt it coming on."
"It comes on sort of sneaking, and you don't notice it," said the
Admiral. "_We'd_ have been completely inwisible by this time if we
hadn't jumped overboard."
"It was an awful jump!" said Dorothy, solemnly. "Didn't it hurt to fall
so far?"
"Not at all," said the Admiral, cheerfully. "The falling part of it was
quite agreeable--so cool and rushing, you know; but the landing was
tremenjious severe."
"Banged us like anything," explained the Highlander; and with this the
Caravan locked arms and walked away with the tails of their shawls
trailing behind them.
"What strange little things they are!" said Dorothy, reflectively, as
she walked along after them, "and they're for all the world precisely
like arimated dolls--movable, you know," she added, not feeling quite
sure that "arimated" was the proper word,--"and speaking of dolls,
here's a perfect multitude of 'em!" she exclaimed, for just then she
came upon a long row of dolls beautifully dressed, and standing on
their heels with their heads against the wall. They were at least five
times as big as Dorothy herself, and had price-tickets tucked into their
sashes, such as "2/6, CHEAP," "5_s._, REAL WAX," and so on; and Dorothy,
clapping her hands in an ecstasy of delight, exclaimed: "Why, it's a
monstrous, enormous toy-shop!" and then she hurried on to see what else
there might be on exhibition.
"Marbles, prob'bly," she remarked, peering over the edge of a basket
full of what looked like enormous stone cannon-balls of various colors;
"for mastodons, _I_ should say, only I don't know as _they_ ever play
marbles,--grocery shop, full of dear little drawers with real knobs on
'em,--'pothecary's shop with _true_ pill-boxes," she went on, examining
one delightful thing after another; "and here's a farm out of a box, and
all the same funny old things--trees with green shavings on them and
fences with feet so they'll stand up, and here's the dear fam'ly, same
size as the trees and the houses, of course, and--oh! I beg your
pardon," she exclaimed, for her frock had touched the farmer and knocked
him over flat on his back. "And here's a Noah's Ark, full of
higgledy-piggledy animals--why, what are you doing here?" she cried,
for just at that moment she suddenly discovered the Caravan, all huddled
together at the door of the ark, and apparently discussing something of
vast importance.
"We're buying a camel," said the Admiral, excitedly; "they've got just
the one we want for the Caravan."
"His name is Humphrey," shouted the Highlander, uproariously, "and he's
got three humps!"
"Nonsense!" cried Dorothy, bursting into a fit of uncontrollable
laughter. "There never was such a thing."
"They have 'em in arks," said the Admiral, very earnestly. "You can find
_anything_ in arks if you only go deep enough. I've seen 'em with
patriarchs in 'em, 'way down at the bottom."
"Did _they_ have any humps?" inquired the Highlander with an air of
great interest.
Dorothy went off again into a burst of laughter at this. "He's really
the most ignorant little creature I ever saw," she said.
"I thought they was something to ride on," said the Highlander, sulkily;
"otherwise, I say, let 'em keep out of arks!" The rest of the Caravan
evidently sided with him in this opinion, and after staring at Dorothy
for a moment with great disfavor they all called out "Old Proudie!" and
solemnly walked off in a row as before.
"I believe I shall have a fit if I meet them again," said Dorothy to
herself, laughing till her eyes were full of tears. "They're certainly
the foolishest things I ever saw," and with this she walked away through
the shop, and was just beginning to look at the toys again, when she
came suddenly upon an old dame sitting contentedly in the shop in a
great arm-chair. She was eating porridge out of a bowl in her lap, and
her head was so close to the edge of the shelf that Dorothy almost
walked into her cap.
"Drat the toys!" cried the old dame, starting so violently that her
spectacles fell off her nose into the porridge. "Drat the new-fangled
things!"--and here she aimed a blow at Dorothy with her spoon. "They're
enough to scare folks out of their senses. Give _me_ the old-fashioned
kind--deaf and dumb and blind and stiff"--but by this time Dorothy,
almost frightened out of her wits, had run away and was hiding behind a
doll's sofa.
"_She's_ a nice person to have charge of a shop," she exclaimed
indignantly, as she listened to the old dame scolding to herself in the
distance. "The idea of not knowing human persons when you see them! Of
course, being so small _is_ rather unusual, and it's really quite
dangerous, you know," she went on, giving a little shiver at the thought
of what might have happened. "Just fancy being wrapped up in a piece of
stiff paper by mistake--shrieking wouldn't do the least good because, of
course, she's deaf as anything--"
* * * * *
"How much are you a dozen?" said a voice, and Dorothy, looking around,
saw that it was a Dancing-Jack in the shop-window speaking to her. He
was a gorgeous creature, with bells on the seams of his clothes and with
arms and legs of different colors, and he was lounging in an easy
attitude with his right leg thrown over the top of a toy livery-stable
and his left foot in a large ornamental tea-cup; but as he was fastened
to a hook by a loop in the top of his hat, Dorothy didn't feel in the
least afraid of him.
"Thank you," she replied with much dignity, "I'm not a dozen at all. I'm
a single person. That sounds kind of unmarried," she thought to
herself, "but it's the exact truth."
[Illustration: "'YOU KNOW YOUR SIZE DOES COME IN DOZENS, ASSORTED,'
CONTINUED THE JACK."]
"No offense, I hope," said the Jack, looking somewhat abashed.
"No--not exactly," said Dorothy rather stiffly.
"You know, your size _does_ come in dozens--assorted," continued the
Jack, with quite a professional air. "Family of nine, two maids with
dusters, and cook with removable apron. Very popular, I believe."
"So I should think," remarked Dorothy, beginning to recover her good
nature.
"But of course _singles_ are much more select," said the Jack. "_We_
never come in dozens, you know."
"I suppose not," said Dorothy, innocently. "I can't imagine anybody
wanting twelve Dancing-Jacks all at the same time."
"It wouldn't do any good if they did want 'em," said the Jack. "They
couldn't get 'em,--that is, not in _this_ shop."
Now, while this conversation was going on, Dorothy noticed that the
various things in the shop-window had a curious way of constantly
turning into something else. She discovered this by seeing a little
bunch of yellow peg-tops change into a plateful of pears while she
chanced to be looking at them; and a moment afterward she caught a
doll's saucepan, that was hanging in one corner of the window, just in
the act of quietly turning into a battledore with a red morocco handle.
This struck her as being such a remarkable performance that she
immediately began looking at one thing after another, and watching the
various changes, until she was quite bewildered.
"It's something like a Christmas pantomime," she said to herself; "and
it isn't the slightest use, you know, trying to fancy what anything's
going to be, because everything that happens is so unproblesome. I don't
know where I got _that_ word from," she went on, "but it seems to
express exactly what I mean. F'r instance, there's a little cradle
that's just been turned into a coal-scuttle, and if _that_ isn't
unproblesome, well then--never mind!" (which, as you know, is a
ridiculous way little girls have of finishing their sentences.)
By this time she had got around again to the toy livery-stable, and she
was extremely pleased to find that it had turned into a smart little
baronial castle with a turret at each end, and that the ornamental
tea-cup was just changing, with a good deal of a flourish, into a small
rowboat floating in a little stream that ran by the castle walls.
"Come, _that's_ the finest thing yet!" exclaimed Dorothy, looking at all
this with great admiration; "and I wish a brazen knight would come out
with a trumpet and blow a blast"--you see, she was quite romantic at
times--and she was just admiring the clever way in which the boat was
getting rid of the handle of the tea-cup, when the Dancing-Jack
suddenly stopped talking, and began scrambling over the roof of the
castle. He was extremely pale, and, to Dorothy's alarm, spots of bright
colors were coming out all over him, as if he had been made of stained
glass, and was being lighted up from the inside.
"I believe I'm going to turn into something," he said, glaring wildly
about, and speaking in a very agitated voice.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Dorothy in dismay; "what do you suppose it's going
to be?"
"I think--" said the Jack, solemnly,--"I think it's going to be a
patchwork quilt," but just as he was finishing this remark a sort of
wriggle passed through him, and, to Dorothy's amazement, he turned into
a slender Harlequin all made up of spangles and shining triangles.
Now this was all very well, and, of course, much better than turning
into a quilt of any sort; but as the Dancing-Jack's last remark went on
without stopping, and was taken charge of, so to speak, and finished by
the Harlequin, it mixed up the two in a very confusing way. In fact, by
the time the remark came to an end, Dorothy didn't really know which of
them was talking to her, and, to make matters worse, the Harlequin
vanished for a moment, and then reappeared, about one half of his
original size, coming out of the door of the castle with an unconcerned
air as if he hadn't had anything to do with the affair.
"It's dreadfully confusing," said Dorothy to herself, "not to know which
of two persons is talking to you, 'specially when there's really only
one of them here"; but she never had a chance to find out anything about
the matter, for in the mean time a part of the castle had quietly turned
upside down, and was now a little stone bridge with the stream flowing
beneath it, and the Harlequin, who was constantly getting smaller and
smaller, was standing with one foot in the boat as if he were trying to
choose between taking a little excursion on the water and going out of
sight altogether.
"Excuse me--but did you say anything?" said Dorothy, feeling quite sure
that there was no time to be lost.
"All that _I_ said was 'quilt,'" replied the Harlequin; "I suppose
there's no particular harm in that?"
"Oh, dear, no!" said Dorothy, hastily; "only it seems a rather queer way
of beginning a conversation, you know."
"It's as good as any other way if it's all you have to say," said the
Harlequin, and by this time he had both feet in the boat, and had
evidently decided on the water excursion, for, before Dorothy could
think of anything more to say to him, he sailed away under the bridge
and disappeared.
[Illustration: "HE SAILED AWAY UNDER THE BRIDGE."]