Transcriber’s Note
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THE STORY OF A
WOOLLY DOG
[Illustration: “Now, I’m All Right,” Laughed the Clown.
_The Story of a Woolly Dog._ _Frontispiece_—(_Page 19_)
]
_MAKE BELIEVE STORIES_
(Trade Mark Registered)
THE STORY OF A
WOOLLY DOG
BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF “THE STORY OF A SAWDUST DOLL,” “THE STORY
OF A STUFFED ELEPHANT,” “THE BOBBSEY TWINS
SERIES,” “THE SIX LITTLE BUNKER SERIES,”
“THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
HARRY L. SMITH
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1923, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
The Story of a Woolly Dog
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I POOR TOYS 1
II A RICH MAN 13
III THE WOOLLY DOG’S NEW HOME 25
IV WHAT LITTLE JANE DID 37
V A LOST DIAMOND 49
VI THE CHINA CAT 64
VII IN THE BEEHIVE 76
VIII RIDING DOWN HILL 86
IX THE LOST IS FOUND 97
X A STRANGE DISCOVERY 109
THE STORY OF A WOOLLY DOG
CHAPTER I
POOR TOYS
“Well, he certainly is the finest toy in my little shop, but what good
does that do if I can’t sell him? His wool is very soft, and he looks
so natural that I can almost hear him bark. But, oh dear! if I don’t
sell him—or sell some of the toys soon—I can’t pay my rent and I’ll be
turned out! Oh, if my boy Jimmie would only come home from the sea with
the gold he said he’d bring to me!”
A sad-faced, poor, little, old lady moved slowly about a poor
little store on a side street. In the small show window were a few
notions—pins, needles and thread, and a few toys.
On a shelf near the window were other toys. But they were a very
poor and cheap lot, made to sell to poor children who had only a few
pennies. There were dolls that cost five cents—dolls with only a thin
little calico dress on, and nothing else. There were jumping jacks that
could be had for as little as three pennies, and there were two-cent
tops and one-cent marbles.
“The Woolly Dog is the best toy of all,” went on Mrs. Clark, who kept
the little store. “The agent said I could sell him for a good sum and
make money on him. Certainly he is a fine toy and I did not have to pay
very much, and, since I gave him a bath and cleaned him, he looks good
enough to be in a rich store.
“But, oh dear! I don’t know! If I don’t sell something soon I don’t
know where I’m going to make up the rent money! Oh, this is a hard
world!”
Poor Mrs. Clark sat down on a stool behind the counter and waited for
customers to come in. But there was little buying that day. Christmas
had passed, and though she had done pretty well in trade around the
holidays, now but few children, or grown-ups, either, came in to spend
their money. Perhaps they had spent it all for Christmas gifts.
“If I could only sell the Woolly Dog!” sighed Mrs. Clark again, and she
wiped some tears from her eyes, for she was very sad and in trouble.
“I wish I could help her,” thought the Woolly Dog to himself. He did
not dare speak out loud, though he could talk in toy language when no
real persons were near by. “Yes, I wish I could help her, but I can’t
go out and sell myself, or I would. This isn’t the kind of a store
where rich customers will come.”
The Woolly Dog looked around at the poor toys on the same shelf with
him. He was the most expensive of the lot.
As Mrs. Clark had said, some time ago, when she bought her little stock
of toys from an agent, he had offered her this Woolly Dog.
“It’s a sample, Mrs. Clark,” said the man. “I have carried him around
in my satchel for a long time, and his white wool is rather dirty. But
he isn’t broken, and if you were to wash him with soap and water he’d
be as clean as a whistle.”
“Speaking of whistles,” said Mrs. Clark, “the last ones I got from you
didn’t whistle loud enough, some boys said. They brought them back and
I had to return them their pennies.”
“Well, I have some louder whistles now,” went on the agent. “And I’ll
allow you for the ones that didn’t sell. But what about this Woolly
Dog? I’ll let you have him cheap. You can wash him, put him in the
window, and I’m sure you’ll sell him. You should ask a good price, too,
for this is one of the most expensive toys on the market.”
“All right, I’ll take him,” said Mrs. Clark.
And so she had bought the Woolly Dog. She had washed him, putting him
right into a tub with soap and warm water.
“Oh, that was a terrible time for me!” said the Woolly Dog, telling
of it afterward to his friend, the three-cent Jumping Jack. “I surely
thought I would drown, and the soap got in my eyes! Burr-r-r-r!”
“If that had happened to me all my paint would have washed off,” said
the three-cent Jumping Jack, one of the very cheapest of the poor toys.
You see the toys could talk among themselves when no children or
grown-ups were there to listen.
“Well, I felt dreadfully about it for a while,” went on the Woolly Dog.
“But after Mrs. Clark had washed me nicely she put me in the warm sun
and I dried out.”
“You are quite white and fluffy now,” said the Jumping Jack.
“Yes, I believe I am considered a very good sort of toy,” admitted the
Woolly Dog, trying not to speak proudly. “I am made of real lamb’s
wool, you know.”
“I can see that,” put in a Calico-Dressed Doll, who sold for five
cents—very little for a doll, I’m sure. “It is very nice of you to stay
here among such poor toys as we are,” went on the Doll.
“Oh, I think it is quite jolly here!” barked the Woolly Dog. “It’s such
a cute little store, you know!”
“But Mrs. Clark does hardly any business,” said the Jumping Jack. “I
was one of the lot of a dozen she bought from the agent, and there are
eight of us left. She’ll never get rich selling toys, I’m afraid.”
“I’m afraid not,” agreed the Woolly Dog. “But if she could sell me and
get the price I ought to bring, she would have several dollars. I ought
to be sold for five dollars, but I heard the agent say she could let me
go for three.”
“Three dollars! Think of that!” exclaimed the Calico-Dressed Doll.
“That’s almost a million, isn’t it?”
“Almost, but not quite,” answered the Woolly Dog, and again he did not
speak proudly as some toys might have done.
So it had come about that the Woolly Dog was among the poor toys in
Mrs. Clark’s little store—the best toy of all, it might be said of the
Woolly Dog. Mrs. Clark knew this, and she hoped the Woolly Dog would
soon sell, so she might get enough money to make up the full amount for
the rent, which must be paid in a day or two.
“I need just that three dollars the Woolly Dog would bring,” sighed the
poor old lady. “Or if my son Jimmie would come home, he would pay the
rent.”
But Jimmie was a sailor lad and at this time was far away, on a sort of
treasure hunt. He hoped to come back with gold to give his mother, and
he had written some letters in which he said he might be home almost
any day now.
“But my eyes are weary watching for him,” sighed Mrs. Clark.
She moved about her store, looking at the few things she had to sell.
After her husband had died she had started the store. For a time
she did fairly well, but times grew hard and she lived in a poor
neighborhood, where few people had money to spend on toys. They bought
needles, thread and pins of Mrs. Clark, but there is not much money to
be had selling these.
“I think I’ll put the Woolly Dog back in the window,” said Mrs. Clark
to herself, after dusting her store for the day. “He will be seen
better there, but I don’t like to keep him in the window too long, for
the sun might take the curl out of his wool. But I’ll put him there
this afternoon and leave him there to-morrow. Maybe someone will see
him and buy him. True, I’ve had him in the window before and no one
even came in to ask how much he would cost. But I’ll try it again.”
The Woolly Dog was glad to hear Mrs. Clark say this, for he liked being
in the show window. There was more to be seen from the window—he could
watch the children playing in the street and hear their laughter.
Of course he liked being on the shelf with the other toys, but he felt,
deep down inside him, that it would be best for him to be sold so Mrs.
Clark could get the money for her rent.
“Into the window you go, my friend!” said the storekeeper lady, as she
patted the Woolly Dog to get out of his coat any dust that might make
him look dingy. “Into the window you go, and may someone buy you!”
Not long after the Dog had been placed in the window with the needles,
pins and spools of thread, a boy and a girl pressed their little noses
up against the glass, making them look quite flat.
“Oh, see the new dog in the window!” cried the girl.
“’Tisn’t a new dog. I’ve seen him before,” said the boy.
“Well, he looks new to me,” went on the girl. “I wonder how much he
costs.”
“I guess more’n a dollar, Lizzie.”
“Oh, he couldn’t!” gasped the little girl. “No toy could cost that
much—not ever, Sammie!”
“Pooh! You just ought to see some of the toys in the stores on
Main Street!” replied Sammie. “Why, I’ve seen price tickets on ’em
marked—_ten dollars_!”
“Oh, Sammie! No!”
“Yes, I have! Say, rich people don’t care what they spend for toys!”
“Oh, it must be lovely to be rich,” sighed Lizzie. “But, anyhow, we can
_wish_ we had this Woolly Dog.”
“A lot of good that will do!” muttered Sammie. “Come on, we have to go
to the store for half a pound of sugar. We haven’t any money for toys.”
“No, I s’pose not,” sighed his sister. “Good-bye, Woolly Dog!” she
called back to the toy in the window, waving her hand.
The afternoon passed. Though many children of the neighborhood looked
in Mrs. Clark’s window—some of the boys and girls wishing they might
buy the Woolly Dog—no one purchased the expensive toy.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. Clark, when night came and she had to close her
store without having sold the Woolly Dog. “I don’t know what I’m going
to do if I don’t get the rent money!”
With the coming of night a change took place among the toys. When the
store window curtain was pulled down, the doors closed and when Mrs.
Clark had gone to bed, wishing she might dream of her son, there was a
movement among the Dolls, the Jumping Jacks and the Wooden Animals in
the cheap Noah’s Arks.
“I say, Woolly Dog!” called a voice, “are you ready for some fun?”
“Of course I am,” answered the Woolly Dog. “What do you want to do?”
“Will you give me a ride on your back?” asked a little Rubber Clown,
who had a whistle in his back that squeaked when you squeezed him.
“Surely, I’ll give you a ride on my back,” said the Woolly Dog kindly.
“Where are you?”
“Up on the shelf over your head. Wait a minute and I’ll jump down,”
said the Rubber Clown.
“Oh, now for some fun!” exclaimed the Calico-Dressed Doll.