JUST WAITING
“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 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.
“What is it?” asked the Lamb on Wheels.
“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, 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 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 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.
“Well, I’m glad he’s gone,” said the Sawdust Doll.
“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.
“Oh, what a joke!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll.
“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 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:
“In a sawdust ring,
In a sawdust ring,
That’s where I belong.
I’ll crack a joke,
Some fun I’ll poke,
And then I’ll song a sing.”
“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 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 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:
“Back to your shelves and counters, everybody!”
“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 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.
“I wonder if some one will buy me,” softly murmured the Sawdust Doll.
“Do you want them to?” asked the Candy Rabbit.
“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.