IN AN AUTOMOBILE
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 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.”
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,” 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:
“Oh, don’t! You make me dizzy!”
“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!’ 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:
“Put that brown-eyed doll away for me. I shall come in again.”
“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.
“I should like him for a master,” thought the White Rocking Horse.
“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 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 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 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 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.
“Gracious! I hope I don’t smother!” thought the Sawdust Doll.
She wished she might have a chance to say good-bye to the White Rocking
Horse, and to the Candy Rabbit, the Monkey on 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’ll never ride on my back again,” mused the White Rocking Horse.
“Never again will she tell me how sweet I am,” sighed the Candy Rabbit.
“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.”
“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.