IN THE RAG-BAG
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 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.
And the Doll stared at the man.
“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 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 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.
“Patrick found her in the dog’s kennel,” the cook answered.
“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 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.
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.”
And Dorothy went to sleep, hugging her Sawdust Doll in her arms.
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 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 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.
“Hello! who’s there?” asked the Jack, suddenly awakening in his box.
“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 party and my adventure in the dog kennel.”
“I shall be delighted to hear it,” said the Jack, most politely.
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 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?”
“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.”
“No, I am afraid it is too late,” sighed Jack.
So he and the Sawdust Doll talked together until, all of a sudden, Jack
called out:
“Hark!”
“What’s the matter?” asked the Sawdust Doll.
“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.”
“Yes, I had better go back,” said the Sawdust Doll.
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 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.”
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,
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.