“OH, DEAR ME!”
When Dorothy hurried away with her mother to see what all the noise and
shouting was about, the little girl, as I told you, dropped her Sawdust
Doll on the floor. But, luckily, the Doll fell on a footstool that had
been left near the White Rocking Horse so little boys would find it
easy to climb up on his back. The stool was soft, and the Sawdust Doll
was not hurt in the least, though a bit shaken up.
And as Dorothy and her mother hurried out of the toy department, so did
the other shoppers and the clerks, so that the place was left all to
itself for a few minutes.
“Oh, now we have a chance to talk!” exclaimed the Monkey on a Stick.
“Dear Sawdust Doll, how glad we all are to see you again! Tell us
where you have been and what has happened to you. Have you had any
adventures?”
“Adventures!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll, as she sat up on the
footstool, for there were no prying eyes to watch the toys now, and
they could do as they pleased. “Adventures? I should say I have had
them! It has been nothing but adventures since I left here.”
“Oh, tell us about them!” begged the Calico Clown. “Were they funny
ones?”
“Some were, and some were not,” answered the Sawdust Doll, and she told
everything that had happened to her from the time she left the store
until she had come back on this visit.
“Just fancy!” cried the Bold Tin Soldier. “Being in a junk shop! If I
had been there I would have cut a way for you out of the bag with my
sword!” he said.
“Thank you,” said the Sawdust Doll. “But, after all, everything came
out all right as it was. I am back with Dorothy again, and happy.”
“I wonder what all the excitement is about,” said the White Rocking
Horse, as he rocked to and fro.
“Oh, it’s just a man doing some magical tricks to amuse the children,”
said the Monkey on a Stick. “I can see him from here. He comes every
year at Christmas time to make it jolly for the children.”
“Now tell me some news!” begged the Sawdust Doll. “What has happened
here since I went away?” and she softly patted the wool of the Lamb on
Wheels. “Have you had any adventures?”
“Not many,” answered the Calico Clown. “We have just been waiting for
some one to buy us and take us away, as you were taken away.”
“I was almost sold yesterday,” said the White Rocking Horse. “But the
boy who got on my back to try me kicked me with his heels and scratched
some of my paint. I was glad when his father said he guessed he would
buy the boy a bicycle instead of me. I wouldn’t want that kind of
master--one who would kick you with his heels.”
“No, indeed!” said the Sawdust Doll. “My Dorothy is as kind as she can
be.”
“I have thought up a new joke since you went away,” cried the Calico
Clown. “It’s a riddle. Why does a bean bag----”
“Hush!” suddenly called the White Rocking Horse. “To your places, every
one! Here come the People!”
And as Dorothy and her mother returned from having gone to see the
magician take things out of a hat, the Sawdust Doll and the other toys
were as quiet and motionless as if they had never moved or spoken.
“Oh, look, Mother!” cried Dorothy. “I dropped my Sawdust Doll on this
cushion and she’s right here yet!”
Dorothy held her Sawdust Doll in her arms, and the little girl never
knew of the happy little visit her play toy had had with the old
friends.
“How much is this White Rocking Horse?” asked Dorothy’s mother of the
clerk behind the counter. And when she had been told the price Mother
smiled and said: “I must send Daddy to look at it. This is just the
kind Dick wants.”
[Illustration: Dorothy’s Father Fixes the Sawdust Doll
_Page 118_]
When the shopping was finished the little girl went down in the
elevator with her mother. The Calico Clown and the Bold Tin Soldier, as
well as the other toys, wished they might call out a “good-bye” to
the Sawdust Doll as they saw her being carried away. And they wished
they might tell her to come again. But they did not dare, with all the
people around.
One day when it was snowing so hard that Dorothy and her brother could
not go out to play, Dick climbed into a rocking chair in the middle of
the playroom floor.
“I’m going to make believe this is a rocking horse,” he said. “I’m
going to take a long ride,” and he swayed to and fro. “Do you want to
ride with me, Dorothy?” he asked.
“Thank you, no. I am going to make a new dress for my Sawdust Doll,”
was the answer. “I’ll leave her here a minute till I get some thread.”
Dorothy, leaving her doll down on the floor, went to the sewing-room,
where her mother and Martha, the maid, were busy. Dick began to sway
backward, and forward in the rocking chair.
“Gid-dap!” cried the boy. “Go fast, Rocking Horse!”
Then, all of a sudden, the chair swung to one side and one of the
rockers went right over the Sawdust Doll. It tore a hole in her back
and the sawdust began to run out.
“Oh, my!” cried Dick, when he saw the accident. “Oh, what will Dorothy
say? Oh, I’m sorry!”
He got down off the chair and looked at the Doll on the floor. A little
stream of sawdust was running out over the carpet.
“Oh, dear me!” cried Dorothy, when she came back and saw what had
happened. “Oh, dear me! Oh, Mother! Dick has run over my Sawdust Doll
and she’s bleeding! Oh, dear me!”
She picked up her toy. The sawdust kept on running out, and the doll
became very limp in Dorothy’s hands.
“Oh, my Sawdust Doll has fainted!” she cried. “What shall I do?”
Mother came running in to see what the matter was. And, noticing the
sawdust running out of the Doll, she exclaimed:
“Hold your hand over the hole, Dorothy! That will keep the sawdust in!”
“Oh, but my doll is spoiled!” sobbed the little girl. “What made you
run over her, Dick, with your rocking-chair horse?”
“I--I didn’t mean to,” said Brother Dick. “I’m sorry!”
“Oh, my Sawdust Doll will die!” cried Dorothy.
But Daddy came in just then, and when he saw what the trouble was he
said:
“We’ll fix your doll, Dorothy. Don’t cry. We can make her well again.”
“How?” asked the little girl.
“I’ll get some new sawdust for her from the carpenter shop around the
corner,” was the answer. “You get a needle and thread, Mother, and I’ll
go after the sawdust.”
Dorothy dried her tears and watched while her mother got ready a
needle, with a long thread, and her thimble. By that time Daddy had
come back with something in a bag.
“Here is plenty of sawdust for the doll that fainted, Dorothy,” he said
with a jolly laugh.
Through the hole made in the cloth by the rocking chair, the new
sawdust from the carpenter shop was stuffed into the Doll. Then Mother
sewed her up.
“And I’ll give you a ride on my make-believe rocking horse,” said Dick.
“Come on, Dorothy!”
“All right,” answered the little girl. “I’ll wait until to-morrow about
making Dollie another dress.”
She climbed up into the chair with her brother, holding her toy in her
arms.
“Dear me!” thought the Sawdust Doll, “my adventures seem to keep up.
Just fancy _fainting_ because of an accident! How I should like to tell
the Calico Clown and the Bold Tin Soldier about it. I don’t believe
either of them ever fainted away.”
And as Dick and Dorothy and the Sawdust Doll rode on the rocking-chair
horse, the little boy asked his father:
“Do you think, Daddy, I’ll ever have a _real_ rocking horse?”
“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if you did,” was the answer. “What kind
would you like?”
“A white one,” the boy answered. “Just like the one I saw in the store
where Dorothy’s Sawdust Doll was bought.”
“We’ll see,” promised Daddy.
And whether the little boy got his wish you may find out in the book
that comes after this. It is called “The Story of a White Rocking
Horse,” and it tells about the many adventures he had.
As for the Sawdust Doll, she lived with Dorothy for a number of years,
and you may be sure many things happened to her--more than I have room
to tell of in this book.
So I will say good-bye now, but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if you
heard something more about the Sawdust Doll, as well as about the White
Rocking Horse.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is
entered into the public domain.