"Whee! It's good to be back home again!" said Raggedy Andy to the other
dolls, as he stretched his feet out in front of the little toy stove and
rubbed his rag hands briskly together, as if to warm them.
All the dolls laughed at Raggedy Andy for doing this, for they knew
there had never been a fire in the little toy stove in all the time it
had been in the nursery. And that was a long time.
"We are so glad and happy to have you back home again with us!" the
dolls told Raggedy Andy. "For we have missed you very, very much!"
"Well," Raggedy Andy replied, as he held his rag hands over the tiny lid
of the stove and rubbed them again, "I have missed all of you, too, and
wished many times that you had been with me to join in and share in the
pleasures and frolics I've had."
And as Raggedy Andy continued to hold his hands over the little stove,
Uncle Clem asked him why he did it.
Raggedy Andy smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Really," he said, "I
wasn't paying any attention to what I was doing! I've spent so much of
my time while I was away drying out my soft cotton stuffing it seems as
though it has almost become a habit."
"Were you wet most of the time, Raggedy Andy?" the French doll asked.
"Nearly all the time!" Raggedy Andy replied. "First I would get sopping
wet and then I'd freeze!"
"Freeze!" exclaimed all the dolls in one breath.
"Dear me, yes!" Raggedy Andy laughed. "Just see here!" And Raggedy Andy
pulled his sleeve up and showed where his rag arm had been mended. "That
was quite a rip!" he smiled.
"Dear! Dear! How in the world did it happen? On a nail?" Henny, the
Dutch doll, asked as he put his arm about Raggedy Andy.
"Froze!" said Raggedy Andy.
The dolls gathered around Raggedy Andy and examined the rip in his rag
arm.
"It's all right now!" he laughed. "But you should have seen me when it
happened! I was frozen into one solid cake of ice all the way through,
and when Marcella tried to limber up my arm before it had thawed out, it
went, 'Pop!' and just bursted.
"Then I was placed in a pan of nice warm water until the icy cotton
inside me had melted, and then I was hung up on a line above the kitchen
stove, out at Gran'ma's."
"But how did you happen to get so wet and then freeze?" asked Raggedy
Ann.
"Out across the road from Gran'ma's home, 'way out in the country, there
is a lovely pond," Raggedy Andy explained. "In the summer time pretty
flowers grow about the edge, the little green frogs sit upon the pond
lilies and beat upon their tiny drums all through the night, and the
twinkling stars wink at their reflections in the smooth water. But when
Marcella and I went out to Gran'ma's, last week, Gran'ma met us with a
sleigh, for the ground was covered with starry snow. The pretty pond was
covered with ice, too, and upon the ice was a soft blanket of the white,
white snow. It was beautiful!" said Raggedy Andy.
[Illustration: Marcella and Raggedy Andy in the snow]
[Illustration: Marcella on a sled]
"Gran'ma had a lovely new sled for Marcella, a red one with shiny
runners.
"And after we had visited Gran'ma a while, we went to the pond for a
slide.
"It was heaps of fun, for there was a little hill at one end of the pond
so that when we coasted down, we went scooting across the pond like an
arrow.
"Marcella would turn the sled sideways, just for fun, and she and I
would fall off and go sliding across the ice upon our backs, leaving a
clean path of ice, where we pushed aside the snow as we slid. Then
Marcella showed me how to make 'angels' in the soft snow!"
"Oh, tell us how, Raggedy Andy!" shouted all the dollies.
"It's very easy!" said Raggedy Andy. "Marcella would lie down upon her
back in the snow and put her hands back up over her head, then she would
bring her hands in a circle down to her sides, like this." And Raggedy
Andy lay upon the floor of the nursery and showed the dollies just how
it was done. "Then," he added, "when she stood up it would leave the
print of her body and legs in the white, white snow, and where she had
swooped her arms there were the 'angel's wings!'"
"It must have looked just like an angel!" said Uncle Clem.
"Indeed it was very pretty!" Raggedy Andy answered. "Then Marcella made
a lot of 'angels' by placing me in the snow and working my arms; so you
see, what with falling off the sled so much and making so many 'angels,'
we both were wet, but I was completely soaked through. My cotton just
became soppy and I was ever so much heavier! Then Gran'ma, just as we
were having a most delightful time, came to the door and 'Ooh-hooed' to
Marcella to come and get a nice new doughnut. So Marcella, thinking to
return in a minute, left me lying upon the sled and ran through the snow
to Gran'ma's. And there I stayed and stayed until I began to feel stiff
and could hear the cotton inside me go, 'Tic! Tic!' as it began to
freeze.
[Illustration: Raggedy Andy on a sled at night]
"I lay upon the sled until after the sun went down. Two little Chicadees
came and sat upon the sled and talked to me in their cute little bird
language, and I watched the sky in the west get golden red, then turn
into a deep crimson purple and finally a deep blue, as the sun went
farther down around the bend of the earth. After it had been dark for
some time, I heard someone coming through the snow and could see the
yellow light of a lantern. It was Gran'ma.
"She pulled the sled over in back of her house and did not see that I
was upon it until she turned to go in the kitchen; then she picked me up
and took me inside. 'He's frozen as stiff as a board!' she told Marcella
as she handed me to her. Marcella did not say why she had forgotten to
come for me, but I found out afterward that it was because she was so
wet. Gran'ma made her change her clothes and shoes and stockings and
would not permit her to go out and play again.
"Well, anyway," concluded Raggedy Andy, "Marcella tried to limber my arm
and, being almost solid ice, it just burst. And that is the way it went
all the time we were out at Gran'ma's; I was wet nearly all the time.
But I wish you could all have been with me to share in the fun."
And Raggedy Andy again leaned over the little toy stove and rubbed his
rag hands briskly together.
Uncle Clem went to the waste paper basket and came back with some scraps
of yellow and red paper. Then, taking off one of the tiny lids, he
stuffed the paper in part of the way as if the flames were "shooting
up!"
Then, as all the dolls' merry laughter rang out, Raggedy Andy stopped
rubbing his hands, and catching Raggedy Ann about the waist, he went
skipping across the nursery floor with her, whirling so fast neither saw
they had gone out through the door until it was too late. For coming to
the head of the stairs, they both went head over heels, "blumpity,
blump!" over and over, until they wound up, laughing, at the bottom.
"Last one up is a Cocoa baby!" cried Raggedy Ann, as she scrambled to
her feet. And with her skirts in her rag hands she went racing up the
stairs to where the rest of the dollies stood laughing.
"Hurrah, for Raggedy Ann!" cried Raggedy Andy generously. "She won!"
[Illustration: Raggedy Ann racing up the stairs]
[Illustration: Listening to the seashell]
[Illustration: The Singing Shell]