The Story of a Calico Clown Part 3

"I will," Madeline promised.

As Sidney turned to walk away, the Calico Clown fell out of his pocket.

"What's that? Where'd you get him?" cried Madeline. At the same time the Candy Rabbit saw the gay red and yellow chap from the toy store.

"Oh, there's my dear old Clown friend!" thought the Rabbit, all wet as he was. "How in the wide world did he get here?"

But of course he could not ask, any more than the Calico Clown could answer.

And when the Clown, lying on the gra.s.s where he had fallen from Sidney's pocket, saw the Candy Rabbit, the Clown said to himself:

"Yes, there he is! The same one I knew before. Oh, if we could only get together by ourselves and talk! How much we could say!"

Sidney picked the Calico Clown up off the gra.s.s.

"Where did you get him?" asked Madeline again. "He's awfully cute. I saw one like that in the store where Aunt Emma got my Candy Rabbit."

"Maybe this is the same one," Sidney answered. "I traded off my musical top to Archibald for the Clown. His leg is broken."

"Whose--Archibald's?" asked Madeline, in surprise.

"No, the Clown's," answered Sidney, with a laugh. "I'm going to fix it. Course a Calico Clown is worth more than a musical top, for the Clown is new and my top was old. But a Clown with a broken leg isn't worth so much."

"Is it worth anything?" asked Madeline. "I mean can you fix him?"

"Oh, yes," her brother answered. "He can still bang his cymbals, and he can jiggle both his arms and the leg that isn't broken."

Sidney punched the Clown in the chest, and the red and yellow fellow clapped his hands together and made the cymbals tinkle. Then Sidney pulled the strings and the two arms of the Clown went up and down, and one leg kicked out as nicely as you please. But the other leg did not move.

"That's the leg that's broken," Sidney explained. "He got broken when Pete made him do the giant's swing."

"He looks as though he was trying to dance on one leg!" laughed Madeline. "He's awfully cute, but he's funny!"

"I'll soon fix him, and he'll be as good as ever," declared her brother. "You'd better go and put your Rabbit in the sun to dry."

So Madeline did this, and very glad the sweet chap was to feel the warm sun on his back, for he had been made quite drippy and sticky by having fallen into the fountain.

Sidney, as I have told you, was a boy who could mend things. Once he had fixed Herbert's toy boat that was broken, and, another time, he had glued a head back on Madeline's Celluloid Doll.

"And I think I can glue my Clown's broken leg," thought Sidney, as he went toward the kitchen. There, he remembered, the cook always kept a tube of sticky glue.

"What are you going to mend now?" asked the cook.

"A broken leg," Sidney answered.

"Oh, you can't mend a broken leg with glue!" cried the cook. "You had much better call in the doctor. Whose leg is it?"

"I'm going to be the toy doctor," the little boy went on. "It's the wooden leg of a Calico Clown I'm going to mend."

"Oh, that's different," said the cook. "Well, here's the glue."

She handed Sidney the tube. He took it and his Clown over to a table.

Pus.h.i.+ng up the red trouser Sidney saw where the Clown's leg was broken. The wood was cracked and splintered, but the two pieces were there.

"I'll just glue them together," said the boy. And this he did. Then, as he knew that glue must set, or get hard, he put his Calico Clown away on a shelf in a closet, where the toy chap saw something that made him wonder.

At first, in the darkness, the Clown could not make out what or who it was on the shelf in the closet with him. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he noticed that it was a Cat.

"Oh, are you a toy, too?" asked the Calico Clown politely, for he wanted company and some one to talk to.

"No, I am not exactly a toy," answered the Cat.

"You look like one," the Clown said. "There was one just like you in our store, only that cat's head wobbled."

"Well, my head doesn't wobble--it comes off," said the Cat.

"Your head comes off!" cried the Clown in great surprise. "I should think that would hurt!"

"No, it's made to do that," the Cat explained. "You see I'm a match safe, and I also have a place inside me where burned matches may be put. To put them in me you have to lift off my head. It doesn't hurt at all--I'm used to it."

"Oh, that's different," said the Calico Clown. "Well, I am very glad to meet you. Do you know the Candy Rabbit?"

The Cat said she did, and very well, too.

"He sleeps here on the closet shelf with me every night," she added.

"You'll see him, pretty soon!"

"I shall be very glad to," remarked the Clown. "Excuse me for not sitting up as I talk," he said, for Sidney had laid him down flat on his back. "The truth of the matter," went on the Clown, "is that my leg was broken a while ago, and the boy just glued it together."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" mewed the Match-Safe Cat.

"I'm not--I'm glad," said the Clown. "If it wasn't glued I'd be a slimpsy lopsy sort of chap."

"Oh, I didn't mean I was sorry your leg was GLUED, I meant that I was sorry it was BROKEN," went on the Cat. "Now let's tell each other our adventures."

So they did, talking until late in the evening when, suddenly, the closet door was opened by Madeline. Of course, then the Cat and the Calico Clown had to be very still and quiet.

"There, I guess you'll be best in the closet for the rest of the night," said Madeline to her Candy Rabbit Easter toy. "You'll be all dry in the morning, I hope," and she thrust the Rabbit back on the shelf and shut the door.

"Oh, my dear Calico Clown friend!" cried the Candy Rabbit, as soon as it was safe for the toys to speak, "how glad I am to see you again."

"And I am glad to see you," said the Clown. "I rather like it here with the Cat."

"But why are you lying flat on your back?" asked the Candy Rabbit.

"You used to be such a lively, jolly fellow. Come, get up and give us one of your old-time jigs or dances."

"I'm very sorry, but I can't," answered the Clown. Then he told about his glued, broken leg, and how he would have to lie very stiff and straight and keep quiet.