The Story of a Lamb on Wheels Part 7

Just then Carlo gave a jump around behind the little girl, and, somehow or other, he became entangled in the string that was tied on the Lamb.

"Look out, Carlo! Look out!" cried Mirabell. "Be careful or you'll break my Lamb's string!"

But Carlo was not careful. He did not mean to make trouble, but he did.

He barked and growled and jumped around until his legs were all tangled up in the cord.

"Oh, look!" suddenly cried Arnold. "Look at your Lamb!"

And, as he spoke, Carlo gave a big jump to get the tangling string off his legs. The string broke, but, as it did so, the Lamb started to roll toward the open coal hole. And, at the same moment, the driver of the wagon began shoveling some of the black lumps down the opening.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried Mirabell.

And then the white, woolly Lamb on Wheels rolled across the sidewalk, and disappeared down into the dark coal hole!

CHAPTER VII

THE LAMB CARRIED AWAY

Mirabell and Arnold were so surprised for a moment at what had happened that they could only stand, looking at the hole in the sidewalk down which the Lamb on Wheels had fallen. Carlo, the fuzzy little dog, seemed to know he had done something wrong in getting tangled in the string, breaking it off, and so sending the Lamb wheeling along until she slid into the coal hole. And the dog gave a howl and ran back toward the house, having finally managed to get his legs loose from the cord.

"Bow-wow!" barked Carlo, as he ran.

Perhaps he feared that he, too, might slip down that black, dark hole which led into the coal bin of Dorothy's house. Then as Mirabell and Arnold stood, looking with wide-opened eyes at the place where they had last seen the Lamb, the man on the wagon threw another shovelful of coal down the hole.

"Wait a minute! Stop! Oh, please stop!" begged Mirabell.

"Whut's dat? Whut's de mattah?" asked the coal-wagon driver.

He was a colored man, and that was the very best shade for him, I think.

No matter how much coal dust got on his face and hands it never showed.

"Her little Lamb fell down the coal hole," explained Arnold. "Carlo got tangled in the string, it broke and she fell down the hole. Don't throw any more coal on her until we get her out."

"Does you-all mean dat Carlo fell down de hole?" asked the colored coal-wagon driver.

"No, Carlo is a dog," explained Mirabell. "He got tangled up in my Lamb's string, and she fell down the hole. I haven't named my Lamb yet.

She's on wheels."

"On wheels?" cried the man. "A Lamb on Wheels? Well, I 'clar to goodness dat's de fustest time I ebber done heah ob a t'ing laik dat!"

"Oh, she isn't a real, live lamb," explained Mirabell. "She's a toy, woolly one from the store, and my Uncle Tim, who's a sailor, gave her to me."

"Well now, honey, I suah is sorry to heah dat!" said the colored man.

"Your toy Lamb down de coal hole! Dat is too bad!"

"Can we get her out?" asked Arnold. "I'll crawl down the hole and get the Lamb if you won't throw any more coal."

"Oh, I won't frow any mo' coal--not fo' a while--not when I knows whut de trouble is," said the kind-hearted driver. "But I doan believe, mah li'l man, dat you'd better go down de coal hole."

At that moment the door of Dorothy's house opened, and her mother came out on the porch.

"What is it, Mirabell?" she asked. "What has happened?" She saw the children from next door talking to the coal driver, and she wondered at it.

"Oh, my Lamb is down the coal hole!" said Mirabell.

"Oh, that's too bad!" exclaimed Dorothy's mother. "I saw you holding a toy Lamb up to the window, before Dorothy was taken ill. How did your toy get down the coal hole?"

Mirabell and Arnold told by turns, and the driver said:

"I suah is sorry, lady. But it w'an't mahfaulta-tall!"

"I know it wasn't," said Dorothy's mother. "But do you think you could get the little girl's Lamb's back?"

"Well, dat coal hole isn't so very big," was the answer, as the driver scratched his kinky head. "But I might squeeze mahse'f down in it."

"Oh, I think a better way would be to go down in our cellar, crawl over the bin, and get the Lamb that way," Dorothy's mother said.

"Yes-sum, I could do it dat way!" the colored man said. "I'se been down in yo' cellar befo'. I'll get de Lamb on Wheels."

Dorothy's mother waited on the front porch, and Mirabell and Arnold waited on the sidewalk near the coal hole. A little while after the colored man had gone in the side entrance, through the cellar and into the coal bin, the two children heard him calling, as if from the ground beneath them.

"I got de Lamb!" said the driver, in a voice that sounded far-off and rumbly. "Watch out, now! I'se gwine to frow it up de hole!"

"All right!" said Arnold. "I'll catch her!"

"No, don't throw my Lamb!" objected Mirabell. "She might fall on the sidewalk and break."

"All right--den I'll HAND her up out ob de hole," called the colored man, who was now in the partly filled bin under the sidewalk. "Watch out fo' her!"

Mirabell and Arnold could hear him walking around on the coal under the sidewalk. In another half minute a black hand was thrust up through the hole, and in the hand was a white, woolly Lamb on Wheels. Wait a minute!

Did I say white? Well, I meant to have said a BLACK Lamb.

For Mirabell's white, clean Lamb on Wheels was now covered with black coal dust.

"Oh, that isn't my Lamb on Wheels at all!" cried Mirabell, and there were real tears in her eyes as her brother took the coal-dust covered toy from the colored man's hand. "That isn't my Lamb at all!"

"Oh, yes, it must be, Mirabell," said Dorothy's mother. "No other Lamb has fallen down the coal hole."

"But my Lamb was WHITE, and this one is BLACK," sobbed the little girl.

"Well, bring her in here and we'll wash her nice and clean and white again," said Dorothy's mother. "Bring your Lamb in, Mirabell. Dorothy is better now, though she cannot be out yet, and she will be glad to see you. Come in and I'll wash your Lamb!"

"And I certainly do need a bath!" thought the Lamb to herself, when she heard this talk. She could look down at her legs and see how black they were. "Oh, what a terrible adventure it is to fall into a coal hole! I wonder what will happen next!"

And she soon found out. For when the colored man had come out of the cellar, and was again shoveling the coal down the hole, Mirabell and Arnold took the black Lamb on Wheels into Dorothy's house. Dorothy and her brother d.i.c.k were glad to see the children from next door.