The Story of a Lamb on Wheels Part 8

"Now to give Mirabell's Lamb a bath," said Dorothy's mother.

"I wonder if I'll be put in the bathtub, as the Wooden Lion was,"

thought the Lamb.

And she was, though she was not dipped all the way in, for fear of spoiling the wooden, wheeled platform on which she stood. With a nail brush and some soap and water, Dorothy's mother scrubbed the coal dust out of the Lamb's wool.

"There, she is nice and clean again," said Dorothy's mother, as she held the Lamb on Wheels up for the four children to see.

"But she is all wet!" cried Mirabell.

"I'll set her down by the warm stove in the kitchen, and she will soon dry," said the mother of d.i.c.k and Dorothy.

"And I'll put my Sawdust Doll down there with the Lamb so she won't be lonesome," said Dorothy.

And then the four children played games in the sitting room, while waiting for the Lamb to dry. And as Mary, the cook, was not in the kitchen just then, the Lamb and the Sawdust Doll were left alone together for a time.

"Oh, my dear, how glad I am to see you again!" exclaimed the Sawdust Doll when they were alone. "But, tell me! what happened? You are soaking wet!"

"Yes, it's very terrible!" bleated the Lamb. "I fell down a coal hole and had a bath!"

Then she told her different adventures, and the Sawdust Doll told hers, so the two toys had a nice time together. Soon the warm fire made the Lamb nice and dry and fluffy again. And she was as clean as when jolly Uncle Tim, the sailor, had bought her in the store.

"How is the White Booking Horse?" asked the Lamb of the Doll, when they had finished telling each other their adventures.

"Oh, he's just fine!" exclaimed the Sawdust Doll. "Did you hear about his broken leg, how he went to the Toy Hospital, and how he scared away some burglars by kicking one downstairs?"

"No, I never heard all that news," said the Lamb. "Please tell me," and the Sawdust Doll did. Then the two toys had to stop talking together as Mirabell, Arnold, Dorothy and d.i.c.k came into the kitchen.

"Oh, now my Lamb is all nice again!" cried Mirabell, when she saw her toy. "Oh, I am so glad."

"So am I," said Dorothy.

For many days Mirabell had jolly good times with her Lamb on Wheels.

Sometimes the Lamb was taken to Dorothy's house, and then there was a chance for the woolly toy to talk to the Sawdust Doll and the White Rocking Horse.

And one day the Lamb had another strange adventure.

Mirabell had been out in the street near Dorothy's house drawing her Lamb up and down by means of a string. And Mirabell kept watch to see that Carlo did not run along and get tangled in the string. The little girl also made sure that no sidewalk coal holes were open. She did not want the Lamb to fall into another one.

"Oh, Mirabell, come over here a minute!" called Dorothy to her friend.

"Mother got me a new trunk for my Sawdust Doll's things."

"Oh, I want to see it!" cried Mirabell, and she was in such a hurry that she let go of the string by which she had been by herself on the sidewalk for a little way, and finally rolled out toward the gutter. For once in her life Mirabell forgot all about her toy, pulling her Lamb.

The Lamb rolled along.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lamb On Wheels Tells Sawdust Doll of Her Troubles]

And while Mirabell was looking at the new trunk for the Sawdust Doll's clothes, a big dog came running along the street. He saw the white, woolly Lamb near the curbstone.

"Oh, ho! Maybe that is good to eat!" thought the dog. And before the Lamb on Wheels could say a word, that dog just picked her up in his mouth and carried her away as a mother cat carries her little ones. Yes, the big dog carried away the Lamb on Wheels!

CHAPTER VIII

SAILING DOWN THE BROOK

The Lamb on Wheels was so frightened when the dog took her up in his mouth that she did not know what to do. If she could, she would have rolled away as fast as a toy railroad train, such a train as Arnold and d.i.c.k played with. But the dog had the Lamb in his mouth before she knew what was happening.

Besides, across the street was a man, and, as he happened to be looking at the Lamb, of course she dared not make believe come to life and trundle along as she sometimes did in the toy store. It was against the rules, you know, for any of the toys to do anything by themselves when any human eyes saw them. And so the Lamb had to let herself be carried away by the dog.

Now you might think that when the man saw the dog run away with the Lamb on Wheels in his mouth the man would have stopped the dog. But the man was thinking of something else. He was looking for a certain house, and he had forgotten the number, and he was thinking so much about that, and other things, that he never gave the Lamb a second thought.

He did see the dog take her away, but maybe he imagined it was only some game the children were playing with the toy and the dog, for Mirabell and Dorothy were there on the street, in plain sight.

But as the two little girls were just then thinking of the new trunk for the Sawdust Doll, neither of them thought of the Lamb, and they did not see the dog take her.

"Oh, what a nice trunk!" said Mirabell to Dorothy.

"I'm glad you like it," said Dorothy. She had her Sawdust Doll in her arms, and, as it happened, the Doll saw the dog running away with the Lamb on Wheels in his mouth.

"Oh! Oh! Oh, dear me! That is dreadful!" said the Sawdust Doll to herself. "Oh, the poor Lamb! What will happen to her?"

Away ran the dog with the Lamb on Wheels in his mouth down the street, over a low fence, and soon he was in the vacant lots where the weeds grew high. And then, as there were no human eyes in the vacant lots to see her, the Lamb thought it time to do something. She began to wiggle her legs, though she could not get them loose from the platform with wheels on, and she cried out:

"Baa! Baa! Baa!"

"h.e.l.lo there! what's the matter?" barked the dog, and it made his nose tickle to have the Lamb, whom he was carrying in his teeth, give that funny Baa! sound in his mouth.

"Matter? Matter enough I should say!" exclaimed the Lamb on Wheels. "Why are you carrying me away like this, you very bad dog?"

For, being a toy, she could talk animal language as well as her own, and the dog could understand and talk it, too.

"Why am I carrying you away?" asked the dog. "Because I am hungry, of course."

"But I am not good to eat," bleated the Lamb. "I am mostly made of wood, though my wheels are of iron. Of course I have real wool on outside, but inside I am only stuffed."

"Dear me! is that so?" asked the dog, opening his mouth and putting the Lamb down amid a clump of weeds in the vacant lot.

"Yes, it's just as true as I'm telling you," went on the Lamb. "I am only a toy, though when no human eyes look at me I can move around and talk, as can all of us toys. But I am not good to eat."

"No, I think you're right about that," said the dog, after smelling of the Lamb. For that is how dogs tell whether or not a thing is good to eat--by smelling it.

"You looked so natural," went on the dog, "that I thought you were a real little Lamb. That's why I carried you off when that little girl left you and ran away. I'm sorry if I hurt you."

"No, you didn't hurt me, but you have carried me a long way from my home," the Lamb said. "I don't know how I am ever going to get back to Mirabell."