The Story of a Lamb on Wheels | Page 6

of the sort!" cried the Calico Clown, and he
tried to wink at the Monkey from behind a pile of building blocks. "The
ocean is as safe as the shore. Why, look at the English and French
dolls," he said, waving his cymbals in the direction of the imported toys

in the next aisle. "They came over the ocean in a ship, and they did not
even have a headache. And look at the Japanese dolls--they came much
farther, over another ocean, too, and their hair was not even mussed."
"That's so," said the Lamb, and she felt a little better at hearing this.
"You want to keep still--don't scare her!" whispered the Clown to the
Monkey. "It's bad enough as it is--having her taken away by the sailor.
Don't make it worse!"
"All right, I won't," said the Monkey. And he began to talk about the
happier side of an ocean trip; how beautiful the sunset was, and how
there was never any dust at sea.
Then the sailor came back from having looked at the velocipedes, and
the girl clerk brought a large sheet of paper. In this the Lamb was
wrapped. She had a last look at her friends of the toy shelves and
counters, and then she felt herself being lifted up by the sailor.
Out of the store the sailor carried the Lamb on Wheels. She wished she
had had time to say good-bye to her friends, but she had not, and she
must make the best of it.
"At any rate I am going to have adventures, even though they may be
on a ship, and even though I may be seasick," thought the Lamb. "And
perhaps I may not be so very ill."
On and on walked the sailor, down this street up another until, after a
while, he stopped in front of a house.
"This must be the place," he said to himself. "I wonder if Mirabell is at
home. I'll go in and see."
Up the steps he went and rang the bell. There was a hole in the paper
wrapped about the Lamb, and through this hole she could look out. She
saw that she was on the piazza of a fine, large house. There was another
house next door, and at the window stood a little girl with a doll in her
arms.

"Gracious goodness!" exclaimed the Lamb on Wheels to herself. "That
looks just like the Sawdust Doll who used to live in our store! I wonder
if it could be?"
However she had no further chance to look, for the door opened just
then, and the sailor went inside the house, carrying the Lamb with him.
"Where's Mirabell?" asked the sailor of the maid who opened the door.
"She is up in the playroom," was the answer. "She has been ill, but she
is better now."
"So I heard!" went on the jolly sailor. "I brought her something to look
at. That will help her to get well."
Up to the playroom he went, and no sooner had he opened the door
than Mirabell, which was the name of the little girl, ran toward him.
"Oh, Uncle Tim!" cried Mirabell, as soon as she saw the jolly sailor,
"how glad I am to see you!"
"And I'm glad to see you, Mirabell," he laughed. "Look, I have brought
you something!"
"Is it a monkey, Uncle Tim?" she asked.
"No, Mirabell, it isn't a monkey. It is a woolly Lamb on Wheels. I saw
it in a toy store and I brought it to you."
"For me--to keep, Uncle Tim?" asked Mirabell, as the sailor took the
wrapping paper off.
"Yes, for you to keep," was the sailor's answer. "Did you think I would
be buying a Lamb for myself, to take to sea with me? Ho! Ho! I should
say not!" he chuckled.
"Oh, how glad I am! And how I shall love this Lamb!" said the little
girl.

As for the Lamb on Wheels, she was glad and happy, too, when she
heard, as she did, what the sailor said.
"Oh, I'm to have a home on shore!" thought the Lamb. "I am not going
to be taken on an ocean voyage at all, and be made seasick. I am to
have a home on shore!"
And that is just what the toy Lamb had. The jolly sailor, who was
Mirabell's uncle, had bought the toy for the little girl.
"Do you like the Lamb?" asked Uncle Tim.
"Oh, do I? Well, I just guess I do!" cried Mirabell, and she hugged the
Lamb in her arms, and rolled her across the floor on her wheels.
"Do you know, Uncle Tim," went on Mirabell, "this is the very same
Lamb I saw in the store, and wanted so much?"