The Story of a Lamb on Wheels | Page 7

"No! Is she?" asked the sailor, in surprise.
"The very same one!" declared Mirabell. "I was in the store once with
Dorothy, the little girl who lives next door. She has a Sawdust Doll that
came from the same store. And we were there the other day, before I
was taken ill, and I saw a woolly lamb--this very same one, I'm sure--
and I wanted it so much! But Mother said I must wait, and I'm glad I
did, for now you gave it to me."
"Yes, I'm giving you the Lamb for yourself--to keep forever," said the
sailor. "I wouldn't dream of taking her on a sea voyage with me."
So you see the Lamb need not have been uneasy after all. But of course
she did not know that when the sailor bought her.
Mirabell stroked the soft wool of her new toy Lamb. She wheeled it
across the floor again, and the sailor watched her. Then, all of a sudden,
the door of the playroom was opened with such a bang that it struck the
Lamb and sent her spinning across the floor, upside down, into a
corner.

"Oh, Arnold!" cried Mirabell to her brother, who had come in so
roughly. "Look what you did! You've broken my Lamb on Wheels!"
CHAPTER IV
SLIDING DOWNHILL
Arnold, who was a boy about as old as Dick, the brother of Dorothy,
stopped short after slamming open the playroom door. He looked at his
sister, then at the Lamb lying upside down in a corner, and then he
looked at the jolly sailor.
"What did I do?" asked Arnold, who was taken by surprise by the way
his sister called to him.
"You broke my new toy, the Lamb on Wheels," answered the little girl.
"Oh, I hope she isn't killed!" and running to the corner, she picked up
her new toy.
"Oh, I didn't mean to do that," said Arnold, who was sorry enough for
the accident. "I didn't know you were in here," he went on. "I came to
get my toy fire engine. I'm going to play with Dick and his express
wagon. Where'd you get your Lamb on Wheels, Mirabell?"
"Uncle Tim brought her to me," answered the little girl.
Mirabell carefully looked at her plaything. And she was very glad to
find out that no damage seemed to have been done. None of the four
wheels was broken, the little wooden platform on which the Lamb
stood was not splintered, and there was not so much as a bruise on the
little black nose of the Lamb herself.
"I guess she is so soft and woolly that she didn't get hurt much,"
Mirabell said, turning the Lamb over and over. "She's so fat and soft--
like a rubber ball," she added.
"I'm glad of that," said Arnold. "Next time I come into a room I'll look
near the door to see that there isn't a Lamb behind it"

"That's the boy!" exclaimed Uncle Tim. "And here is something I
brought for you, Arnold. I didn't buy it in a toy store. It's a little
wooden puzzle I whittled with my knife out of a bit of wood when I
was on the ship."
Arnold looked at what Uncle Tim gave him. It was a puzzle, made of
some wooden rings on a stick, and the trick was to get the rings off the
stick. Arnold tried and tried but could not do it until his uncle showed
him how the trick was done. Then it was easy.
"Oh, thank you!" cried the boy, when he had learned how to do the
trick himself. "I'm going over and show Dick this puzzle. I don't
believe he can do it. Want to come, Mirabell, and show Dorothy your
Lamb on Wheels?"
"No, thank you, not now," Arnold's sister answered. "I'm going to get a
comb and brush and make my Lamb's wool all nice and fluffy. She got
all mussed when you banged her into the corner."
"I'm sorry," said Arnold again. "Do you want me to brush her off for
you?"
"I guess not!" laughed Mirabell. "Once you tried to get the tangles and
snarls out of the hair of one of my dolls, and you 'most pulled her head
off."
"All right. Then I'll take this puzzle and show it to Dick and Dorothy,"
decided Arnold.
"Who are Dick and Dorothy?" asked Uncle Tim.
"The little boy and girl who live next door," Mirabell explained.
"Dorothy has a Sawdust Doll, and Dick has a White Rocking Horse.
They came from the same store where you got my Lamb on Wheels!"
"Is that so?" cried the jolly sailor. "Well, you'll have to take your Lamb
over next door and let her meet her toy friends again."

"I'm going