The Story of a Lamb on Wheels | Page 5

and I'll be seasick! Oh, dear, this is going to be dreadful!"
CHAPTER III
A HOME ON SHORE
The jolly sailor held in his hands the Lamb on Wheels. He looked her over carefully, and rubbed her warm, woolly sides. Though his hand was not as soft as was that of the little girl who had stroked the Lamb the day before, yet the sailor was gentle in his touch.
"Well, I suppose there is no use thinking any longer of having a home like the one the Sawdust Doll got, with her little girl mistress to love her," said the Lamb on Wheels to herself. "I am to be taken away by this sailor--away out to sea. I never could stand sailing, anyhow. Oh, dear! why do I have to go?"
"Does she squeak?" asked the sailor of the clerk, as he held the Lamb in his hands.
"Oh, no. She isn't that kind of Lamb," answered the clerk, with a laugh. "She is just a Lamb on Wheels, and she has real wool on her back and sides and legs. She does not squeak or go baa-a-a-a, and if you want her to move you have to pull her along."
"Well, I was going to get a Lamb that squeaked," went on the sailor, "but I suppose this one will do just as well."
"We have a Calico Clown who bangs his cymbals together when you press on his stomach or chest," said the girl. "See this toy! Maybe you would like this!"
She picked up the Calico Clown in his gaily colored suit, and, pressing on him in the middle, she made him bang his cymbals together.
"That is a jolly toy," said the sailor. "Let me see it."
He took up the Calico Clown, and did as the girl clerk had done.
"Bing! Bang! Bung!" went the cymbals.
"Oh, I hope he buys me," thought the Clown. "I should love to go to sea on a ship."
But the sailor appeared to like the Lamb on Wheels best. He took her up again, and the Lamb, who had begun to hope that she might not have to go to sea, felt sad again.
"I'll take this Lamb on Wheels," said the sailor. "How much is it?" and he pulled out his pocketbook, as he tucked the lamb under his arm.
"Oh, I must wrap it up for you," said the girl. "You are not supposed to take things from the store unless they are wrapped. I'll get a large piece of paper for the Lamb."
And while the clerk was gone the sailor walked about, looking at some bicycles and velocipedes at the far end of the toy department. Thus the Lamb and her friends were left by themselves for a moment or two, with no one to look at them. This was just the chance the Lamb wanted. She could talk now.
"Oh, just think of where I am going to be taken!" she said to the Calico Clown. "Off to sea!"
"Real jolly, I call it!" said the Clown. "I wish he had picked me for the trip."
"And I wish he had taken me," put in the Bold Tin Soldier. "I have always longed for a sea trip."
"Well, I wish either of you had gone in my place," said the Lamb on Wheels, a bit sadly. "Now I shall never see the Sawdust Doll or the White Rocking Horse again."
"You must make the best of it," said the Monkey on a Stick. "I know what sailors are--I have heard of them. They like to have monkeys and parrots for pets--that is, real ones, not toys such as we are. But sailors are kind, I have heard."
But the woolly Lamb only sighed. She felt certain that she would be seasick, and no one can have a good time thinking of that.
"Well, if you go on an ocean trip we may never see you again," said the Monkey on a Stick. "Ocean travel is very dangerous."
"Nonsense! It isn't anything 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