She stood up straight and stiff, on her legs, did the Lamb. Her feet were fast to a wooden platform, and under that were wheels, so the Lamb could be rolled along from place to place. At night, when no one was looking at her, the Lamb could move along on the wheels by herself. But now she was very still and quiet, staring straight ahead as the dolls stared.
"I wonder what will happen to me to-day," thought the Lamb on Wheels again.
Through the toy department came striding a jolly-looking man who, when he walked, seemed to swing from side to side.
"What ho!" cried the jolly man, as he stopped at the toy counter. "I want to buy something!" he added. "I"m a sailor, just back from a long sea voyage, and I have plenty of money! I want to buy a toy!"
"What kind of toy?" asked the girl behind the counter. "We have many kinds here," and she smiled at the sailor. He was so jolly no one could help smiling at him. "We have Bold Tin Soldiers," went on the girl. "We have Calico Clowns, Candy Rabbits, a Monkey on a Stick, and a Lamb on Wheels, and lots of things."
"Hum! those are all very nice toys," said the jolly sailor. "But I think I"d like to look at the Lamb on Wheels."
"There she is, right in front of you, on the floor," said the girl.
"Oh, ho! So this is the Lamb on Wheels!" cried the jolly sailor as he picked her up. "Well, this seems just the toy I want. I"ll take her!
I"ll buy this Lamb on Wheels!"
"Oh, dear me!" thought the Lamb, for she knew what was going on, even though she dared not move by herself, or speak, "if this sailor buys me he"ll take me on an ocean trip and I"ll be seasick! Oh, dear, this is going to be dreadful!"
CHAPTER III
A HOME ON Sh.o.r.e
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 sh.o.r.e. 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 j.a.panese 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.