The story of a sawdust doll

The junk man dropped a bundle of rags he was sorting and came around to the side of the table where Tinka stood with the Sawdust Doll in her arms. The little girl was crooning to the Doll a lullaby that was sung in ancient times by an ancient people.

“Let me see the Sawdust Doll, Tinka!” said the junk man.

“Oh, but, Papa, she is asleep, now,” said Tinka softly.

“I will not wake her up,” and the junk man smiled at his little daughter. “I will be careful not to wake her up.”

Then Tinka handed her father the Sawdust Doll. The junk man turned her over and over in his hands, which were not very clean. Junk men cannot keep their hands clean when they work any more than the coal man can.

“Dear me!” thought the Sawdust Doll as she felt herself being turned over and over in the grimy hands of the junk man. “I hope he doesn’t soil my rose-colored silk dress any more than it is. But then I am going to have a new gingham one, anyhow. Oh, no! How can I have the new gingham dress if I stay here in this junk shop?” thought the Sawdust Doll.

You see, though Tinka made believe the Sawdust Doll was asleep, Dorothy’s pet was really awake, and knew what was going on. Though, of course, the Sawdust Doll would not move or speak as long as Tinka and her father were looking on.

“Yes,” said the junk man slowly, “this is almost new. And yet she was in a bag of rags. There must be some mistake.”

The junk man laid the Sawdust Doll on the table, and began thinking over in his mind the different houses he had called at that day to get bags of rags and bundles of papers. Tinka slowly came around from her side of the table, and gently picked up the Sawdust Doll again.

“She is still asleep,” whispered the little girl. “But I will sing to her once more.”

“Yes, sing, Tinka,” replied the junk man. “Sing to the Doll, and then we must put her away, for I shall take her back in the morning.”

“Take her back! Oh, Papa! Are you going to take away the new Doll I found in the rags?” and tears came into Tinka’s eyes.

“Yes, little daughter, she is not our Doll,” sadly answered the junk man. “I bought the rags, not the Doll. Some little girl owns her, and wants the Sawdust Doll as much as you do. It would not be right for us to keep her.”

Tinka said nothing for a moment. She just held the Sawdust Doll in her arms and looked at her, and she looked at the pretty rose-colored silk dress. And Tinka never saw the ice-cream spot on it. If she had seen it she would not have cared.

“I must take the Doll back to-morrow,” said the junk man slowly. “I remember now where I bought the rags in which the Sawdust Doll must have fallen or been put by mistake. A gardener at a big house called me in and sold me the rags. He has sold me some before. In the morning, before I go anywhere else, I will take the Sawdust Doll back.”

“Oh, Papa!” exclaimed Tinka, and that was all she said, but she hugged the Sawdust Doll tightly in her arms. And when the junk man saw that he said:

“You may hold the Doll until it is time for you to go to bed, Tinka. You may hold her and sing to her. I will sort the rags myself.”

So Tinka sat down on a pile of old papers and rocked herself slowly to and fro, singing the old sweet lullaby to the Sawdust Doll. And the Sawdust Doll closed her eyes and seemed to go to sleep. But she was really awake, and she was thinking of many things.

“This junk shop is not as nice a place as the home I had with Dorothy,” thought the Sawdust Doll. “But Tinka loves me, and, after all, that is what counts. If ever I see my old friends in the store, of what an adventure I shall be able to tell them! Quite wonderful! How surprised the Bold Tin Soldier will be, and how the Calico Clown will laugh when he hears I was in a rag-bag!”

The junk man looked across the room and saw Tinka nodding sleepily. Gently he took the Sawdust Doll from her arms and laid the toy on a piece of paper up on the mantel. Then he carried Tinka to her own bed, and the little girl murmured in her sleep:

“Oh, what a beautiful Sawdust Doll!”

The junk man sighed.

So the Sawdust Doll was laid by herself on the mantel, and she thought many thoughts as the night passed. She could have moved around if she had wanted to, for no one was watching her now.

“But what is the use?” she asked herself. “There is no one here to play with—only bags of rags, bundles of paper, and such things as that. There is not even a broken Jack-in-the-Box for me to talk to. I shall sleep. In the morning I may have more adventures.”

And very early the next morning, before Tinka was awake, the junk man drove off. And, on the seat beside him, wrapped in a paper, was the Sawdust Doll.

“I certainly am getting more than my share of rides,” thought the Sawdust Doll. “I wonder what is going to happen now!”

All the while the Sawdust Doll had been away on the junk-shop adventure, about which I have told you, poor Dorothy was almost heart-broken over the loss of her toy.

“Do you think I’ll ever get her back?” she asked over and over again.

“I hope you may get her back,” said Dorothy’s mother. But really Mother had very little hope.

“There are so many junk men, and they all seem to look alike,” she told Dorothy’s father. “I don’t believe Patrick will find the one to whom he sold the bag of rags with the Sawdust Doll in it.”

But Dorothy kept on hoping, and every time the bell rang she ran to the door, expecting it was her Doll come back. But night came, and the Sawdust Doll was still missing. Dorothy cried herself to sleep.

At last morning came, and Patrick, going out to sweep off a light snow that had fallen in the night, saw a junk wagon stopping in front of the house.

“Ha, there he is! There’s the man I sold the Sawdust Doll to!” cried the gardener. “There’s the junk man!”

The junk man got down off his seat and started up the path with something in his hand.

“Did you find——” began Patrick.

“I bring her back!” broke in the rag-buyer. “My little girl, Tinka, found a Sawdust Doll in the rags when she sorted them. I bring her back—the Doll.”

“Well, thank goodness!” cried Patrick. “Dorothy will be glad of this! Wait a minute, junk man!” he called back as he ran into the house.

When Dorothy saw her Sawdust Doll the little girl clapped her hands in joy and cried:

“There she is! There she is! My Sawdust Doll has come back, and with her same rosy silk dress. I don’t care if it has an ice-cream stain on it! I love her!”

“Did the junk man bring the Doll back?” asked Dorothy’s mother, as the little girl held her toy in her arms.

“Yes,” answered Patrick. “He’s outside now.”

“I’ll see him,” said Dorothy’s mother.

When she heard how Tinka had found the Doll in the rags, and how she had wanted to keep the toy for herself, Dorothy’s mother said:

“I think Dorothy will want to send Tinka a doll. Not the Sawdust Doll, for that is a birthday present. But I’ll find a doll for Tinka if you will take it to her. You will, please?” and she smiled at the junk man, who smiled and nodded in return.

When she was told about the junk man’s little girl, Dorothy picked out one of her best dolls—the one Santa Claus had brought her the Christmas before—and took it out to the junk man.

“That is for Tinka,” said Dorothy. “Please give it to her.”

“Ah, Tinka will be happy!” said the man. “She will thank you a thousand times!”

And when the junk man went home that night with a doll that Tinka could keep for her very own, the little girl, as she helped her father sort the rags, said:

“Oh, how happy I am! Now I have some one I can sing to sleep!”

And she crooned a soft little lullaby to her own doll.

And Dorothy had her Sawdust Doll back again.

“And I’m never going to lay you down in a bundle of rags again, not even to bake a strawberry shortcake!” she said. “Oh, how happy I am!”

One day Dorothy’s mother said to her:

“I am going shopping again. Do you want to come?”

“Oh, yes. And may I take my Sawdust Doll?” asked the little girl. Her mother said she might, and they set off.

By this time Dorothy, with the help of Martha, the maid, had made a new blue dress for the Sawdust Doll. It was of muslin, and would wash, so that even if ice cream dropped on it not much harm would be done.

“Are you going to get me the White Rocking Horse?” asked Dorothy’s brother, when he saw his mother and sister going out shopping.

“I’ll see,” was all the answer given him, but, somehow, because of the way his mother smiled, Dick felt happy.

So Dorothy and her mother went back to the same store where the Sawdust Doll had been purchased. Up they went in the elevator to the toy department.

And there the Sawdust Doll saw her old friends. There stood the Lamb on Wheels, as woolly and kinky as ever. And the Bold Tin Soldier, at the head of his men, was ready to drive away any rats that might scurry out of their holes. The Calico Clown almost seemed to be whispering to the Monkey on a Stick, and the Candy Rabbit was looking down at the White Rocking Horse.

“Oh, everything is just as I left it!” thought the Sawdust Doll. “How I wish I could talk to my friends! But we dare not speak or move by ourselves as long as any one is watching. However, I am happy just to visit my friends again!”

And as Dorothy held the Sawdust Doll in her arms, and as Mother looked about the store, suddenly a loud noise sounded off to one side of the toy department. There was some shouting, and Dorothy dropped her doll on the floor and ran, with her mother, to see what was the matter.