The story of a sawdust doll

The Sawdust Doll felt much better when the gardener had picked her out of the straw that he had raked from Carlo’s kennel. For, though the Sawdust Doll was only make-believe alive, she knew when real persons handled her. Surely she ought to, for she had been handled enough times since she was first made in the workshop of Santa Claus.

“Thank goodness some one has me in charge besides that fuzzy little dog!” said the Sawdust Doll to herself. “I don’t like him at all, though I don’t suppose he really meant to be mean to me. But I’m glad the gardener has me. I hope he likes dolls, and doesn’t throw me into the ash-barrel!”

The gardener was not going to do anything like that. He knew a good, new doll when he saw one. And as he looked at the rosily dressed toy in his hands, and then glanced toward the house, the man shook his head.

And the Doll stared at the man.

“I think some of the boys must have been playing tricks on the girls at the party,” said the gardener. “Some of the boys must have hidden this doll out in the straw. I’m glad I found her. I’ll take her back. Dorothy will know to which little girl she belongs.”

So, dropping the rake with which he had been cleaning out Carlo’s kennel, the gardener walked up to the house, and, wiping his feet at the back kitchen door, as he knew the cook did not want her floor made dirty, in the gardener went.

The cook was beginning to wash the cake and ice-cream dishes, for the eating part of the party was over.

“Look here, Mary,” said the gardener to the cook, holding out the Sawdust Doll. “See what I found in Carlo’s kennel.”

“Oh, for the love of peach pie!” cried the jolly cook. “That’s Dorothy’s doll! Where ever did you find her? The whole house has been upset looking for her. Where was she?”

“Out in the dog’s kennel. Some of the boys must have carried her there for a joke.”

“Ho! Ho! It wasn’t any of the boys!” laughed the cook. “It must have been Carlo himself. That dog is up to so many tricks. He carried off Dorothy’s doll!”

“Well, the doll isn’t harmed any,” said the gardener. “She was in the clean straw. Will you take her to Dorothy?”

“Indeed I will, the poor little dear! She’s been crying for fear her new doll was lost. Thank you, Patrick! I’ll tell Dorothy you found her doll for her.”

And when the cook went into the room where Dorothy and her little guests were still hunting for the missing doll, you can easily guess what joyous shouts there were.

“Oh, there she is! There she is!” cried Dorothy, when she saw her new birthday toy. “Where did you find her, Mary?” she asked, taking the Sawdust Doll in her arms.

“Patrick found her in the dog’s kennel,” the cook answered.

“Oh, Carlo! You bad dog!” cried Dorothy, and she shook her finger at the curly poodle, who had come back to the house to see if he could not get another piece of cake. “You’re a very bad dog to take my doll away!”

And though perhaps Carlo did not know what it was all about, he must have felt that he had done something wrong, for he ran out of the house and crawled into his kennel, where, by this time, Patrick had put some new straw.

“Where’s that thing I left here a while ago?” said Carlo to himself, as he fussed around in the straw. “Where’s that pink thing I took off the table? I was going to have some fun with it, but now it’s gone!”

And of course it was gone, for Dorothy had her Sawdust Doll back again, and Carlo was very much surprised to find his plaything gone.

“Now we can have some nice games,” said Dorothy, when she had smoothed out the pink dress of her toy. For the dress had been a little wrinkled by Carlo’s teeth.

And then what fun there was at the birthday party! Dorothy did not feel unhappy any longer, and she and the boys and girls played games.

“Did you have a nice time at your party, Dorothy?” asked Mother, when the little girl was going to bed that night.

“Oh, I had a lovely time!” was the sleepy answer. “And so did my Sawdust Doll. Thank you very much, Mother, for giving her to me.”

And Dorothy went to sleep, hugging her Sawdust Doll in her arms.

The Sawdust Doll did not go to sleep right away, though. She remained awake, even though it was very dark in Dorothy’s room, only a little night-light gleaming in the hall.

“I do wish some of my friends from Toy Town were here,” thought the Sawdust Doll to herself, as she lay in the bed with Dorothy. “I wish I could talk to the Calico Clown and the Bold Tin Soldier, and tell them of my adventures. I’m sure neither of them was ever carried off by a dog and hidden in a kennel. That is a most wonderful adventure, I’m sure!”

And, after a while, when Dorothy was sound asleep, and it was all still and quiet in the house, after the party, the Sawdust Doll did just as she had done in the store—she made believe come to life and moved about. For there was no one to watch her—she took good care of that. And Carlo was out in his kennel, so he could not carry her off again.

Softly and carefully the Sawdust Doll got out of Dorothy’s bed, climbed down by a chair, and walked over to the room where, on a shelf in the closet, the poor, broken Jack-in-the-Box had to stay.

There was a long scarf hanging from the shelf down to the floor, and the scarf had holes in it like a piece of lace. So, as the Sawdust Doll was not very heavy, and as the Monkey on a Stick had taught her something about climbing, the Sawdust Doll climbed the scarf-ladder until she reached the shelf.

“Hello! who’s there?” asked the Jack, suddenly awakening in his box.

“It is I,” answered the Sawdust Doll. “I came to tell you about my adventure.”

“Oh, that is very kind of you,” said Jack. “I wish I could spring up and see you, but I’ll just have to look at you through a crack in my box. You have no idea how troublesome it is to have a broken spring.”

“Yes, I can well imagine that it isn’t very jolly,” said the Sawdust Doll. “But I’ll come close to your crack so I can whisper through it, and tell you all about the party and my adventure in the dog kennel.”

“I shall be delighted to hear it,” said the Jack, most politely.

So up there in the dark, on the closet shelf, where no one could see them any more than the toys in the store could be seen at their midnight frolics, the Sawdust Doll and the Jack-in-the-Box talked to one another.

“Dear me! That was quite remarkable,” said Jack, when the Sawdust Doll had finished her story. “Just fancy! I never had anything like that happen to me!”

“But then, you see, you are not stuffed with sawdust,” returned the Doll, though not at all proudly.

“No, of course that makes a difference,” the Jack-in-the-Box said. “But once, when I was shut up in my box, the black cat came and began to play with the cover. She touched the catch with her paw, open flew the box, and I jumped out right in her face! Say, Miss Sawdust Doll, I wish you could have seen that cat run! I just wish you had been there!”

“Did she go fast?”

“Did she go fast? I should say she did! I never saw a toy train go any faster. But of course that was in the long-ago days, before my spring was broken,” sadly said Jack.

“I am sorry for you,” softly said the Sawdust Doll. “Maybe, some day, you will be mended.”

“No, I am afraid it is too late,” sighed Jack.

So he and the Sawdust Doll talked together until, all of a sudden, Jack called out:

“Hark!”

“What’s the matter?” asked the Sawdust Doll.

“The cook is grinding the coffee,” was the answer. “That means she is up and getting breakfast. It will soon be daylight. You had better go back where you came from. It would never do for you to be seen moving about. Folks would think you were alive.”

“Yes, I had better go back,” said the Sawdust Doll.

Down the scarf-ladder she went, and soon she was in bed with Dorothy again, and when the little girl awakened she never knew that her Sawdust Doll had been wandering about in the night, talking to Jack-in-the-Box.

“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Dorothy, when, fully awake, she looked at her Sawdust Doll on the pillow. “You have a big spot of ice cream on your new rose-colored silk dress! That must have happened at the party. Oh, dear! But I know what I can do! I’ll make you a gingham dress to wear around every day. Yes, that’s what I’ll do! I’ll make you a gingham dress!”

And after breakfast the little girl asked her mother if it would not be a fine thing to make an every-day dress for the Sawdust Doll.

“I think it would be very nice,” Mother answered. “You may take my rag-bag. You’ll find some odd pieces in it and you can, very nicely, make a doll’s dress from them.”

So Dorothy got the rag-bag and, placing her doll down on a low bench near her, began to measure her new toy for a gingham dress.

“Then if you drop ice cream on yourself it won’t be so bad,” said the little girl. “A gingham dress will wash.”

All the morning long Dorothy sewed away on the dress for the Sawdust Doll. She had it nearly done, while the Doll lay on a pile of cloth near the rag-bag ready to be fitted.

Dorothy was just sewing a sleeve in the gingham dress, and thinking how nice it would look on her doll, when there came a ring at the door, and Mirabell, a little girl who lived in the next house, came in.

“Can you come over a minute, Dorothy?” asked Mirabell. “My mother is baking, and she said I could make a little pie all by myself. And there’s enough dough so you can make one, too! Come on over!”

“Oh, that will be fun!” cried Dorothy, and, forgetting for a moment all about her Sawdust Doll and the new gingham dress, up jumped Dorothy and away she ran with Mirabell, leaving the pieces of cloth, rags, rag-bag, Doll and everything on the floor.

When Martha, the maid, came in a little later and saw the pile in confusion on the floor, she just bundled everything up together—new gingham dress, rags, Doll, and all—and stuffed them into the rag-bag.

“Dorothy forgot to pick up her playthings,” thought the maid, as she stuffed the odd pieces of cloth into the rag-bag. “I’ll do it for her.”

And the maid never knew that she had also put the Sawdust Doll into the rag-bag.