The story of a sawdust doll

“Dear me!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll to herself, as she felt that she was being stuffed into the rag-bag. “Dear me! This is dreadful! What sort of an adventure am I going to have now?”

The maid carried the rag-bag to the cellar, where there was a much larger bag, containing more rags, pieces of old carpet and other trash.

“It is nearly time Patrick sold the rags,” said the maid, as she emptied the contents of the small rag-bag into the larger one. The small rag-bag was kept in the sewing-room, where odds and ends were put into it day by day until it was filled. Then it was emptied into the larger bag down in the cellar, and, when that was full, it was sold to the junk man. Patrick, the gardener, usually attended to this, and he divided the money he got from selling the rags with Martha, the maid, who emptied the smaller bag.

“I must tell Patrick to sell the rags to the first junk man he sees,” said Martha to herself, as she emptied the small bag, Sawdust Doll and all, into the larger bag in the cellar.

The poor Sawdust Doll was tumbled out from one bag to the other in the midst of bundles of cloth, and the poor thing dared not say a word, or try to get out, for if she had Martha, the maid, would have seen her, and that isn’t allowed, you know.

“Patrick! Patrick!” called Martha to the gardener, as he was putting up a clothes line in the yard, for the laundress was washing out the napkins the children had used at the little girl’s birthday party. “Oh, Patrick!” called Martha.

“Yes, yes! What is it?” asked the gardener, as he finished tying the line to the clothes post.

“You’d better sell the rags to the first junk man that comes along,” answered Martha. “I just emptied some more into the big bag, and there’s quite a lot now. The bag is nearly full.”

“All right, I’ll sell ’em!” Patrick called back.

And a little while after that, before Dorothy had come home from Mirabell’s house where she had gone to help make a little pie, the jingling-jangling bells on a junk wagon were heard out in the street.

“Hi there! Hi there!” called Patrick, who, having finished tying the clothes line, was out in the garage. “Hi there, junk man! Come here! I have some rags to sell you!”

“And I want to buy rags,” answered the junk man.

He came in with his own big bag, and into that all the rags from the bag in the cellar were emptied. And nobody saw the Sawdust Doll tumbled out, in the midst of the rags, from one bag to the other. Patrick did not see the Sawdust Doll, nor did Martha, the maid, nor the junk man. He thought he was just buying rags—not a Sawdust Doll.

The rags were weighed, paid for, and tossed into the junk man’s wagon. Then he drove off with them—drove off with the Sawdust Doll in the middle of his old bag of rags, and he didn’t know a thing about it!

But the Sawdust Doll, herself, very well knew that something strange was happening to her.

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “I don’t know whether I like this adventure or not! I wonder what will happen next!”

Away rattled the junk wagon, the ragged man on the seat calling from time to time:

“Any rags? Any bottles? Any old clothes?”

He bought almost anything, did that junk man, but he never before, that he knew of, had bought a Sawdust Doll.

When Dorothy came back from the house next door, after having helped Mirabell bake a little pie, the first thing she thought of was her Sawdust Doll.

“I must finish making her gingham dress,” thought the little girl. But when she hurried to the playroom and saw nothing of the pile of rags she had left there, with her thimble and needle on a table near by, and when she saw nothing of her doll, the little girl cried:

“Oh, where is she? Where is she?”

“Where is who, my dear?” asked Mother.

“My Sawdust Doll,” answered Dorothy, and tears began to gather in her eyes. “I left her here asleep on a pile of rags while I went to Mirabell’s house. Now she’s gone! My Sawdust Doll is gone! Oh, maybe Carlo carried her off again!”

“If he did we shall soon find her,” answered Mother. “I’ll help you look.”

But Carlo was not around, and, a little later, when Dick came in, he said the dog had been down the street, playing with him.

“Carlo didn’t take your doll, I know that,” said Dick.

“But who did?” asked Dorothy. “I left her right near the little rag-bag, after I got some pieces from it to make her a gingham dress.”

It did not take long to find out what had happened. When Martha, the maid, heard Dorothy asking about the small rag-bag and the pile of goods that had been on the playroom floor, the maid exclaimed:

“Oh, I picked them up! I picked up the rags, put them in the little rag-bag, and emptied them into the big bag in the cellar. I must have picked up the Sawdust Doll, too, though I didn’t notice her.”

“Well, she must be down in the cellar bag, then,” said Mother. “Don’t worry, Dorothy. We’ll soon have your doll back.”

But when Dorothy, Mother, and Martha went to the cellar they saw the big bag limp and empty, hanging on a nail.

“Oh, Patrick must have sold the rags!” said Martha.

And when they asked Patrick about it, of course that was what he had done; just as Martha had told him to do.

“I’ll get her back!” cried Patrick. “I’ll keep watch, and when I see that junk man going past again I’ll get your doll back, Dorothy.”

“Can’t you find him now?” asked the little girl. “I want my new Sawdust Doll awful much! Something is always happening to her! First Carlo took her off to his kennel, then she got ice cream on her dress, and now a junk man has her! Oh, dear!”

“I’ll get her back! I’ll get the Sawdust Doll back!” said Patrick, and he hurried out to the street, thinking perhaps the junk man might be just around the corner.

But the junk man was not in sight. With his wagon filled with rags and bundles of newspapers, with the Sawdust Doll all wrapped up in pieces of cloth in one of his bags, the junk man was far away.

All day long the junk man drove through different streets buying odds and ends, and, all this while, he never knew he had the Sawdust Doll.

And poor Dorothy was crying her eyes out for her pet. She had other dolls, but she wanted, most of all, to have her birthday present back again.

At night the junk man drove to his shop, where he kept many piles of rags, bottles, old automobile tires and different things that he sold to other men.

After supper the bag, in which was the Sawdust Doll, was brought from the wagon into the junk shop, and emptied out on the floor.

“Want to help me sort the rags, Tinka?” called the junk man to his little girl.

“Oh, yes, I love to sort the rags,” Tinka answered. She was about as old as Dorothy, but she did not live in such a nice house. “I will sort the rags,” said Tinka. “If I find a pretty one, may I have a piece for a hair-ribbon?”

“Yes,” answered her father, and he and Tinka began sorting over the rags to pick out the silk and woolen ones from the linen and cotton.

Suddenly Tinka uttered a cry.

“Oh, look what I’ve found!” she exclaimed. “A doll! A real doll! Oh, Papa! I have found a doll and she’s new! A doll with a pink dress!”

And Tinka held up the Sawdust Doll!