CHAPTER VII
IN THE TOY HOSPITAL
Dick made such a fuss out on the porch, crying, when he saw his toy lying at the foot of the steps, that the boy's mother hurried out to see what the trouble was.
"Dear me! Did you fall off?" asked Mother, as she saw the Horse lying on its side and Dick standing at the bottom of the porch steps near his toy. "Are you hurt, Sonny?"
"Oh, no, Mother. But my Horse is! My Christmas Horse is hurt."
"You can't hurt a wooden rocking horse," said Mother, as she went over to see what had happened.
"Oh, yes you can!" sobbed Dick, for he was so little a boy that he was not ashamed to cry. "My Horse's leg is broken! I can never ride him again! Oh, dear!"
Mother looked at the Horse lying on its side at the foot of the steps. If there had been no one there to look on, the Horse might have tried to get up, even with all his pain. But, as it was against the rules to move or say anything as long as human eyes were watching, the poor White Rocking Horse just had to lie there.
"Dear me, one of the legs really is broken," said Mother, as she set the Horse upright. And, being a wooden horse with rockers under him, such as some chairs have, the Horse could stand upright, even though one of his legs was cracked clear through.
"Yes, his leg is broken, and now I can never have a ride on him any more!" sobbed Dick. "Oh, dear!"
"Oh, it isn't as bad as all that," said Mother, with a kind smile as she patted her little boy's head. "I think we can have the broken leg mended. But how did it happen? Did you ride your Horse off the porch, Dick?"
"No, Mother," he answered. "I was playing with Arnold's train, and Carlo ran around the corner, barking, and he ran between my Horse's legs, I guess, and upset him. Oh, isn't it too bad?"
"Yes; but it might be worse," replied Mother. "If your leg had been broken, or Dorothy's or Mirabell's or Arnold's, it could not so easily be mended."
"Can you mend the broken leg of my White Rocking Horse?" asked Dick eagerly.
"I cannot mend it, myself," Mother answered. "But I will have Daddy take your Horse to the hospital."
"I was in the hospital once," put in Arnold, "and I had some bread and jelly."
"Will they give my Horse bread and jelly in the hospital?" asked Dick of Mother.
"Hardly that," she replied with a smile. "It is not the same kind of hospital. The one where I will have Daddy take your White Rocking Horse is a toy hospital, where all sorts of broken playthings are mended. There your Horse will be made as good as new."
"Oh, I shall be so glad if he is," said Dick.
And the White Horse himself, though he dared say nothing just then, thought how glad he would be to have his broken leg mended. Some of the splinters were sticking him, and though of course I do not mean to say that a wooden horse has the same pain with a broken leg as a boy or girl or a chicken or a rooster would have, still it is no fun.
Patrick, the gardener, came out and carried the broken-legged Rocking
Horse into the front hall.
"We'll let him stand there until Daddy comes home with the auto and can take him to the hospital," said Mother.
And then it was that the White Rocking Horse had a chance to speak to the Sawdust Doll. Dorothy laid her Doll on a chair in the hall to help Dick, Mirabell and Arnold bring the toy train inside, as it was getting too cold to play out on the porch.
"I'm sorry," murmured the Doll.
[Illustration: "What Happened to You?" Asked White Rocking Horse.]
"Oh, ho!" exclaimed Dick's Daddy, when he came home and heard the story. "A Rocking Horse with a broken leg! Of course I'll take him to the toy hospital."
And, not waiting for his supper, lest the hospital be closed, Daddy wrapped the White Rocking Horse in a sheet, put him once more in the back of the automobile and started off.
A little later the White Rocking Horse found himself in the toy hospital. It was not such a place as you have seen if you have ever been in the buildings where sick people are made well. There were no beds and no doctors and no queer smells. Yes, wait a minute, there were queer smells of glue and paste, but the White Rocking Horse rather liked them.
Instead of a doctor there was a jolly-looking man, with a long apron, and a square, paper cap.
"Can you mend the broken leg of this Rocking Horse?" asked Dick's father. The hospital toy doctor looked at the White Rocking Horse.
"I shall have to put a new piece in his leg," he said. "It is badly splintered half way down."
"Will it be as strong as before, so my little boy can ride?" asked
Daddy.
"It will be even stronger," answered the hospital toy doctor. "I will have him ready for you in a few days; perhaps tomorrow."
"And will the broken leg show?" asked Daddy.
"Hardly any," was the reply. "I will paint it over so you will never know it."
"Then the Horse will be almost as good as ever," said Daddy.
"Just as good," said the toy doctor, and the Horse felt much better when he heard this. His leg did not pain him so much.
The hospital toy doctor set the White Rocking Horse over in one corner near a work bench. Dick's Daddy, after a look around the hospital started back home in his automobile.
"We'll soon have you fixed, my fine fellow!" said the toy doctor, as he again took up his work of putting a new pair of eyes in a wax doll. "We'll make as good a Horse of you as before."
"I certainly am glad of that," thought the Horse to himself.
It soon became too dark for the toy doctor to see to work any longer, even though he lighted the gas. So he took off his long apron, laid aside his square, paper cap, locked up the place and went home.
And then the White Rocking Horse took a long breath.
"Now that I am alone I'll move about, as well as I can on three legs, and talk to some of the broken toys here," said the White Rocking Horse aloud. "Are you badly hurt?" he asked a Jack in the Box, who was on the work-bench near by.
"My spring is gone," was the answer. "I was brought here to have a new one put in."
"Well, I hope you will soon be mended," said the White Horse. "I wonder if any of my friends are here in this hospital? I say, toys!" he cried, "let's all talk together and—"
All at once a big white paper spread out on the bench began to move, and out from under it came a toy, at the sight of which the Horse exclaimed:
"Well, I do declare! Who would have thought to find you here? What happened to you? Dear me, what a surprise!"
CHAPTER VIII
HOME AGAIN
Many of the toys, which had been mended since having been brought to the hospital, stood up and looked at the White Rocking Horse as he called to them, and they wondered what had surprised him so.
"My goodness, that Horse is making a great deal of noise," said a large Wooden Soldier, one of whose legs was in splints. It had been broken in three places when the little boy, who owned the Soldier, had struck him with a drumstick.
"I should say that Horse was making a great deal of noise," agreed a
Tin Poodle Dog, whose tail needed straightening. "What's it all about,
Mr. Horse?" he barked.
"Excuse me, my toy friends, I did not mean to disturb you," said the White Rocking Horse kindly. "But I was so surprised to see an old friend of mine here that I just couldn't help calling out."
"Who is your friend?" asked a Double Humped Camel from a Noah's Ark.
"There he is," said the Horse, and he waved his tail toward the animal which had come out from under the big piece of white paper on the work bench of the toy hospital doctor.
All the other toys looked, and saw an Elephant. But the White Rocking
Horse did more than look. He cried out:
"To think of seeing you here, my Elephant friend! Why, the last time we were together was in the toy store!"
"Yes, and I was trying to race with you on roller skates," said the
Elephant, with a laugh. "Wasn't it funny when my skate came off?"
The other toys stared in interest.
"Very funny," agreed the Horse. "We must tell our friends here about it. But I am sorry to see what has happened to you, Mr. Elephant!" went on the Horse. "Did you get broken this way when you fell off the roller skates, or anything like that? You certainly do look queer—not at all like yourself!"
"And I don't feel like myself," said the Elephant.
Well might he say that, for his trunk was broken off short, and you know, as well as I do, that an elephant without a trunk doesn't look at all like himself. He might just as well, or even better, have no tail, as far as looks go.
"What happened to you?" asked the Horse.
"Oh, I have had many adventures," replied the Elephant. "After you were taken away by the man in the automobile, I was sold to a lady and a little boy and taken to their home."
"Was it a nice place?" the Horse wanted to know.
"The place was all right," the Elephant answered. "But that little boy! Dear me! I don't just know what to say about him, he certainly did not treat me very nicely. Why, do you know," he went on, speaking in rather a funny voice on account of his trunk being broken off, "he never gave me a single peanut all the while I was with him!"
"No! Really? Was he as unkind as that?" asked the broken Jack in the
Box.
"But that wasn't the worst," continued the Elephant. "After the boy had dropped some bread and jam on me, he thought he'd wash me off in the bath room. He took me up to carry me there, but he dropped me on the hard, tile floor and—well, you see what happened to me. My trunk was broken off—broken off short!"
"What a sad accident!" exclaimed the Horse.
"You may well say so," returned the Elephant. "The little boy was sorry for me, I'll say that of him. He called his mother and she tried to fix me. She glued my trunk on, but she got it crooked and when I saw myself in the glass I was ashamed! I was glad none of the other toy animals could see me."
"What happened next?" asked the Horse, as the Elephant stopped to catch his breath. It rather made him out of breath to talk without his trunk.
"Well, after the boy's mother glued my trunk on he played with me for a while, but he dropped me again, and my trunk broke off again in the same place. After that the boy's father said I had better come to the hospital. So here I am."
"But where is your trunk?" asked the Horse.
"Back under that piece of paper where I was sleeping," the big animal answered. "It is to be fastened on me properly tomorrow. The toy hospital doctor first washed the jam off me. I was made clean again, and I was glad of that. Then, to keep the dust off me, he put me under that paper. But when I heard you speaking, White Rocking Horse, I just had to come out, trunk or no trunk."
"I'm glad you did," said the White Rocking Horse. "Really, when I look at you again, I get rather used to seeing you without your trunk, though at first I hardly knew you. Do you suffer much now?"
"Not as much as I did," was the answer. "But I shall be all right after to-morrow, when my trunk is to be put back on. Then I suppose I'll go back to that boy's house."
"I hope he treats you better," said the White Horse.
"I think he will," replied the Elephant. "When his father took me away he said the boy could not have me back after I was mended until he knew how to handle his toys. So I have hopes of being better off with my mended trunk than before."
"Let us all hope so," sighed the Tin Poodle Dog. "It's queer how cruel some children are to us. They think, because we are toys, we have no feelings."
"Yes, that is so," said the White Horse. "But Dick, the boy who owns me, is very kind. It was an accident that my leg was broken. Carlo, a poodle dog something like you, my tin friend, only real, ran too close to me and knocked me down the steps," said the Horse to the Tin Poodle Dog.
"Oh, so you are injured, too, are you?" asked the Elephant. "I have been talking so much about myself, Mr. Horse, that I never thought to ask what your trouble was. Will you kindly pardon me?"
"Certainly," neighed the Horse, politely. "And now, as we are here by ourselves, and no one can see us, suppose we have a little fun-that is, as much fun as we can, broken and twisted as we are."
"Hurray! That's it! Let's have some fun!" cried the Tin Poodle Dog, with a funny little bark.
So the Elephant with the broken trunk told about his queer race on roller skates, the Horse spoke of the Christmas tree, and the other animals related their adventures. They had a good time together until morning came. Then, when it was time for the toy hospital doctor to come to his shop, the Elephant got back under the paper that was to keep him clean until he was mended, the Horse slowly hobbled back to his place, the Tin Poodle Dog leaned up against the broken Jack in the Box, and all the toys became as quiet as though they had never spoken or moved about.
"Hum, lots of work for me to-day!" said the toy hospital doctor, as he put on his apron and his square, paper cap. "I must mend the broken leg of that Rocking Horse as soon as I fix the Elephant's trunk."
Then the toy doctor took the Elephant from under the paper and, after blowing off a little dust, began work. He made a new piece of trunk out of wood and cloth, and painted it until it looked just like part of the Elephant. Then the two pieces were fastened together with wooden pins, and also some glue.
"There! Now you are stronger than you were before," said the toy hospital doctor, putting the Elephant on a shelf. "And now for the broken leg of the Rocking Horse. Dear me, that is quite a bad break," said the toy doctor. "I think I shall have to make him a whole new wooden leg."
The White Rocking Horse felt glad when he heard this. For he was rather a proud chap, and when he had seen part of the Elephant's old trunk put back on that animal, the Horse thought of how he would look with part of his old broken leg glued fast.
"I had much rather have a whole new leg," he said to himself.
And that is exactly what he had. Out of a piece of wood the toy doctor made a new leg for the Rocking Horse. He took off the old, splintered one, that had been broken in the fall off the porch. Then the new leg was put in place.
"There! When it's painted no one will ever know one of his legs was broken," said the toy doctor.
The new leg was smoothed with sandpaper, and then painted just the color of the other legs.
"I'm glad he painted my new leg," thought the Horse. "I would look very funny with three white legs and one brown or red one. Yes, this toy doctor is a very smart man. I feel quite myself now."
The toy hospital doctor was busy in his shop all day, mending things that children break in their play, and toward evening Dick's father came in.
"Is my boy's White Rocking Horse mended?" the man asked.
"Yes, all ready for you," answered the toy doctor. "I finished him sooner than I expected to. The paint is hardly dry, but it will be by morning. I made him a new leg."
"That's good!" exclaimed the man. "My little boy wants to ride his
Rocking Horse. He misses him very much."
Back home went the White Rocking Horse. And when Dick saw him he clapped his hands and cried:
"Oh, how glad I am! May I take a ride?"
"If you are careful of the newly-painted leg," his father answered.
"I'll lift you up into the saddle."
And when Dick sat in the red leather seat and pulled on the red reins and shouted to his Horse he was a very happy boy, and the White Rocking Horse felt glad also.
"Gid-dap!" called Dick. "Gid-dap, my Rocking Horse!" And the Horse galloped across the room.
All of a sudden Dorothy came running into the playroom where Dick sat on his Horse.
"Oh, Dick! Dick!" cried the little girl. "Come on down to the kitchen, quick! Carlo has something under a chair! Maybe it's a big mouse! Come and see!"
CHAPTER IX
TWO BAD MEN
Dick jumped off his Rocking Horse.
"What did you say Carlo had?" he asked his sister.
"I don't know," Dorothy answered. "But I was down in the kitchen, and Mary had just given me some bread and sugar, and I saw Carlo under a chair. He had something in his mouth and he was shaking it. And it was brown and fuzzy and maybe it's a mouse. You'd better come, 'cause Mary's standin' up on a chair and hollerin' awful loud. It's fun."
"Oh, I'll come!" cried Dick. "But where's Mother?"
"Oh, she's in the parlor with some ladies," answered the little girl.
"I didn't tell her."
"That's right," said Dick, hurrying over to a closet in the playroom.
"What are you going to do?" asked Dorothy. "You'd better hurry if you want to help Carlo catch that mouse."
"I am hurrying," Dick said. "But I want to get my soldier cap and my pop gun."
"What for?" the little girl wanted to know.
"'Cause I'm going to make believe I'm a captain, and the mouse is an enemy, and I'm going to capture the enemy. Like in war."
Down to the kitchen the children hurried. They could hear their dog Carlo barking and growling, and they could hear Mary, the cook, laughing.
"She isn't very scared, I guess," said Dick.
"Well, she was, and she was up on a chair," declared Dorothy. "Come on, Dick!"
Together they hurried into the kitchen. Mary was no longer standing on a chair. Instead she was sitting down in one, laughing as hard as she could laugh.
Carlo was out in the middle of the floor, tossing up into the air something brown and fuzzy.
"Where's the mouse?" cried Dick. "I want to see if I can shoot it with my pop gun."
"Mouse? There isn't any mouse, Dick!" laughed Mary.
"Dorothy said there was," he declared.
"Yes, and I thought there was, too," went on the cook. "But it was only a piece of fur that Carlo had. It's one of the tails off Martha's fur neck-piece. She dropped it, and Carlo found it. I guess he thought it was a mouse, and I did, too, at first."
"Bow wow! Gurr-r-r-r-r!" growled the poodle dog, as he shook and tossed the fuzzy thing. And as it fell near Dick the boy looked and saw that, indeed, it was only a piece of fur, as Mary had said.
"I thought it was a mouse," said Dorothy. "And I guess Carlo did, too."
"If it had been I could have made it run back to its hole when I banged my pop gun at it!" declared Dick. "Now I guess I'll play I'm a soldier captain on a horse. I'm going to ride my Rocking Horse," he went on, as he hurried back to the playroom.
"I'll take my Sawdust Doll," said Dorothy, "and we'll have some fun."
All day long the children played, and after supper, when it was time for them to go to bed, Dick pulled his Rocking Horse out into the hall.
"Are you going to leave him there all night?" asked his mother.
"Yes," he answered. "I want to put my railroad track down in the playroom in the morning, and there isn't room if I have the Rocking Horse in there too. I'll make believe the hall is his stable."
"Then I'll not leave my Sawdust Doll out there, for she cannot sleep in a stable," said Dorothy.
Dick's mother intended to move the White Rocking Horse out of the way, for it took up too much room in the hall, but she forgot about it when callers came that evening, and, when the family went to bed, the Horse was still out near the head of the stairs that led down to the first floor.
The house became quiet, only a dim light gleaming in the upper hall, and the White Rocking Horse drew a long breath.
"Now I can be myself," he thought. "I can come to life. I wish I could see the Sawdust Doll and talk to her," he said half aloud.
"Well, here I am," and the Sawdust Doll came out of Dorothy's room.
"The little girl is asleep," went on the Sawdust Doll, "so I came out
to talk to you. I want to hear all that happened in the toy hospital.
I haven't had a chance to ask you since you got back."
"And I haven't had a chance to talk to you," went on the White Rocking Horse. "It is nice and quiet, now, and we can talk as long as we like; or at least until morning comes."
"It must be a funny place—that hospital," said the Sawdust Doll.
"It is," answered the Rocking Horse. "But I would much rather be here with you."
"Thank you," replied the Sawdust Doll.
Now, while the toys were thus talking together in the middle of the night, two bad men were prowling around the house where Dick and Dorothy and their father and mother lived. The two bad men were called burglars, and they wanted to get in, and take the silver knives, forks, and other things that were in the dining room, and perhaps some rings from the dresser in the room of Dorothy's mother.
And as the White Rocking Horse and the Sawdust Doll were talking together at the head of the stairs the two bad men made their way into the house by unlocking the front door with a false key one of them carried.
"Hush! Don't make a noise!" said the big burglar.
"No, we must be very quiet," said the little burglar.
But, quiet as they were, and whisper as softly as they did, the White
Rocking Horse heard them.
"Some one is coming," said the Horse to the Sawdust Doll. "We must stop talking now. We dare not talk or move if human eyes look at us, and some one is coming."
"Then I had better hurry back to Dorothy's room," said the Doll.
"Too late! They are coming up the stairs," whispered the Horse. "Stay where you are and I'll stay here too!"
So the Sawdust Doll flopped down on the carpet and the Rocking Horse remained very still and quiet right at the edge of the top step.
Up the stairs came the big burglar walking slowly and softly.
"Look out!" whispered the little burglar, who remained at the foot of the stairs. "I see something white! Look out!"
"It is only a Rocking Horse," whispered back the big burglar. "A White Rocking Horse! And a Sawdust Doll is here, too. I guess the children must have forgotten and left them in the hall. And that Sawdust Doll is just what I want. I know somebody I can give her to. I'll take her!"
The Sawdust Doll would have screamed and run away if she had dared, but she could not while the burglar was looking at her. The bad man reached out to pick up the Sawdust Doll, but his foot slipped, and, to save himself from falling, he made a grab for one of the legs of the White Rocking Horse.
Now whether the Horse kicked out; or not, I cannot say. It may be that he did, and, again, it may be that he did not. Anyhow, all of a sudden the White Horse toppled right over on top of the bad burglar, and down the stairs they went, bumpity-bump! all in a heap, right toward the little burglar standing at the foot. Down the stairs rolled the big burglar and the White Rocking Horse.
"Bang! Bing! Bung!" was the noise they made.
CHAPTER X
THE GRASS PARTY
Standing at the foot of the stairs was the little burglar. He was waiting while the big, bad man went upstairs to see if he could get any jewelry. And when the big burglar touched the White Rocking Horse, and it toppled over on him, and when both of them fell down the stairs together, making a loud noise, they fell right on top of the little burglar.
"Oh! Oh, dear! Oh, dear me!" cried the little burglar when he was struck by the big bad man and the White Rocking Horse. "Oh, what is all this? What are you doing, Jake?" he cried.
"Me? I'm not doing anything!" exclaimed the big burglar, as he went bumpity-bump along the lower hall, turning over and over in somersaults, just as the little burglar was doing.
"Not doing anything? Why, you came tumbling downstairs right on top of me!" cried the little burglar. "Why did you do that?"
"I—I couldn't help it," answered the big burglar. "That white thing you saw was a Rocking Horse, and there was a Sawdust Doll near it. I reached out to get the Doll, and the Horse stuck out his hind legs and kicked me down the stairs. That's what he did!"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the little burglar. "A White Rocking Horse didn't kick you! A wooden horse can't kick!"
"Well, this one did," declared the burglar. "Oh, my back!"
The father and mother of Dick and Dorothy heard the noise out in the hall. So did Martha, the maid, and Mary, the cook. Dick's father sat up in bed.
"I heard a noise," said his wife.
"So did I," said Daddy. "I think everybody in the house must have heard it. Somebody, or something, fell downstairs."
"You had better look and see," said his wife. "Maybe it was burglars."
So Dick's father went out into the hall to look, and there, surely enough, were the two bad burglars. They had been all tangled up in the legs and rockers of the White Horse, and they were just getting untangled. And they were so sore and lame from having been bumped around that they did not know what to do. They were so dazed and surprised that they stood still.
And just then Patrick, the big, strong gardener, came running in from the garage, where he slept. He, too, had heard the noise in the house. And Patrick and Dick's father soon captured the two burglars, and tied them with ropes. Then a policeman came and took the two bad men away and they were locked up for a long, long time. I don't believe they are out of prison yet.
But after the two burglars had been taken away by the police, Dick's father and mother looked at the White Rocking Horse where it lay on its side in the lower hall, after having fallen downstairs.
"How do you suppose it got here?" asked Mother.
"Well, either the burglars tried to carry it off, and they slipped and fell with it, or else they stumbled over it in the dark, and it toppled downstairs with them," replied Daddy. "But it made a great racket and woke us up. If it hadn't been for the White Rocking Horse we would have been robbed of our jewelry and silver."
"What a brave Horse!" said Mother. "Wouldn't it be strange if he really kicked the burglar downstairs?" she asked her husband.
And when the burglars had been taken away, and the Horse stood up on his rockers again, Dorothy and Dick were awakened by hearing so many sounds in the house.
"What's the matter?" asked Dick, coming to the head of the stairs, and rubbing his sleepy eyes. "What's my Rocking Horse down there for?" he wanted to know.
"He fell down with the burglars," said Daddy.
[Illustration: White Rocking Horse Gives Sawdust Doll a Ride.]
"And, oh, look! Here is my Sawdust Doll out here in the hall!" cried Dorothy. "I had her in my room when I went to sleep. How did she get out here?"
"Maybe the burglars took her and were carrying her away with them when they slipped and fell downstairs with the Horse," said Daddy.
But we know that is not just how it happened, don't we? We know that the Sawdust Doll came out to talk to the White Rocking Horse, and she could not get back when the burglars came, for she dared not move as long as they were looking at her.
For many days Dick and Dorothy had fun playing with the White Rocking Horse and the Sawdust Doll. And though, at times, the Horse and Doll wished they could see their friends in the toy store, still the two toys were very happy.
"I think something is going to happen to-morrow," said the old Jumping
Jack one night, when, in the playroom, he was talking to the Horse and
Doll. It was spring now, and the grass was green.
"What do you mean—something going to happen?" asked the White Rocking
Horse, as he looked at Jack. The old jumping chap had been allowed to
stay in the playroom since he had been brought from the attic on
Christmas Eve.
"Dick and Dorothy are going to have a Grass Party, and you are both going to it!"
"A Grass Party!" cried the Sawdust
"What is that?" asked the White Rocking Horse.
"Well, you know what a party is," said Jack. "And a Grass Party is one out on the grass. The boy and girl from next door are coming, and there will be good things to eat, games to play and all things like that. Isn't that jolly?"
"I should say so!" cried the Rocking Horse.
"I love parties!" said the Sawdust Doll.
And the next day, when the sun was shining brightly, Dick and Dorothy had their Grass Party. Not only the little girl from next door came, but other children also. Dorothy brought out her Sawdust Doll, for whom a new apple-green dress had been made.
Dick brought his Rocking Horse to a smooth place under the trees, and he and the other boys took turns riding on the brave steed.
"Let's see where his leg was broken," asked one boy.
"Oh, you can hardly see it," Dick answered. "The toy hospital doctor fixed it so it's as good as new. But this is the leg my Horse broke when Carlo tumbled him down the steps."
"And tell us about how the two bad burglars rolled downstairs with your horse on top of them," begged Arnold, the boy from next door.
"Well, I guess only one burglar rolled down," said Dick. "But he made noise enough for two."
Then he told the story, as best he could.
While Dick and the boys rode the White Rocking Horse Dorothy and the other little girls played with their dolls. And the Sawdust Doll with the brown eyes was the most beautiful of all.
"You children do get such nice presents on your birthdays and for
Christmas," said one little boy guest to Dorothy and Dick.
"I'm going to have a nice present for my birthday," said Mirabell, who lived next door to Dick and Dorothy.
"Oh, tell us!" begged the other children.
"I—I can't, for I don't know," said Mirabell. "But my mother is going to take me down to the toy store next week, and I'm going to have a nice birthday present."
And if you wish to know what the present was you may find out by
reading the next book in this series. It is called "The Story of a
Lamb on Wheels," and it is the same Lamb whom the Sawdust Doll and the
White Rocking Horse knew in the toy store.
After having fun at the Grass Party for some time, the children went into the house to get cake and ice cream. The Sawdust Doll and the White Rocking Horse, as well as some other dolls, were left out on the lawn by themselves.
"Oh, now we can talk," said the White Rocking Horse. "Do you think this Grass Party is any fun?"
"I had rather it were night and we could be by ourselves upstairs with the Jumping Jack," said the Sawdust Doll. "Then we could move about and have some fun."
"Well, it will soon be dark," said the Rocking Horse.
And when night came, and Dick and Dorothy were in bed, the Sawdust
Doll had a fine ride on the back of the White Rocking Horse.