Carlo, the shaggy dog, who lived in the same house with Dorothy and Dick, was not a bad dog. But he liked to find new things to pick up in his teeth, shake, and then carry off. Sometimes he hid the things he carried off in this way, and they were not found for a long time afterward. Often he would take the ball Dick played with and run off with that. But when Dick saw Carlo doing this he chased the dog and got back the ball.

However, this time no one saw Carlo taking away the Sawdust Doll. The dog had watched his chance, and when he saw Dorothy and the other girls and boys in the dining-room, eating cake and ice cream, Carlo just thought to himself:

“Now I can run in and grab something! I saw Dorothy put something up on the table. Maybe it’s a ball that I can have fun with!”

So Carlo hurried into the room where he had seen Dorothy lay something down, and, as the table was not very high, Carlo jumped right up on it.

“Oh, here’s something fine for me to carry away!” said the dog to himself, and then he picked up the Sawdust Doll.

Out of the room, down the hall and past the dining-room where the children were having such jolly times ran Carlo with the Sawdust Doll in his mouth. He did not hurt her, for he did not really bite her. He only carried her as a mother cat carries her kittens by the backs of their necks. Besides, being stuffed with sawdust as she was, the Doll could not feel pain. Of course her feelings were hurt a little when the dog grabbed her up so suddenly, but she seemed to know she would not really be harmed.

“There you are!” said Carlo, in dog language, as he dropped the Sawdust Doll down in the straw of his kennel, or house, at the end of the yard. “There you are! No one will find you here!”

The Sawdust Doll did not answer the dog, even though she may have known what he said. Pet animals and toy pets do not speak the same sort of talk, at least to one another. And pet animals can move about and bark or mew whether any real folks are looking at them or not. Toy dolls, rocking horses, and monkeys are not like that. They never move, or do anything if you watch them.

Carlo scuttled around in the straw until he had covered the Sawdust Doll from sight in his kennel. Then, wagging his tail, as though he had done something smart, he went back to the party.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” said the Doll.

Carlo liked parties—there were always stray bits of cake dropping on the floor and Carlo could pick them up. He didn’t mind it because they had been on the carpet. And it was good for the carpet to have him pick them up.

So, leaving the Sawdust Doll in his kennel, Carlo ran back to the house. He wagged his tail as he thought of the good things the boys and girls might give him. And they sometimes did give him good things. As soon as he trotted in through the kitchen, where the door had been left open to bring in another freezer of ice cream, Carlo found a piece of cake on the floor. That made him wag his tail harder than before.

But the poor Sawdust Doll! Think of her left all alone out in the straw of the dog’s kennel, with her new rose-colored silk dress on! Wasn’t that too bad?

“This certainly is an adventure!” said the Sawdust Doll to herself. “I’m glad this straw is nice and warm, or I might get cold. But I don’t exactly like it here. It was better even on the closet shelf with Jack-in-the-Box, though he did have to talk through a crack to me.”

For some time the Sawdust Doll lay in the straw of the dog kennel. She sat up and looked about her, for, there being no one there with human eyes to watch, the toy could do as she pleased. She even got up and walked about, though it was hard work because the long pieces of straw were tangled in her feet. She went to the door of the kennel and looked out, first making sure no one was in the yard to see her.

“Dear me! I never could walk back to the house through the snow,” said the Sawdust Doll to herself. “If it were summer time I might try it after dark, when every one had gone to bed. But I never could do it now in the snow. I’d simply catch cold and have the sawdust fever. No, I shall have to stay here until some one comes for me. I hope that nice girl Dorothy misses me soon, and comes and gets me.”

And, surely enough, Dorothy did miss her doll shortly after that. The cake, ice cream, and other good things had been eaten, and after some games had been played by the boys and girls, Dorothy said:

“Now let’s get my new doll again, girls! She must be lonesome waiting for us to get through with our cake and ice cream.”

“Yes, we’ll get your doll,” said another girl.

Dorothy ran to the table where she had put her Sawdust Doll.

“Why! Why!” cried the little girl. “She isn’t here! She’s gone!”

“What is gone, Dorothy?” asked Mother. “Your piece of cake? You shouldn’t have left it on the table, my dear.”

“No, Mother, I didn’t leave any cake on the table,” Dorothy said. “It was my new Sawdust Doll. I left her here, and now she is gone!”

“Oh, that is too bad!” said Dorothy’s mother. “But are you sure you left your doll on this table?” she asked the little girl.

“Oh, yes,” answered Dorothy.

“I saw the Sawdust Doll lying there,” said Helen, one of the party guests.

“So did I,” chimed in Dick.

And then Dorothy looked sharply at her brother.

“Did you take my doll?” she asked him suddenly. “Did you take my new doll that mother just gave me for my birthday?”

“Course I didn’t!” cried Dick. “Why should I take your doll? I don’t play with dolls!”

“Dorothy thought perhaps you had taken it in fun,” gently said Mother. “If you didn’t, perhaps Martha laid it in another place. We must look for the Sawdust Doll.”

“We can make a game of it—like hide the thimble!” cried Dick.

“I don’t want my Sawdust Doll made into a game!” exclaimed Dorothy, who was feeling sad.

“It is only in fun, and make believe,” said Mother. “That will be a good way to find your pet, my dear. Come, children, look for Dorothy’s doll.”

The Sawdust Doll was not the only one Dorothy had, but as it was her newest toy she wanted that just then more than any of the others. So she helped her boy and girl friends look in the different rooms for the missing doll. The maid said she had not taken the Sawdust Doll away, and no one could imagine where she was. And the tears came into Dorothy’s eyes as minute after minute passed and the new toy was not found.

And now we must see what is happening to the Sawdust Doll. For some time, after going to the door of the kennel to look out, she lay quietly in the straw. It kept her warm, for there was no fire in Carlo’s house, as there was in the house where Dorothy and Dick lived.

After a while the Sawdust Doll heard some one walking toward the kennel. She knew the sound of human footsteps, for she had often heard them in the department store. And she knew it was not the Bold Tin Soldier or the Calico Clown coming toward her now.

“I wish it were one of my friends,” thought the Sawdust Doll; “but it cannot be. This person walks just like the watchman in the store. I wonder who it is.”

And then a loud but pleasant voice spoke, and a man said:

“Well, well! I almost forgot about putting some clean straw in Carlo’s kennel! That straw he has must be all wet with the snow. I’ll rake that out and put in fresh for the dog. It will keep him warmer to-night.”

Something long and black, with sharp iron teeth, was thrust into the kennel, and the next moment the straw was raked out, and the Sawdust Doll went with it. Out she came in the midst of the straw.

The big gardener, for he it was who was going to give Carlo clean straw, examined what he had raked out. He saw something pink, and, looking at it, he said:

“Dear me, what a funny bone! Where could that have come from?”

He thought the Sawdust Doll was a bone that Carlo had hidden in the kennel.

“Why! Why, it isn’t a bone after all!” exclaimed the gardener, as he picked it up and looked at it more carefully. “It’s a doll! A Sawdust Doll! I wonder where she came from!” and he turned the toy over and over in his hands.