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Title: The story of a woolly dog

Author: Laura Lee Hope

Illustrator: Harry L. Smith

Release date: November 5, 2023 [eBook #72039]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Grosset & Dunlap

Credits: Bob Taylor, David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the University of Florida Digital Collections.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A WOOLLY DOG ***





  Transcriber’s Note
  Italic text displayed as: _italic_




  THE STORY OF A
  WOOLLY DOG

[Illustration: “Now, I’m All Right,” Laughed the Clown.

  _The Story of a Woolly Dog._       _Frontispiece_—(_Page 19_)
]




  _MAKE BELIEVE STORIES_

  (Trade Mark Registered)

  THE STORY OF A
  WOOLLY DOG

  BY
  LAURA LEE HOPE

  AUTHOR OF “THE STORY OF A SAWDUST DOLL,” “THE STORY
  OF A STUFFED ELEPHANT,” “THE BOBBSEY TWINS
  SERIES,” “THE SIX LITTLE BUNKER SERIES,”
  “THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES,” ETC.


  ILLUSTRATED BY
  HARRY L. SMITH


  NEW YORK
  GROSSET & DUNLAP
  PUBLISHERS

  Made in the United States of America


  Copyright, 1923, by
  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  The Story of a Woolly Dog




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

     I POOR TOYS                                                       1

    II A RICH MAN                                                     13

   III THE WOOLLY DOG’S NEW HOME                                      25

    IV WHAT LITTLE JANE DID                                           37

     V A LOST DIAMOND                                                 49

    VI THE CHINA CAT                                                  64

   VII IN THE BEEHIVE                                                 76

  VIII RIDING DOWN HILL                                               86

    IX THE LOST IS FOUND                                              97

     X A STRANGE DISCOVERY                                           109




THE STORY OF A WOOLLY DOG




CHAPTER I

POOR TOYS


“Well, he certainly is the finest toy in my little shop, but what good
does that do if I can’t sell him? His wool is very soft, and he looks
so natural that I can almost hear him bark. But, oh dear! if I don’t
sell him—or sell some of the toys soon—I can’t pay my rent and I’ll be
turned out! Oh, if my boy Jimmie would only come home from the sea with
the gold he said he’d bring to me!”

A sad-faced, poor, little, old lady moved slowly about a poor
little store on a side street. In the small show window were a few
notions—pins, needles and thread, and a few toys.

On a shelf near the window were other toys. But they were a very
poor and cheap lot, made to sell to poor children who had only a few
pennies. There were dolls that cost five cents—dolls with only a thin
little calico dress on, and nothing else. There were jumping jacks that
could be had for as little as three pennies, and there were two-cent
tops and one-cent marbles.

“The Woolly Dog is the best toy of all,” went on Mrs. Clark, who kept
the little store. “The agent said I could sell him for a good sum and
make money on him. Certainly he is a fine toy and I did not have to pay
very much, and, since I gave him a bath and cleaned him, he looks good
enough to be in a rich store.

“But, oh dear! I don’t know! If I don’t sell something soon I don’t
know where I’m going to make up the rent money! Oh, this is a hard
world!”

Poor Mrs. Clark sat down on a stool behind the counter and waited for
customers to come in. But there was little buying that day. Christmas
had passed, and though she had done pretty well in trade around the
holidays, now but few children, or grown-ups, either, came in to spend
their money. Perhaps they had spent it all for Christmas gifts.

“If I could only sell the Woolly Dog!” sighed Mrs. Clark again, and she
wiped some tears from her eyes, for she was very sad and in trouble.

“I wish I could help her,” thought the Woolly Dog to himself. He did
not dare speak out loud, though he could talk in toy language when no
real persons were near by. “Yes, I wish I could help her, but I can’t
go out and sell myself, or I would. This isn’t the kind of a store
where rich customers will come.”

The Woolly Dog looked around at the poor toys on the same shelf with
him. He was the most expensive of the lot.

As Mrs. Clark had said, some time ago, when she bought her little stock
of toys from an agent, he had offered her this Woolly Dog.

“It’s a sample, Mrs. Clark,” said the man. “I have carried him around
in my satchel for a long time, and his white wool is rather dirty. But
he isn’t broken, and if you were to wash him with soap and water he’d
be as clean as a whistle.”

“Speaking of whistles,” said Mrs. Clark, “the last ones I got from you
didn’t whistle loud enough, some boys said. They brought them back and
I had to return them their pennies.”

“Well, I have some louder whistles now,” went on the agent. “And I’ll
allow you for the ones that didn’t sell. But what about this Woolly
Dog? I’ll let you have him cheap. You can wash him, put him in the
window, and I’m sure you’ll sell him. You should ask a good price, too,
for this is one of the most expensive toys on the market.”

“All right, I’ll take him,” said Mrs. Clark.

And so she had bought the Woolly Dog. She had washed him, putting him
right into a tub with soap and warm water.

“Oh, that was a terrible time for me!” said the Woolly Dog, telling
of it afterward to his friend, the three-cent Jumping Jack. “I surely
thought I would drown, and the soap got in my eyes! Burr-r-r-r!”

“If that had happened to me all my paint would have washed off,” said
the three-cent Jumping Jack, one of the very cheapest of the poor toys.

You see the toys could talk among themselves when no children or
grown-ups were there to listen.

“Well, I felt dreadfully about it for a while,” went on the Woolly Dog.
“But after Mrs. Clark had washed me nicely she put me in the warm sun
and I dried out.”

“You are quite white and fluffy now,” said the Jumping Jack.

“Yes, I believe I am considered a very good sort of toy,” admitted the
Woolly Dog, trying not to speak proudly. “I am made of real lamb’s
wool, you know.”

“I can see that,” put in a Calico-Dressed Doll, who sold for five
cents—very little for a doll, I’m sure. “It is very nice of you to stay
here among such poor toys as we are,” went on the Doll.

“Oh, I think it is quite jolly here!” barked the Woolly Dog. “It’s such
a cute little store, you know!”

“But Mrs. Clark does hardly any business,” said the Jumping Jack. “I
was one of the lot of a dozen she bought from the agent, and there are
eight of us left. She’ll never get rich selling toys, I’m afraid.”

“I’m afraid not,” agreed the Woolly Dog. “But if she could sell me and
get the price I ought to bring, she would have several dollars. I ought
to be sold for five dollars, but I heard the agent say she could let me
go for three.”

“Three dollars! Think of that!” exclaimed the Calico-Dressed Doll.
“That’s almost a million, isn’t it?”

“Almost, but not quite,” answered the Woolly Dog, and again he did not
speak proudly as some toys might have done.

So it had come about that the Woolly Dog was among the poor toys in
Mrs. Clark’s little store—the best toy of all, it might be said of the
Woolly Dog. Mrs. Clark knew this, and she hoped the Woolly Dog would
soon sell, so she might get enough money to make up the full amount for
the rent, which must be paid in a day or two.

“I need just that three dollars the Woolly Dog would bring,” sighed the
poor old lady. “Or if my son Jimmie would come home, he would pay the
rent.”

But Jimmie was a sailor lad and at this time was far away, on a sort of
treasure hunt. He hoped to come back with gold to give his mother, and
he had written some letters in which he said he might be home almost
any day now.

“But my eyes are weary watching for him,” sighed Mrs. Clark.

She moved about her store, looking at the few things she had to sell.
After her husband had died she had started the store. For a time
she did fairly well, but times grew hard and she lived in a poor
neighborhood, where few people had money to spend on toys. They bought
needles, thread and pins of Mrs. Clark, but there is not much money to
be had selling these.

“I think I’ll put the Woolly Dog back in the window,” said Mrs. Clark
to herself, after dusting her store for the day. “He will be seen
better there, but I don’t like to keep him in the window too long, for
the sun might take the curl out of his wool. But I’ll put him there
this afternoon and leave him there to-morrow. Maybe someone will see
him and buy him. True, I’ve had him in the window before and no one
even came in to ask how much he would cost. But I’ll try it again.”

The Woolly Dog was glad to hear Mrs. Clark say this, for he liked being
in the show window. There was more to be seen from the window—he could
watch the children playing in the street and hear their laughter.

Of course he liked being on the shelf with the other toys, but he felt,
deep down inside him, that it would be best for him to be sold so Mrs.
Clark could get the money for her rent.

“Into the window you go, my friend!” said the storekeeper lady, as she
patted the Woolly Dog to get out of his coat any dust that might make
him look dingy. “Into the window you go, and may someone buy you!”

Not long after the Dog had been placed in the window with the needles,
pins and spools of thread, a boy and a girl pressed their little noses
up against the glass, making them look quite flat.

“Oh, see the new dog in the window!” cried the girl.

“’Tisn’t a new dog. I’ve seen him before,” said the boy.

“Well, he looks new to me,” went on the girl. “I wonder how much he
costs.”

“I guess more’n a dollar, Lizzie.”

“Oh, he couldn’t!” gasped the little girl. “No toy could cost that
much—not ever, Sammie!”

“Pooh! You just ought to see some of the toys in the stores on
Main Street!” replied Sammie. “Why, I’ve seen price tickets on ’em
marked—_ten dollars_!”

“Oh, Sammie! No!”

“Yes, I have! Say, rich people don’t care what they spend for toys!”

“Oh, it must be lovely to be rich,” sighed Lizzie. “But, anyhow, we can
_wish_ we had this Woolly Dog.”

“A lot of good that will do!” muttered Sammie. “Come on, we have to go
to the store for half a pound of sugar. We haven’t any money for toys.”

“No, I s’pose not,” sighed his sister. “Good-bye, Woolly Dog!” she
called back to the toy in the window, waving her hand.

The afternoon passed. Though many children of the neighborhood looked
in Mrs. Clark’s window—some of the boys and girls wishing they might
buy the Woolly Dog—no one purchased the expensive toy.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. Clark, when night came and she had to close her
store without having sold the Woolly Dog. “I don’t know what I’m going
to do if I don’t get the rent money!”

With the coming of night a change took place among the toys. When the
store window curtain was pulled down, the doors closed and when Mrs.
Clark had gone to bed, wishing she might dream of her son, there was a
movement among the Dolls, the Jumping Jacks and the Wooden Animals in
the cheap Noah’s Arks.

“I say, Woolly Dog!” called a voice, “are you ready for some fun?”

“Of course I am,” answered the Woolly Dog. “What do you want to do?”

“Will you give me a ride on your back?” asked a little Rubber Clown,
who had a whistle in his back that squeaked when you squeezed him.

“Surely, I’ll give you a ride on my back,” said the Woolly Dog kindly.
“Where are you?”

“Up on the shelf over your head. Wait a minute and I’ll jump down,”
said the Rubber Clown.

“Oh, now for some fun!” exclaimed the Calico-Dressed Doll.




CHAPTER II

A RICH MAN


“Get ready down there! I’m coming!” called the Rubber Clown to the
Woolly Dog. “Is your back strong enough to hold me if I jump?”

“Indeed it is,” answered the Dog. “And I’ll give you a fine ride around
the show window.”

If you have read some of the other books in these Make Believe Stories
you know that the toys told about could pretend to come to life, move
about and play among themselves, as well as talk. But of course all
this must be done when no human eyes see them.

And as Mrs. Clark had gone to bed, and as her son Jimmie, the sailor
lad, was far away at sea, there was no one to spy on the Woolly Dog,
the Rubber Clown, or the other playthings. They could do as they
pleased during the night.

“Well, here I come!” cried the Rubber Clown. He was fat, jolly and
good-natured even though he was a poor toy, selling for only five
cents. And, though he had a tin whistle in his back, he was not at all
proud.

The Rubber Clown moved over to the edge of the shelf on which he had
been standing for several weeks, as no one seemed to care to buy him.
Below him was the platform—or floor—of the show window, where, at this
time, the Woolly Dog was the only toy.

“Wait a minute,” barked the Woolly Dog, as he looked up at the Clown,
who was about to jump.

“What’s the matter?” the Rubber Clown wanted to know.

“I want to move over a little closer to you,” went on the Dog. “You
might not land on my back where I am.”

The Dog, who had fat little stuffed legs, moved them slowly to and fro,
and walked over just beneath the end of the toy shelf.

“One,” began the Clown, counting before he leaped. “Two——”

“Wait a minute!” barked the Woolly Dog again.

“What’s the matter now?” the Clown asked.

“Mind the needles and pins,” warned the Dog. “If you land on them
you’ll be stuck.”

“I intend to land on your soft, woolly back,” laughed the Clown.
“Three!” he cried, finishing his count. “Here I come!”

With that he toppled off the shelf, turning two somersaults as he went
down, for he was quite an acrobat, was this Clown.

“Oh, isn’t that perfectly wonderful?” gasped one Calico-Dressed Doll
to another.

“Gorgeous!” was the reply. “It’s as good as going to a circus. I didn’t
know the Rubber Clown could turn somersaults.”

“Pooh! You ought to see _me_ somersault!” boasted one of the cheap
Jumping Jacks. “If I could get rid of this stick and the strings that
jiggle my legs I’d show you some somersaulting!”

The Jumping Jack was afraid lest the Calico-Dressed Dolls think too
much of the Rubber Clown. The Jumping Jack was a bit jealous, I’m
thinking.

Down, down, down, went the Clown, turning over and over as he aimed to
land on the Woolly Dog’s back to get a ride.

“Hi! Yi!” yelled the Rubber Clown, in toy language of course. “Here I
come!”

“He’s a great trickster,” said a little Penny China Doll.

Then the Rubber Clown did a trick he had not counted on. He missed
landing on the Woolly Dog’s back and hit the floor of the show window
with both feet. And, being made of rubber, the Clown did just what I
think you have guessed he did—he bounced high up in the air. Up he
bounded!

“Hold on there! I say! what are you doing?” cried the Woolly Dog. “I
thought you were going to ride on my back!”

“I—thought—so—too!” gasped the Clown. He had to speak in jerks because
his breath was bounced out of him.

The Rubber Clown bounded nearly as high as the shelf from which he had
turned a somersault and then down to the floor of the window he went
again.

“Come on—get up on my back!” barked the Dog.

The Clown tried, but he could not. Up in the air he sprang again, like
a rubber ball.

“Oh, isn’t this exciting!” cried the Penny China Doll.

“I should say it was!” agreed the Jumping Jack. “It’s the best fun I’ve
seen in a long while.”

“It may be—fun for—you,” gasped the Clown. “But it—isn’t any—fun
for—me!”

Up and down he bounced, a little less and a little slower each time
until at last he bounded only as high as the Woolly Dog’s back.

“Now’s your chance. I’ll run under you and you can sit on me!” barked
the fluffy toy.

And that’s just what he did. When the Clown was up in the air the
Woolly Dog moved over a bit and stood squarely beneath the Clown. Down
came the rubber toy, landing safely on the Dog’s back. He bounced up
a little, but not much, for you know rubber will not rebound from
anything soft, like a bed. And the Dog’s back was even softer than a
hair mattress.

“Now I’m all right,” laughed the Clown. “I thought I’d never get here,
though. But here I am! Start off, if you please, Woolly Dog. But wait a
minute! I’ll blow my whistle!”

The Rubber Clown made a low bow, compressing the air inside his hollow
body just as if he had been squeezed. Out through the tin hole in his
back rushed the air, making a whistling sound. The other toys laughed
and the Woolly Dog barked, and then he trotted around and gave the
Rubber Clown a fine ride in the show window.

Light came in from a street lamp through a crack in the window curtain,
so the toys could see to play about. And fine fun they had! After the
Clown had been given a ride, the Dog kindly let some of the Dolls get
up on his back and, much to their delight, he paraded them around.

The Jumping Jacks did some tricks and the Animals from the Noah’s Ark
marched around like a circus procession.

But at last the Clown cried:

“Daylight is coming! To your places, all of you!”

For the coming of daylight meant that Mrs. Clark would open the store
for the day’s business, and then the toys could neither speak nor move,
for human eyes would see them.

Up to his shelf leaped the Rubber Clown, the Calico-Dressed Dolls laid
themselves out straight in their boxes. The Penny China Doll took her
place near the Tops and the Woolly Dog walked to the middle of the show
window where he had been put so passersby would best notice him.

The store became lighter. The street lamps were put out one by one, and
the sun began to shine.

“Another day has begun,” said Mrs. Clark, as she entered her store to
raise the curtain. “I certainly hope I do more business to-day than I
did yesterday. Rent time is coming very near and I need three dollars!
If I could only sell the Woolly Dog!”

She put her tiny stock of toys and goods in order, got her breakfast
and then sat down to wait for two things. One was the postman who, she
hoped, would bring her a letter from her sailor son. The other was for
customers, especially a customer who would buy the Woolly Dog.

It was almost noon when a man passed through the street on which Mrs.
Clark’s store stood. This man wore very good clothes, and he carried a
cane with a gold head. He looked to be a very rich man, and he was.

“But I don’t see why a rich man is walking through our poor street,”
said Lizzie to Sammie.

“Maybe he’s looking for a washerwoman for his wife,” suggested Sammie.
Many came to the street for that purpose.

However, Mr. Theodore Blakeley, for that was his name, had not come
to Hoyt Street to look for a laundress. He had never been in that
street before—in fact, he hardly knew its name or that there was such a
street—and his coming to it was a sort of accident.

That morning he had started out in his automobile to go down town to
business. He did not like to travel in trolley cars, and as for a
jitney, he had never ridden in one in his life!

But even rich men, in autos, have their troubles, and the trouble that
came to Mr. Blakeley was that, half way to his office, something made a
hole in one of the tires. It was punctured near Hoyt Street, where Mrs.
Clark had her shop.

“I shall have to change a tire, sir,” said the chauffeur, touching his
hat to Mr. Blakeley.

“Hum! That means delay, I suppose. I think I’ll walk on. It isn’t far,
is it, James?”

“No, sir, not if you take the short cut through Hoyt Street.”

“All right, I’ll do it. Come for me this evening, as usual.”

“Yes, sir.”

So the rich Mr. Blakeley alighted from his automobile and started to
walk through Hoyt Street—a place where, as far as he could remember, he
had never before been. It was not often that rich and well-dressed men
were seen there.

And, as it happened, Mr. Blakeley passed Mrs. Clark’s poor little
store. And just then the sun shone on the Woolly Dog—on his clean,
white, curling coat of lamb’s wool.

“Bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Blakeley, for he was rather an old-fashioned
gentleman. “Bless me! There’s the very thing for Donald’s birthday! It
will save me going down town.”

Donald Cressey was the son of Mr. Blakeley’s sister, and the boy was a
great favorite of his uncle. Mr. Blakeley’s sister was not as rich as
was he, and she could not afford to buy expensive presents. But Mr.
Blakeley always saw to it that on Donald’s birthday and at Christmas
the boy had something nice.

“Yes, that Woolly Dog will just do for Donald,” went on Mr. Blakeley.
“He can’t hurt himself with it, and he can have lots of fun. I’m glad I
remembered it was his birthday—came near forgetting it. And it’s lucky
I happened to walk through this street. I didn’t know they kept toys
here. I’ll go in and get that Dog.”

Then Mr. Blakeley opened the door of Mrs. Clark’s poor little store and
went inside.




CHAPTER III

THE WOOLLY DOG’S NEW HOME


“Something I can do for you?” asked Mrs. Clark, “all in a flutter,” she
said afterward to her neighbor, Mrs. Elkton, who kept a little grocery
store. “The idea,” said Mrs. Clark, “of a rich gentleman like him
walking into my poor little place!”

“That Woolly Dog in your window,” answered Mr. Blakeley. “I’ll take it.
My nephew’s birthday,” he added, with a smile. Perhaps he thought if he
didn’t say this that Mrs. Clark might think he wanted the Woolly Dog
for himself. “Wrap it up, please.”

Mrs. Clark was still “all in a flutter.” Never before, in all the years
that she had kept store, had anyone bought anything of her without
asking the price. And often, when she told them the price, little as it
was, the customer walked out without buying.

And Mr. Blakeley had said:

“I’ll take it!”

Just like that—poof!

Mrs. Clark reached over in the show window and picked up the Woolly
Dog. She held him firmly in her hand, for her fingers trembled a bit
and she did not want to drop the white, clean toy in the dust.

“Oh, I wonder what is going to happen to me?” thought the Woolly Dog,
as he felt himself lifted up. “I think there is going to be a great
change! Goodness knows I hope so! I hope I’m sold, for Mrs. Clark’s
sake. Poor woman, she needs the money I’ll bring.

“Though I shall feel sad at leaving my friends, the poor toys, still, I
was shut up in the agent’s sample valise so long that, really, I have
had no adventures worth speaking about. Now I feel I am to see life.”
So thought the Woolly Dog.

“This is—er—rather an expensive toy,” said Mrs. Clark slowly, as she
smoothed the Dog’s wool. “Though it is considered one of the best. The
price—er—the price—is—_three dollars_!”

She almost whispered those last two words, so fearful was she of
shocking Mr. Blakeley.

“Eh—what’s that?” he asked, for he was a trifle deaf.

“The price is—_three dollars_! I’m afraid that’s rather expensive. I
don’t carry much in that line—not in this neighborhood—but really I
ought to get three dollars for the Dog and——”

“Why, you’re _going_ to get three dollars for him,” chuckled Mr.
Blakeley. “I never try to beat down a price. It looks worth it to me.
I’ve seen some no better on Main Street that were marked five dollars.
I think I’m getting a bargain. Donald will like it, I’m sure. Wrap it
up, please, I’m in a hurry—my car broke down.”

With fingers that still trembled, Mrs. Clark wrapped the Woolly Dog in
paper and tied it about with cord.

“Hum! This isn’t very pleasant,” thought the Woolly Dog to himself.
“But I suppose it can’t last forever. When I get to Donald’s
house—wherever that may be—I am sure my adventures will begin. But I
wish I could have said good-bye to the poor toys.”

The poor toys themselves wished they might bid farewell to their
expensive friend, the Woolly Dog, but it could not be. They dared not
move or speak while human eyes were watching.

“There you are, madam, three dollars,” murmured Mr. Blakeley, as he
passed over some crisp bills. “And I’m sure I’m quite pleased to get
this toy for Donald. Good-morning!”

And out he walked.

“But, my stars! you should have seen the money in his pocketbook when
he opened it to pay me the three dollars,” said Mrs. Clark afterward.
“Honestly, I never knew men carried so much! But I’m thankful to get
the three, as I needed just them to make up my rent. Now I won’t worry
for another month, and by that time Jimmie may come home with the gold
he is always talking about.” And a few weeks later Jimmie came home and
his mother was no longer poor, for the sailor lad had found gold.

Humming to himself a little song, and quite pleased with his early
morning shopping, even though the day had started with an accident to
his automobile, Mr. Blakeley kept on through Hoyt Street with the paper
parcel containing the Woolly Dog.

“Oh, Sammie! He’s bought it!” cried a girl’s voice.

“Who’s bought what?” asked her brother.

“The rich man has bought the big Woolly Dog from Mrs. Clark,” answered
Lizzie. “I saw her take it out of the window and a man has it.”

“He has? Well, I’ll buy one like it some day when I get rich!” joked
Sammie. “Hey, Timmie,” he went on, calling to another boy, “come on
over. I know where there’s a dandy mud puddle!”

Mr. Blakeley, unaware of all the stir he had caused in that poor Hoyt
Street by buying so costly a toy, kept on to his office. He was a
very important man in business and he found clerks, secretaries and
stenographers waiting for him to start the day’s affairs.

But, first of all, after he had taken off his hat, Mr. Blakeley handed
to his private secretary the bundle he had brought from Mrs. Clark’s
store.

“Take good care of that,” said the rich man to his secretary, Miss
Moore. “There’s a dog in it!”

“A dog, Mr. Blakeley? Oh——”

“Yes,” he chuckled. “But don’t be afraid. He can’t bite! Wait, I’ll
show him to you.”

He opened one end of the paper parcel and let the Woolly Dog be seen.

“Oh, isn’t he cute!” exclaimed Miss Moore, with a smile. Then she
looked rather strangely at her employer.

“It isn’t for me,” went on Mr. Blakeley, with another chuckle. “It’s
Donald’s birthday and I’m going to stop at his house this afternoon.
Please don’t let me forget this Dog when James comes for me.”

“I’ll remind you, Mr. Blakeley.”

Then the day’s work began in Mr. Blakeley’s office. Clerks came and
went, other business men dropped in to talk over money matters,
and through it all the Woolly Dog lay wrapped in the paper on Mr.
Blakeley’s desk. Once, when the wind started to blow away a bundle of
checks, Miss Moore put the Woolly Dog on them as a weight to hold them
down.

But the Woolly Dog knew nothing of this, though, even if he had known
that he was guarding thousands of dollars I do not believe he would
have been proud.

He was a very good and sensible Woolly Dog.

At last the business day came to an end. Mr. Blakeley finished signing
papers and dictating letters. He reached for his hat when the porter
came in to say that James and the automobile were outside.

“Don’t forget the Woolly Dog!” called Miss Moore, as she saw Mr.
Blakeley about to leave his office without the bundle.

“Bless me! I should say not!” he cried. “Donald wouldn’t know what
to think if I drove up on his birthday without a present! Come on,
Doggie,” and he whistled a little, pretending that the Woolly Dog in
the parcel was alive.

Miss Moore laughed to see her employer so jolly. As for the plaything,
well, the Woolly Dog was alive, in a way, for he could hear the
whistle, though of course he dared not bark in answer.

“Now I am traveling again,” thought the Dog to himself, as he felt Mr.
Blakeley carrying him out to the car. James had mended the puncture and
had called at the rich man’s office as he did every afternoon.

“Home, sir?” asked James, touching his cap as he closed the door after
Mr. Blakeley had entered the car.

“No, to my sister’s house. You know where it is, James?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s Donald’s birthday,” explained Mr. Blakeley, and the chauffeur
smiled as he caught a glimpse, through the torn paper, of the Woolly
Dog.

Donald Cressey lived with his father and mother in a pleasant little
house just outside the big city, and when Donald’s mother saw her
brother’s large car coming to a stop in front of her home she called:

“Oh, Donald, here’s Uncle Teddy!”

“Has he brought my birthday present?” asked the little boy, as he
eagerly raced to the door.

“You mustn’t expect Uncle Teddy to bring you a present each birthday,”
replied his mother, for she did not want Donald to look for too much.

“Oh, but he _always_ brings me something when I get a year older,” the
boy murmured. “Don’t you think he will this time?”

Mrs. Cressey did not answer. She was watching her brother get out of
his car. And then she and Donald, at the same time, saw the paper
bundle.

“Oh, he has it! He has it!” cried Donald, jumping up and down for joy.
A moment later he was in his uncle’s arms and was trying to loosen the
paper and string from around the present.

And when he saw the pretty, white Woolly Dog the boy cried:

“Oh, that’s just what I wanted! Now I can have some fun!”

“You mustn’t get it dirty,” warned his mother. “It is a beautiful
dog, Teddy,” she said to her brother. “But Donald must not soil it. Be
careful—don’t drop it.”

“The Dog will wash. The lady I bought it of said so,” went on Donald’s
uncle. “She washed it herself once, she said. I guess Donald won’t hurt
it. Let him play with it and have a good time.”

And Donald certainly had a good time with the Woolly Dog. He hugged it
close to him, and squeezed it hard, but the Woolly Dog did not mind
that, for he was stuffed with soft cotton and could stand a great deal
of squeezing.

“He seems to like it,” said Donald’s mother. “You were very kind to
remember him, Teddy.”

“I thought of his birthday this morning when I happened to pass a toy
store,” and Mr. Blakeley told about walking through Hoyt Street.

Donald thanked his uncle, and then showed him some of the other
presents he had received. One was a little toy train of cars, and
when Donald was telling his uncle that they would run on a tin track,
suddenly the door of the room burst open and in rushed a little
golden-haired creature with bright, flashing eyes. She caught sight of
the new gift and cried:

“Oh, I wants Woolly Dog! I wants him! I hab him!”

And before Donald could save his new toy, his little sister, Jane,
caught up the Woolly Dog in her arms and ran out of the room.

“Here! Come back! Come back with my Woolly Dog!” shouted Donald, but
Jane ran down the hall.




CHAPTER IV

WHAT LITTLE JANE DID


Jane, who was Donald’s little sister, did not exactly know what she
was going to do with the Woolly Dog which she had picked up so quickly
and run away with. Jane was like that—she often took Donald’s toys
and tried to keep them for herself, for she was too small to know any
better.

Often Donald, being a kind boy, would let his little sister keep
the things she took—at least, he would let her play with them until
he wanted them, and by that time Jane was tired of them and wanted
something else.

This time the little girl had seen Donald’s new Woolly Dog and had
used her chance to get it. She thought perhaps she could go to a room
by herself and play with the new toy. But Donald was too quick for her.
Down the hall after his sister he ran, still shouting:

“Come back with my Dog! Come back with my Dog!”

“Jane! Jane! You mustn’t take Donald’s new birthday gift!” exclaimed
Mrs. Cressey.

“Oh, don’t take it away from her,” begged Uncle Teddy. “I’ll get Donald
a new one.”

“No, that must not be,” said Mrs. Cressey. “Jane must learn that
certain things belong to Donald and others to her. She will grow up
to be a selfish little girl if I let her have her way too much. Jane,
Jane, come back with Donald’s Dog, please!”

But Jane did not come back. She ran into one room, out through a side
door, and down another hall, all the while clutching the Woolly Dog
close in her arms. After her ran her mother, Donald, and even Uncle
Teddy, who was laughing and chuckling in glee.

“Even if Jane is a little bad, I haven’t had so much fun in a long
while,” thought Mr. Blakeley to himself. “She’s a regular tyke, that’s
what she is. Ha! Ha! She certainly can run! The little tyke!”

And run with the Woolly Dog, Jane surely did. As for that toy, he did
not know what to think, and of course he could say or do nothing while
Jane had him.

“Dear me!” thought the Woolly Dog, “I’m afraid I’m not going to have
as much fun here as I had hoped. I might better have been left in Mrs.
Clark’s little store, poor as it was. At least it was peaceable and
quiet there.”

But other and more dreadful things were to happen to the Woolly Dog.
His adventures were just beginning. Jane squeezed him so tightly that,
had he been a real dog, he would have howled with pain. But, being
only a Woolly Dog, stuffed with cotton, he dared not cry out. Perhaps
if there had been a squeaker in him, or a tin whistle, such as was in
the Rubber Clown, he might have made a noise.

But, as it was, the Woolly Dog kept silent, and at last Jane ran with
him into another room, slammed the door and looked around. What was she
going to do next, the Woolly Dog wanted to know.

“I hide, ’at’s what I do; I hide!” said little Jane to herself. “I
hide, an’ Woolly Dog hide. Den dey tan’t find us!” She was so excited
that she talked “baby talk,” of which her mother had almost cured her.

In another moment the little girl had seen a good place to hide—under
the couch in the room where she had run to get away from Donald, her
mother and Uncle Teddy. Under the couch, still closely hugging the
Woolly Dog, rolled little Jane. She laughed and chuckled to herself to
think how she would fool those looking for her.

And fool them she did, for, a moment later, into the room hurried the
three—Donald in the lead, then his mother, and lastly Uncle Teddy, who
was puffing and blowing, for he was rather fat and rather old and not
used to running.

“Jane! Jane! Where are you? Where’s my Woolly Dog?” cried Donald.

Jane, under the conch, did not answer.

“She isn’t in here, I guess,” said Mother Cressey.

“She came in here,” said Uncle Teddy. “I heard the door slam.”

“She must have gone out again,” went on Donald’s mother. “She’s a
little rascal, that’s what Jane is, sometimes. And when she wants to,
she can be as good as gold—or pie.”

“Pie is better than gold,” chuckled Uncle Teddy. “I wish you could
give me a piece, Mabel,” he said. “No pie I get, even in the best
restaurants, is like yours.”

“I’ll give you some,” said his sister.

“After we find Jane,” he suggested. “Maybe she’ll want some, too.”

“I do,” said Donald. “But first I want my Woolly Dog.”

“Jane shouldn’t have taken it,” said his mother. “Jane! Jane! Where are
you?” she called again.

But Jane, hidden under the couch with the Woolly Dog, did not answer,
and, as the couch had a covering on, which came nearly to the floor,
she could not be seen.

“I guess she ran up to the playroom,” said Donald.

Jane wanted to laugh out loud as she thought how she was fooling them
all. And, to keep from laughing, by which sound they would know where
she was, the little girl stuffed into her mouth the tail of the Woolly
Dog.

For a time this held back her laugh, but the fuzzy tail tickled Jane,
and she felt like sneezing. However, she held back the sneeze and did
not “ker-choo” until she heard those who were looking for her leave the
room. Then Jane laughed and sneezed.

“Dear me,” thought the Woolly Dog, “I’m glad she didn’t sneeze when she
had my tail in her mouth! She might have bitten it off. Oh, but what is
going to happen? So much excitement! It wouldn’t be like this in the
store if I had lived there for a whole year!”

But more was yet to come.

Jane, under the couch, listened until she was sure no one was in the
room but herself and the Woolly Dog. Sometimes Donald played a trick on
her when she was hiding by pretending to go out of the room where she
was and then tiptoeing back softly to be ready to catch her.

So Jane peeped out from under the edge of the couch and then, making
sure no one was in sight, she rolled out as she had rolled under, with
the Woolly Dog in her arms.

“My goodness!” thought the toy, “if she rolls much more I’ll get as
dizzy as if I had chased my tail.”

But Jane did not intend to do much rolling. She had another plan in her
queer little head. So, once out from under the couch, she looked around
for something she wanted.

Jane had run into the sewing room in her flight to get away from Donald
and keep her brother’s birthday Dog. And in the sewing room were
needles, pins, spools of thread and many things such as were in the
window of Mrs. Clark’s store.

“Well, I feel quite at home here,” thought the Woolly Dog, as he
looked around and saw the needles and pins. But these were not what
Jane wanted. She found what she was looking for in her mother’s sewing
basket—a pair of sharp, shining scissors.

Jane picked up the scissors and sat down on the floor with the Woolly
Dog in her lap. There was a serious look on the little girl’s face.

“Now I see where it is,” she whispered to herself. “Now I find out all
’bout you!”

The Woolly Dog saw the points of the sharp, shining scissors in the
chubby hands of Jane coming nearer and nearer to him.

“Oh, what dreadful thing is going to happen now?” thought the Woolly
Dog. “Can she be going to cut me?”

He wanted to close his glass eyes, but he dared not. He wanted to howl
in terror, but he dared not. He wanted to bark and scare little Jane,
but he dared not.

He dared do none of these things. He dared not pretend to come to
life while the eyes of Jane were upon him. And she was looking at him
closely.

Jane turned the Woolly Dog over on his back in her lap. She opened and
closed the scissors with a clashing sound.

“This is the end of me!” thought the poor Woolly Dog. “Oh, if I were
only back in the store with the poor toys!”

“Now I see what’s inside you,” murmured Jane.

“Snip!” went the sharp scissors, and there was a long gash cut in the
Woolly Dog’s stomach, letting out some of the cotton stuffing.

“Oh! Oh, dear! Oh, dear me!” thought the toy, but he dared not say a
word or utter so much as a whine.

“Snip!” went the scissors again, and a longer gash was cut in the
Woolly Dog.

Jane leaned over to look at the mischief she had done. She did not seem
to be satisfied, for she said:

“I dess I make hole bigger.”

“Snip!” went the scissors again.

The Woolly Dog thought he would faint! But he was a very brave Dog, and
so he held his breath and stood it all without even an inner shudder.

“Now I dess I see what’s inside you,” murmured Jane.

Down among the wads of cotton that filled the inside of the Woolly Dog
the little girl poked her fingers. This way and that she twisted them,
and, oh, how she tickled that poor little Woolly Dog. You know how it
feels to be tickled on the outside of your ribs, but how would you like
to be tickled on the inside?

Well, that’s what was happening to the Woolly Dog. He was being tickled
on the inside!

How he wanted to laugh, in spite of his pain, but he dared not.

“Where is it? I wonder where it is?” said Jane over and over again, as
her fingers wiggled in among the wads of cotton stuffing.

Then, suddenly, the door of the sewing room opened and in came Donald.
He gave one look at what Jane was doing, and cried:

“I’ve found her! Oh, Mother, I’ve found her!”

“Where is she?” asked his mother, for they had been searching all over
the house for the mischievous little girl. “Where is she, Donald?”

“She’s in the sewing room. And, oh, Mother! she’s killed my Woolly Dog.
She’s killed him dead! Oh! Oh!” And Donald burst into tears at the
sight of his birthday toy.




CHAPTER V

A LOST DIAMOND


“Donald! Donald! What do you mean? What has Jane done?” asked Mrs.
Cressey, as she followed closely after her little boy and entered the
room where Jane had hidden.

“Look! Just look!” sobbed Donald, with the tears streaming down his
cheeks. He was getting to be a big boy he thought, and hated to cry,
but this time he just couldn’t help it. To have his new birthday Woolly
Dog cut up so soon after he had received it from Uncle Teddy! Wasn’t it
sad?

Uncle Teddy himself, who had followed Mrs. Cressey, came into the room.
They had searched all over the house for Jane, and at last her mother
had thought perhaps the little girl might have hidden under the couch.
Or, rather, it was Donald who spoke of it. He said:

“Maybe she’s there. Sometimes she hides there when we’re playing
hide-and-seek.”

“We’ll look,” answered his mother.

So, back to this room they had gone and there, of course, they had
found Jane.

At the sight of the sharp, shining scissors and the cut dog lying in
the little girl’s lap, Mrs. Cressey exclaimed:

“Oh, Jane! what are you doing?”

“I—I—now, I want to find the Woolly Dog’s bark,” explained Jane.

“His _bark_?” cried her mother.

“Yes. I want to see if he’s got a bow-wow inside him.”

“He hasn’t,” said Donald, chokingly. “There isn’t any bark in my Woolly
Dog. He doesn’t even squeak, does he, Uncle Teddy?”

[Illustration: Woolly Dog Objects to Jane’s Scissors.

  _The Story of a Woolly Dog._      _Page 46_
]

“No, I hardly think so. The storekeeper didn’t say he did.”

“Well, I was lookin’ for his bark,” said Jane, “but I didn’t find it.”

“Yes, and you’ve killed him—that’s what you’ve done!” cried Donald.
“Jane, you’re a bad, bad girl! My Woolly Dog is spoiled dead!”

“Never mind, I’ll get you another,” said Uncle Teddy.

Mrs. Cressey picked up the Woolly Dog from her little girl’s lap. Some
of the cotton stuffing was sticking out of the gash the scissors had
made in his stomach. Donald’s mother looked the Dog over carefully.

“He isn’t much harmed,” she said. “I can easily mend him, Donald.”

“Oh, can you, Mother?”

“Yes, I can put the stuffing back in and sew up the cut and he will be
as good as ever.”

“Are you sure?” asked Uncle Teddy. “Because if you aren’t, I’ll get
Donald another dog, though this was the only one in the store.”

“I’m sure I can mend him,” said Mrs. Cressey. “Jane didn’t do much
damage, after all.”

“Won’t the place show where you sew him up?” asked Donald doubtfully.

“Yes, it will show a little,” his mother answered.

“But you can pretend your Dog has been to the hospital and has had an
operation,” suggested Uncle Teddy.

“Oh, so I can! That will be fun!” replied Donald, and he dried his
tears. “But Jane shouldn’t have cut him; should she, Mother?”

“No, she was a naughty little girl, I’m afraid.”

“I—now—I dess was lookin’ for his bark,” said Jane, and her lips began
to quiver as they always did just before she burst into tears.

“There, there!” soothed Uncle Teddy, for he knew what was going to
happen. “I guess you didn’t intend to do it, Jane. You won’t cut the
Dog open again, will you?”

“N-n-n-no,” promised Jane. “I won’t cut him open to see him’s bark any
more ’cause he hasn’t—now—got any!”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Uncle Teddy. “That’s right—he hasn’t any bark. But
don’t cut him open again anyhow, will you?”

“No,” promised Jane. Then she smiled.

And Donald smiled, too, for he knew his Woolly Dog would be almost as
good as new when his mother had sewed it up after putting back the
stuffing.

“And now for my piece of pie, and then I must get back home,” said
Uncle Teddy. “Happy birthday, Donald!”

“Thank you, and I wish you the same,” said the little boy.

“So do I,” chimed in Jane. “An’ I—I—I’ll give you a—kiss, Don,” and she
went over to him.

Of course Donald had to forgive her after that, and once more there was
happiness.

“Things may not turn out so badly after all, if they sew me up,”
thought the Woolly Dog. “But for a time I thought my last hour had
come. It’s been quite an adventure, anyhow.”

“I’ll put your Dog in my sewing basket until I get Uncle Teddy his
piece of pie,” said Mrs. Cressey to Donald. “Then I’ll make him as good
as ever for you.”

“Could I have some pie?” asked Jane.

“Well, you have been rather a naughty little girl,” said her mother
slowly. “But as long as it’s Donald’s birthday we’ll forgive you.”

While the pie was being served down in the dining room the Woolly Dog
lay in the sewing basket in the work room, a long gash in his stomach
and the cotton stuffing bulging out.

“I’m sure I need to go to the hospital,” thought the Woolly Dog.

Just then he heard a voice asking:

“Who are you and where did you come from?”

Donald’s birthday toy looked around and saw, gazing at him, a funny
little Chinese man, with queer, slanting eyes.

“I am a Woolly Dog, and I just came from the store,” answered the new
plaything. “Who are you, if you please?”

“I am a needle case,” was the answer. “Mrs. Cressey keeps her needles
in me. I’m hollow inside. Are you?”

“No,” answered the Woolly Dog. “I’m stuffed with cotton, but some of it
is coming out.”

“So I see,” remarked the Chinese Man. “I saw Jane cut you. She is a
little tyke—that girl! I’m glad I’m made of hard china so she can’t cut
me. My head comes off. Does yours?” he asked suddenly.

“Gracious, I should hope not!” barked the Woolly Dog. Now that there
were no human beings to see or hear he could pretend to be alive.

“Well, perhaps it wouldn’t be good to have _your_ head come off,” went
on the Chinese Man. “But, you see, I’m hollow inside, and when Mrs.
Cressey lifts off my head there’s a place for her to drop her sewing
needles. I’m full of needles. Listen!”

The Chinese man jiggled himself up and down and a queer rattling came
from within him.

“Don’t they tickle you—those needles?” asked the Woolly Dog.

“Not a bit, thank you.”

“Don’t they prick you with their sharp points?”

“No, I don’t mind them in the least. That’s what it is to be made of
hard china like a plate or a cup and saucer.”

“I suppose so—yes,” agreed the Woolly Dog. “But tell me—is this a good
place to live? You see, I just came and I don’t know much about the
family.”

“Why, yes, it’s a very good place,” said the Chinese Man. “Of course,
Jane is a bit mischievous, but she’ll get over that. Donald isn’t so
bad, for a boy. Of course he shouts a lot.”

“All boys do that,” said the Woolly Dog. “You should have heard them
on the street where I was in a store. I suppose you were in a store
yourself?” he suggested.

“Once upon a time, many years ago,” said the Chinese Man who was a
needle case. “It’s so long I have almost forgotten. But I think you’ll
like it here if you can keep away from Jane. Once she took off my head
and dropped it in the goldfish bowl.”

“She did?” cried the Woolly Dog. “Did they bite you—those goldfish, I
mean?”

“They tried to,” laughed the Chinese Man. “But I have a very hard head
and they only broke off their teeth, so they stopped.”

“My, that was a wonderful adventure!” barked the Woolly Dog.

“Yes, it was,” agreed the Chinese Man, as he rattled the needles inside
him. “Luckily I can hold my breath a long time, so I didn’t take in any
water, and Mrs. Cressey saw what had happened and fished me out. After
that she put me up on this shelf where Jane couldn’t get me.”

“I wish they’d keep me on a shelf,” sighed the Woolly Dog. “Oh, but I’m
all cut up.”

“Never mind, I heard Mrs. Cressey say she was going to sew you up,”
said the Chinese Man. “And she is very clever with her needle—very. You
should see her sew buttons on Donald’s clothes.”

“Does he need many sewed on?”

“Does he? Say, I never saw a boy burst so many buttons off his clothes!
It’s a wonder to me he doesn’t fly apart. I remember——”

But suddenly the Chinese Man stopped talking and the Woolly Dog,
looking around to learn the reason, saw Mrs. Cressey coming into the
room, followed by Donald.

“Now I’ll sew up your Woolly Dog,” said the little boy’s mother.

That was the reason the Chinese Man could no longer talk, nor could the
Woolly Dog. There were human beings present.

But the Dog was glad he had made a new friend in the house, and he
thought that after dark, when everyone was asleep, he could come and
visit the Chinese Man and hear more stories. Perhaps there were other
toys with whom he might play when the house was quiet.

“Now to mend your birthday Dog,” said Donald’s mother.

She threaded a needle, taking one from the china case, lifting off the
head of the Chinese Man to do so.

“Ah, that’s what he meant by his head coming off!” thought the Woolly
Dog.

Mrs. Cressey first carefully poked back inside the Woolly Dog the
cotton stuffing that Jane had pulled out when searching for the Dog’s
“bark.” Then Donald’s mother, taking very fine stitches so they would
not show, mended the gash in the Dog’s stomach.

While she was doing this she tickled the Woolly Dog quite a bit. He
wanted to squirm and wiggle and even bark, but he dared do none of
these things, for both Donald and his mother were looking at him.

“There you are, Donald,” said Mrs. Cressey, at last. “You can hardly
tell where he was cut. Your birthday Dog is as good as ever.”

“Oh, Mother! I’m so glad!” cried the little boy. “Now I can play with
him and have fun.”

The Woolly Dog was glad to feel himself in Donald’s arms again, and he
hoped Jane would let him alone.

“But, all the same,” thought the Woolly Dog to himself, “there is a
queer, ticklish feeling inside me. I’m not the same Dog I was before,
and I know it. That queer, tickling feeling—I wonder what it is?”

But there seemed no way of finding out.

When Donald’s father came home that evening the new toy was shown to
him, and he was told what Jane had done. Jane was a little ashamed of
herself and hung her head.

“I not hurt your Doggie any more, Don,” she promised.

That evening, after supper, the two children played with their toys,
and Donald even let Jane hold his Woolly Dog for a while. And Jane was
very careful.

“But it’s the funniest thing about that tickling feeling inside my
ribs,” thought the Dog to himself. “I didn’t have it before Jane cut me
open.

“I guess some of my cotton stuffing didn’t get put back just straight,
as it was before,” he thought. “Well, no matter, I suppose I ought to
consider myself lucky not to be in the hospital.”

“Come on,” called Donald to Jane. “I’ll put my Woolly Dog on the train
of cars and give him a ride.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun!” laughed Jane.

“Gracious! A ride on the cars!” thought the Woolly Dog. “That will be a
new adventure for me!”

And he liked riding on Donald’s toy train very much.

Then night came and the children had to go to bed. The Woolly Dog was
put on a shelf in the playroom with other toys, some of which Donald
and Jane had received for Christmas.

It was when Mrs. Cressey was getting ready for bed that she suddenly
looked at her left hand and exclaimed to her husband:

“Oh, my diamond engagement ring is gone!”

“It is?”

“Yes. I must have dropped it on the floor! Oh, help me look for it! I
wouldn’t lose that for anything!”

But though they looked on the floors of several rooms, the missing
diamond ring was not found.

“When did you have it last?” asked Mr. Cressey.

“I wore it all day,” answered his wife. “I had it on when Brother
Theodore was here, and in all the excitement about Don’s Dog. I had it
on when I sewed up the Dog and when I ate supper, for I remember it
very well.”

“Maybe it dropped off in the soup,” suggested Mr. Cressey.

“No, for then I’d have seen it on my plate. Oh, where is my diamond
ring?”




CHAPTER VI

THE CHINA CAT


Besides being very valuable, Mrs. Cressey’s diamond ring was highly
prized because it was her engagement token, given her before her
marriage. There were tears in her eyes as she looked through the
different rooms for the missing jewel.

“Don’t feel so bad about it,” said her husband. “I’m sure we’ll find
it.”

But they did not find it that night, and the next morning the search
was kept up. Donald and Jane, when told what had happened, also joined
in hunting for the diamond ring, and Donald even looked among his toys,
thinking it might be there.

But it wasn’t, nor was it among Jane’s dolls and other playthings
where the little girl looked.

“I’ll buy you another ring,” said Mr. Cressey.

“Oh, I never could have but _one_ engagement ring,” sighed his wife,
with tears in her eyes. “I want my own ring back!”

However, it could not be found, search as they did. Mrs. Cressey could
not imagine where she had dropped it, for that is how she thought it
must have become lost, since she had not been out of the house.

“Well, maybe it will turn up somewhere in one of the rooms some day,”
said Mr. Cressey, as he went to the office. He felt sad on his wife’s
account.

Now I must tell you a little of what the Woolly Dog did the first night
he spent in the home of Donald. As I have mentioned, after supper the
birthday toy was put on a shelf in the playroom. Other toys were there,
and in the middle of the room was a large Rocking Horse.

“I see we have a new one among us,” said a Jack-in-the-Box, when night
had come and the toys were allowed to pretend to come to life. “There
is a new toy among us, friends.”

“Do you mean the Woolly Dog?” asked a Celluloid Doll which had been
given Jane for Christmas.

“Yes, I mean the Woolly Dog,” answered the Jack-in-the-Box. “How do you
do, Mr. Dog?” he went on. “And how do you like it here? We always ask
new toys that,” he said politely.

“I like it very well,” answered the Woolly Dog. “Of course, I don’t
know much about this place yet, and I hardly feel that I know Donald at
all. As for Jane——”

“Don’t speak of Jane!” cried the Celluloid Doll. “Asking your pardon
for interrupting you,” she went on to the Dog. “But that Jane is a
tyke, if ever there was one.”

“You should see what she did to me!” barked the Woolly Dog.

[Illustration: “Do You Think I’ll Ever Have A Book Made About Me?”
Asked Woolly Dog.

  _The Story of a Woolly Dog._      _Page 73_
]

“Tell us!” begged a Paper Doll.

And the Woolly Dog told about being cut open.

“That’s even worse than what happened to me,” sighed the Celluloid Doll.

“What happened to you?” inquired the Dog, for he thought it only polite
to show an interest in the troubles of other toys.

“Oh, Jane dropped me and smashed my nose,” said the Doll. “There’s a
dent in it that will never come out. My beauty is spoiled forever! Oh,
dear!”

“I’m sorry,” said the Dog. “But tell me—have you a ticklish feeling
inside you?”

The Celluloid Doll gave herself a little shake.

“No, I don’t feel ticklish,” she answered, after thinking a moment.
“That doesn’t mean I want you to tickle me, though!” she exclaimed,
jumping away as a Donkey from a Noah’s Ark walked over toward her,
wagging his ears.

“Have any of you toys a ticklish feeling inside you?” asked the Woolly
Dog.

One after another the different toys said they had not.

“Well, it’s very strange,” went on the Woolly Dog. “I didn’t have it in
the store, but since my accident I feel like laughing all the while.”

“That’s a jolly good way to feel, I should think,” observed a Tin
Soldier. “Too many of us are gloomy and sad. I am not, even if I have
to go to war, but to feel like laughing all the while—right jolly I
call that!”

“You wouldn’t if you had a place that wanted scratching and you
couldn’t reach it to scratch,” declared the Woolly Dog.

“Is that how you feel?” asked the Celluloid Doll.

“Yes,” was the reply. “I’m ticklish all the while lately. But don’t let
my trouble worry you. Let’s have some fun,” he proposed.

“Let’s ride on the Rocking Horse!” suggested the Jack-in-the-Box. “Did
you ever ride on a Rocking Horse?” he asked the Woolly Dog.

“No,” was the answer. “But last night, in the store, I gave the Rubber
Clown a ride on my back—that is, I did after he stopped bouncing up and
down. Ha! Ha! That was funny!”

“Tell us about it,” begged the Paper Doll, and the Dog did.

The other toys laughed and all of them said the Woolly Dog was a jolly
chap. They were glad he had come to live among them, and after some
more talk the toys began moving about more freely, for they could do
this when no human eyes watched them.

“Do you mind if we ride on your back?” asked the Jumping Jack of the
Rocking Horse. “I have only one leg,” he added, “so I shan’t be very
heavy.”

“How did you lose your leg?” asked the Woolly Dog. “Was it in war?” and
he looked at the Tin Soldier.

“No, it was Jane’s fault,” said the one-legged Jumping Jack. “I belong
to Donald, but one day Jane tried to grab me away from her brother. She
got hold of one leg and pulled and pulled and pulled until she pulled
it off. Oh, what a day that was!”

“Couldn’t you have it glued on again?” asked the Dog.

“Well, they tried it,” answered the Jumping Jack. “But they must have
used the wrong kind of glue, for my leg broke off and was lost down a
crack. Since then I’ve had only one leg.”

“You are worse off than I am,” barked the Woolly Dog. “I have all four
legs even if I was cut open and have a ticklish feeling inside.”

The Rocking Horse began tilting to and fro.

“If you toys are going to ride on my back, you’d better begin,” he
neighed. “It will soon be morning.”

“That’s right,” said the Jack-in-the-Box. “Daylight will soon be here
and we’ll have to grow stiff and silent. Hurray for a ride on the
Rocking Horse!”

The Rocking Horse was so large that all the toys could get on his back
at once. This they did, mounting one after another. Jack-in-the-Box
helped up the one-legged Jumping Jack, and soon they were all having a
jolly ride around the playroom.

“My, I’m glad I came here to live,” said the Woolly Dog, as he laughed
at the funny look on the Celluloid Doll’s face while the Rocking Horse
galloped around a curve.

“Yes, I think you will like it,” remarked the Paper Doll. And then she
suddenly cried: “Quick! Catch me! I’m slipping! I’m going to fall!”

“I have you,” chattered a little Stuffed Monkey, and, putting out a
hairy hand, he caught hold of the Paper Doll.

“Well, this is the last time I can ride you around,” neighed the Horse.
“I see daylight coming.”

A final merry ride was given the toys and then they all had to scurry
back to their places, for Donald or Jane might come in any moment. And,
a little later, the children entered the playroom.

All that day Donald and his sister played with the Woolly Dog and other
toys. They took some of their playthings out on the porch, and other
children living near by came over to join in the fun.

A little girl named Dorothy had a Sawdust Doll, and Dick, her brother,
had a Rocking Horse almost as large as Donald’s on which the toys had
ridden in the night.

Another boy named Arnold owned a Bold Tin Soldier, and Mirabell, his
sister, had a Lamb on Wheels. Then there was Madeline with a Candy
Rabbit, Archie with a Stuffed Elephant, Herbert who had a Monkey on a
Stick, and Sidney with a Calico Clown.

But of all the toys Donald’s Woolly Dog was the newest and freshest.
Once when the children went into the house to get some bread and
jam, leaving the toys alone, they talked among themselves, and the
Sawdust Doll and the Tin Soldier told of some adventures they had gone
through—adventures, they said, which had been made into books.

“Do you think I’ll ever have a book made about me?” asked the Woolly
Dog.

“Maybe, some day,” answered the Stuffed Elephant. “But first you must
have lots of adventures.”

“Do you think they’ll put me in a book even if I have a tickling
feeling inside?” barked the Dog.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” replied the Elephant. “It’s a mere trifle.”

“You wouldn’t call it a trifle if you had it,” said the Dog.

Then the children came back and the toys had to keep quiet. For many
days Donald played with his Woolly Dog. For many days Mrs. Cressey
looked for her lost diamond ring without finding it.

Each night the Woolly Dog was put in the playroom with the other toys,
but one night Donald forgot his Dog and left him in the front hall.
There Susan the maid found him.

“I declare!” exclaimed Susan, “Donald has forgotten his birthday toy
that his Uncle Teddy gave him. I’ll put him in the hall closet with the
umbrellas,” and she did, meaning to tell Donald in the morning.

“Dear me! This isn’t a very nice place to be shut up in,” thought the
Woolly Dog, as he found himself in the umbrella closet. “And what a
funny smell,” he went on. “I say,” he called aloud, “are you here, Mr.
Clown? I seem to smell you.”

“It’s the rubbers and overshoes you smell,” said a voice. “They are
made of rubber as, I suppose, is the Clown you speak of.”

“Oh, I see,” barked the Woolly Dog. “But who are you?” he asked. “I
can’t make out where you are?”

“I’m down inside one of these umbrellas,” was the answer. “If you will
give it a little jiggle I think I can get out. I’m caught on one of the
ribs.”

“One of your ribs!” exclaimed the Woolly Dog.

“No, one of the umbrella ribs. That’s it—thank you,” went on the voice,
and, as the Woolly Dog shook the umbrella, out of it crawled a Cat.

“Oh, bow wow! Gurr-r-r-r—rrr!” barked the Woolly Dog. “Oh, a Cat! I
must chase you! Dogs always chase Cats! Bow wow!”

“No, don’t chase me,” mewed the Cat. “I am a toy like yourself. I am
only a China Cat. Don’t chase me, but hear my sad story.”




CHAPTER VII

IN THE BEEHIVE


The Woolly Dog stopped short on hearing this. He did not want to be
unkind, but, as he said, dogs always chased cats, and he was a Dog,
even if he was made of lamb’s wool and stuffed with cotton.

“Don’t chase me,” mewed the China Cat. “I am a toy, like yourself. I am
not real, and I have had, oh, such a sad life.”

“Well, of course, if you are a toy I won’t chase you,” barked the
Woolly Dog. “I didn’t know you were one of us. I thought you were a
regular Cat. You look like one.”

“Yes, for a China Cat I am well made,” went on the other toy, as she
snuggled down on the floor of the closet among the rubbers where the
Woolly Dog had been placed by Susan. “It isn’t very nice in here, is
it?” she went on.

“No,” agreed the Woolly Dog. “But Donald will take me out in the
morning. And I rather like that rubbery smell—it reminds me of
the Clown and the time I was in the store. But you spoke of a sad
story—tell me about it. We are by ourselves now and can do as we
please. How long have you been here?”

“Oh, I have been shut up in this closet over a week!” said the China
Cat sadly. “And it has been so lonesome! Tell me—you belong to some
little child, don’t you?”

“Yes,” answered the Woolly Dog. “To a little boy named Donald.”

“Well, I am a child’s pet, too,” mewed the Cat. “But I have been
forgotten, I guess. The children here had a party, and I was one of
the toys brought to it. Then the little child who owned me forgot me,
and I was tossed into the closet with a pair of rubbers, into one of
which I had fallen. I bounced from the rubber into the partly closed
umbrella, and I’ve been here ever since.”

“Why didn’t you crawl out some night?” asked the Dog. “You could have
scrambled up inside the umbrella by your claws, I should think.”

“I tried it,” said the China Cat. “But each time I got tangled in the
ribs and stuck. It wasn’t until you came and gave the umbrella a shake
that I could get out. I’m much obliged to you.”

“Oh, I’m glad I could help,” said the Dog. “But now tell me your sad
story.”

“It’s in a book, and you can read it if you know how,” mewed the Cat.
“But I’ll tell you part of it. Once I was in a store as you were, and
there was a fire. Oh, I was so black and dirty and smoky! And I was
stolen by a colored boy!”

“Oh, never!” barked the Dog.

“Yes, I was!” insisted the China Cat. “Then there was a flood and a
terrible time, but at last I was given a good home and I lived happily
until this misfortune came. Now isn’t that a sad story?”

“Yes, it is,” agreed the Dog. “But when it comes to sad stories, I have
one of my own.”

“Do tell me,” begged the China Cat, curling her whiskers. “I love sad
stories.”

“Well,” began the Dog, “I have a ticklish feeling inside me, and——”

“I don’t call _that_ sad,” interrupted the Cat, with a smile.

“You would if you had it,” barked the Dog. “Tell me—were you ever cut
open and sewed together again?”

“No, never!” exclaimed the China Cat.

“Well, would you call that sad?”

“I certainly would, Mr. Woolly Dog. Tell me more about it.”

Then the Dog told his story and the two toy friends had a good time
there in the closet talking to one another. Morning came and they had
to keep quiet. Susan, the maid, remembered about putting the Woolly Dog
away and opened the door to take him out.

“Here, Donald, is your Dog,” she said.

Jane looked in and saw the China Cat.

“Oh, whose is that?” cried the little girl. “I’m going to have it!”

But Jane’s mother remembered about the child visitor who had lost the
China Cat. So she sent it home, and very glad the Cat was to get back
where she belonged. The Woolly Dog was sad at losing his new friend,
but he hoped to see her again.

In spite of good times at Donald’s house there was always a little
sadness because of the lost diamond ring.

Those who were sad were Mr. and Mrs. Cressey and it was because of the
lost diamond ring that the parents of Donald and Jane were sad. As for
the children, they were having so much fun with their toys that after
the first few days they gave no more thought to the lost diamond.

“I know how we can have some fun,” said Donald to Jane one day.

“How?” asked the little girl, who was always ready for a good time.

“We’ll take some of our toys out on the porch and play circus,” Donald
answered.

Soon the children were playing this game. The Woolly Dog was there, of
course, and so was a little Donkey that could wiggle his ears and nod
his head. Donald also had a Wooden Tiger who looked very fierce but who
wouldn’t even so much as bite your little finger if you put it in his
mouth. He was a very good Tiger, even if he did look fierce.

“I’ll make my Woolly Dog do tricks,” said Donald.

He found a small wooden hoop and Susan kindly pasted some paper over it
for the little boy.

“Now I’ll make my Dog jump through the hoop the way they do in the
circus,” said Donald. And, as truly as I am telling you, the Woolly
Dog really burst through the paper hoop.

Of course Donald tossed the Dog, but it looked very natural, and Jane
clapped her hands in delight.

“Now make believe your Dog is a horse and let my Celluloid Doll ride on
his back,” proposed Jane.

“Oh, that’ll be fun!” laughed Donald, and this was done. The Celluloid
Doll looked like a real circus bareback rider.

But, after a while, the children became tired of playing circus.

“What else can we do?” asked Jane.

Donald thought for a moment and he was about to say they might make mud
pies when a playmate from down the street came running up crying:

“Oh, Don! Oh, Jane! There’s a hand-organ man and a monkey around the
corner! Come and see him!”

Away ran Donald and Jane, leaving their toys on the porch.

“Oh, such children!” sighed Susan, as she came out and saw the
playthings. “I must pick them up or some street boys might take them.”

Susan thought she picked up everything, but the Woolly Dog had fallen
behind a post out of sight, and the maid did not see this toy. So the
Dog was left on the porch.

A little later two bad boys came along. One of them, looking over the
fence, saw the Woolly Dog.

“I’m going to take that,” he said.

“Better not,” warned the other.

“Sure I will,” said the first. “No one will see me.” He went slyly into
the yard and picked up the Woolly Dog. “This is a dandy!” he exclaimed,
pawing the clean white wool of the Dog with his dirty hands. “I’ll take
him home.”

The bad boys started home with Donald’s Woolly Dog, but they had not
gone far down the street before, looking back, the second boy cried:

“Here comes a policeman! He’s after you because you took that Dog!”

“Oh, my!” cried the boy who had Donald’s toy. “I’m going to run!”

And run both boys did. But still the policeman came on. Now, as a
matter of fact, the policeman was not after the boys at all. He was
hurrying down the street to go home to his dinner, and he did not know
the boys had stolen the Dog. But the boys thought he was after them,
and so they ran.

Down a lane that led to the country fled the boy with the Woolly Dog,
and still the policeman came on, for he lived in that neighborhood.

“He’s going to catch you,” said the boy who had not taken the Dog.

“Well, I’ll get rid of this,” cried the other, and he gave the Woolly
Dog a toss over the fence. Then the two boys ran on and hid themselves
in a wood, but the policeman turned into his house to get his dinner.

“Oh, dear me! This is terrible!” thought the Woolly Dog, when he felt
himself being taken away by the bad boy. “And this is worse,” thought
the Dog, as he felt himself flung over the fence. Then, as he landed
down inside what seemed to be a box, he barked: “And _this_ is the
worst of all!”

Well might he say that, for he had been thrown into a hive of bees!




CHAPTER VIII

RIDING DOWN HILL


There was a little farm in the country not far from Donald’s home,
and the farmer kept a few hives of bees for the honey they made. This
farmer happened to be out working among his bees when the boy who had
stolen the Woolly Dog ran past. And when the boy, to get rid of the
Dog, threw the toy over the fence, why, Donald’s plaything fell right
into an open hive of the honey-making and stinging insects.

For bees can sting as well as make honey, you know.

“Yes, this certainly is the worst of all my adventures!” thought the
Woolly Dog, as he found himself among the crawling bees. “It is even
worse than when Jane cut me open with the scissors and I was sewed up
again. Oh, what a tickling feeling!”

Well might the Woolly Dog say this, for now he was being tickled on the
outside by the bees crawling over him, and he already had a tickling
feeling inside, though from what he did not know.

“These bees will sting me to death!” thought the Woolly Dog. “They
certainly will sting me to death! I heard one of the animals, in the
Noah’s Ark that Donald has, talking about bees. I think it was the
Wooden Elephant. He said bees were dreadful stingers.”

As for the bees they were much excited. They always grew excited when
the farmer took the top off their hive, as he had just done, to get
some of the honey for himself. Here and there crawled the buzzing,
humming bees. They had a Queen, and the Queen called:

“What is this that has fallen among us? If it is anyone but the kind
farmer after our honey, just sting him, my children! We will not sting
the farmer, for he is kind to us and puts us in a warm place in winter.
But if it is anyone else, sting him!”

“It is someone else, Your Majesty,” answered a busy bee. “This creature
is large and fuzzy—not as large as the farmer but more fuzzy.”

“Sting him!” ordered the Queen bee.

“Oh, please don’t sting me!” begged the Woolly Dog.

“Stop! Wait a minute!” commanded the Queen. “The creature speaks our
language. Perhaps he means no harm,” for the Dog, you see, had spoken
the language of animals and insects, there being no human beings there
to spy on him.

“Certainly I mean you no harm,” barked the Woolly Dog. “I am sorry if
I disturbed you, but I couldn’t help it. A bad boy tossed me in among
you.”

By this time a number of the strongest bees had gotten ready to sting
the Woolly Dog in answer to their Queen’s command, but now Her Majesty,
who was a longer, thinner bee than any of the others, walked daintily
toward the Woolly Dog.

“What a queer creature he is, to be sure,” said the Queen. “So very
large and fuzzy, as you said, my children. Not as large as the farmer,
but truly much more fuzzy.”

“Big as he is, Your Majesty,” growled one of the worker bees, “we can
all sting him if you say so. But it will be hard work. His fuzzy coat
of wool will tangle in our legs. But we can sting him on his nose—he
has no fuzz there.”

“Oh, don’t sting me on my nose! Don’t, please, sting me on my nose!”
howled the Woolly Dog, and he began hiding his nose down in his paws.

“No, don’t sting him,” ordered the Queen. “He is one of us. But I must
ask you, Mr. Woolly Dog,” she went on, “please to get out of our hive,
for you are in the way. I don’t want to be impolite, but you are in the
way.”

“Oh, I’ll get out fast enough, I promise you,” said the Dog, but he
wondered how in the world he was ever going to get back to Donald’s
house all by himself. Here was a dreadful adventure!

The Woolly Dog was about to jump out of the beehive when suddenly the
Queen called:

“Here comes the farmer!”

Then the Dog knew he dared not move, for that was not allowed when
human eyes saw him.

Up came the farmer to put the cover back on the beehive, after having
taken out what honey he wanted. The farmer looked, rubbed his eyes, and
looked again.

“Well, bless my stars!” he exclaimed. “A toy Woolly Dog in my beehive!
I wonder how it got there? Some children must have been out here
playing while I was in the house, and they tossed their dog there.
It’s a wonder they weren’t stung. Well, unless I want a honey Dog, I’d
better take him out.”

The farmer lifted the Woolly Dog from the hive and laid him on the
ground. Then the top of the beehive, or house, was put in place, and
the bees began working again at gathering more honey for the man. The
Queen bee started to lay more eggs to hatch out more bees, and she
laughed to herself as she thought of the visitor to her hive.

“He certainly was a queer chap—so fuzzy,” hummed the Queen. “And how
he would have howled if my children had stung him on his little black
nose. But perhaps it is just as well they didn’t.”

So the Woolly Dog got through that adventure rather well, I think, but
still he was far from home—that is, far for him, as he was not as large
as a real dog.

“I’ll take you up to the house,” said the farmer, talking to himself,
but looking at Donald’s toy. “You are a pretty handsome toy,” he
bee-keeper went on. “But you must have been in a war,” he added, with
a laugh, as he turned the Dog over and saw where he had been cut and
sewed up. “Yes, you certainly must have been in a war!”

As the farmer reached the house, his wife came out with a basket of
eggs. She saw in his hand the Woolly Dog.

“Where did you get that?” asked the farmer’s wife, in surprise.

“I found it in one of my beehives. Put it away until Mary comes to
visit us and we’ll give it to her baby.”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed his wife. “Why, that Woolly Dog belongs to
Donald Cressey!”

“Not the Cressey we sell eggs and honey to?” cried the farmer, in
surprise.

“Yes, the very same one,” said his wife. “I remember the last time
I took eggs there I saw Donald playing with his Dog. His uncle, Mr.
Blakeley, gave it to him.”

“Well, if this is Donald’s Dog I don’t want it,” said the farmer. “I
wonder how it got in my beehive, though. Do you think Donald is around
here?”

“No; I’m sure he wouldn’t come away out here alone, and none of his
folks has been here. But I am going to his house now with these eggs,
and I’ll take the Woolly Dog back.”

“All right,” agreed the farmer, and the Woolly Dog was placed in the
basket of eggs. He was so soft and fluffy that he did not break a
one, even though he bounced around on them as the farmer’s wife drove
to town in the donkey cart. The place where the bees were kept was a
little way beyond the suburb of the city in which Donald lived.

“More adventures!” thought the Woolly Dog, as he was jiggled and
joggled about on the eggs in the basket. “Will they never end? And that
ticklish feeling inside me—I wonder if it could have been caused by the
bees’ legs? No, it couldn’t! For I felt ticklish inside before that
bad boy tossed me into the beehive. And, anyhow, the bees tickled me
on the outside, not on the inside. Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose.”

You can imagine how surprised Donald and his sister were when the “Egg
Lady,” as they called the farmer’s wife, brought back the Woolly Dog.
Donald had missed his plaything from the porch on coming back after
having gone to see the hand-organ man and monkey, and when he told his
mother what had happened she said:

“Someone must have come in and have taken your dog,” for Susan did not
remember having picked it up with the other toys.

“But how it got in our beehive, we can’t guess,” said the “Egg Lady.”

“Some boy must have taken it off our porch and then have gotten tired
of carrying the Dog,” said Mrs. Cressey. “Then he tossed him over the
fence.” And that is just the way it happened, except that the bad boy
was afraid of the policeman, and that’s why he threw away the Woolly
Dog.

Anyhow, the Dog was back home again, and much pleased to be there, too.
That night, when he was put in the playroom with the other toys, the
Woolly Dog told of his adventure, and all the others listened eagerly.

From then on, nearly every day, something happened to the Woolly Dog,
with whom Donald liked to play. Once Donald took the Dog for a sail on
a board raft in a puddle of water and the Dog fell in.

“Oh, he’s drowned!” cried Donald, but another boy fished out the Dog
and Mrs. Cressey washed him clean and dried him by the stove.

Another time a real dog ran into the yard, picked up the Woolly Dog and
started to run away with him. But Donald and Jane chased the real dog
and got back the Woolly Dog.

Summer passed and fall came, bringing new adventures to the toy Dog.
Then winter, with its snow and ice, arrived.

“Hurray! Now we can ride down hill on our sleds!” cried Donald and
Jane, after the first snow.

“I’m going to take my Dog,” said Donald.

“Don’t lose him,” cautioned his mother.

“I won’t,” promised Donald. But he did. He had the Woolly Dog on his
sled with him, and, in steering around a curve, the sled upset and
Donald fell off. But this was not the worst: The Woolly Dog was tossed
into a big bank of soft snow!

Deep down into the snowdrift sank the Woolly Dog, out of sight, growing
colder and colder all the while.




CHAPTER IX

THE LOST IS FOUND


“Look at Donald! Look at Donald!” laughingly shouted the other children
who were coasting on the hill. “Donald fell off his sled!”

“I don’t care! It was fun!” and Donald also laughed. “Did you see me
roll over?” he asked.

“Yes, we saw you,” replied the other boys and girls.

“Did you get hurt?” asked Jane.

“No, it was fun,” said Donald.

“Then I’m going to do it!” announced his sister. “I’m going to ride
down hill and upset the way you did, Don.” Jane was very venturesome as
well as mischievous.

“No, you mustn’t do it!” Donald said. “Mother wouldn’t like it. She
might make us come in. Don’t upset, Jane.”

“All right, I won’t—not on purpose,” she answered, with a laugh. “But
if I happen to I can’t help it,” she added. “Can I?” Jane had gotten
over speaking “baby talk.”

And, really, I believe Jane would have been glad to upset off her sled
as Donald had done, and she might have given herself a little push to
bring this about, but that she happened to notice that her brother did
not have the Woolly Dog after he had picked himself up, following the
upset.

“Oh, where is he?” cried Jane.

“Who?” inquired Donald.

“The Woolly Dog you had riding with you. He’s gone!”

Then, for the first time since the accident, Donald noticed that his
birthday toy was missing.

“He was on my sled in front of me,” he said. “He must have fallen off
when I went around the curve.”

“Come on, I’ll help you look for him,” offered Jane.

But though she and Donald and the other children searched all around in
the snow for the Woolly Dog they could not find him. He had been tossed
off the overturned sled and had bounced into the middle of a snow bank
some distance away, falling deep down into the soft pile of flakes. The
children did not see him at all.

“Burr-r-r-r! But it’s cold!” shivered the Woolly Dog, as he found
himself in the midst of the snowdrift. “Oh, what a dreadful adventure
this is going to be! It’s worse than falling into the mud puddle and
it’s almost as bad as being cut and sewed up again! I wonder what is
going to happen to me?”

The Woolly Dog did not know. He could hear Donald, Jane and the other
boys and girls talking as they searched for him. The Woolly Dog wished
he might call out and tell them where he was so they could lift him
from his cold, white bed among the flakes of snow, but this was not
allowed. He could not move or speak when human beings were present.

“But it certainly is dreadfully cold here!” whined the Woolly Dog to
himself. “Oh, burr-r-r-r! It’s freezing!”

It was a good thing he was covered with warm lamb’s wool. If he had
been one of those skinny dogs, like a greyhound or a Mexican hairless
terrier, I’m sure our friend would have frozen stiff in a few minutes.
But, being a Woolly Dog, or “fuzzy,” as the Queen Bee had called him,
this kept him warmer.

“Oh, but my nose is so cold!” sighed the Woolly Dog, and that, not
being covered with wool, was very frosty indeed. Of course, you know a
real dog’s nose should always be cold. When your dog’s nose is warm it
is a sign that he is ill and has a fever. But when the Woolly Dog’s
nose was cold, that was a sign he was frosty.

“I’ll try to warm it,” he said to himself. And, being out of sight
among the snowflakes, he put his cold little black nose down between
his paws. Then it felt a little warmer and he listened to hear what was
going on. He heard no sound.

Donald, Jane and the other children, having searched for the Woolly Dog
without finding him, saw that it was getting late, and they ran home.
Donald was almost ready to cry over his lost toy, for he liked the
Woolly Dog very much.

“Never mind,” consoled Jane, “maybe Uncle Teddy will buy you another,
just as Daddy is going to buy Mother another diamond ring for the one
she lost.”

“I don’t want a new Woolly Dog! I want my old one!” exclaimed Donald.

In this he was like his mother, who wanted her engagement ring back,
and not a new one. But the lost diamond had never been found.

Donald, almost in tears, told his mother of the accident on the hill
and about his lost Woolly Dog.

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Cressey, “to-morrow I’ll go out there with you,
when it’s daylight, and perhaps we shall find him.”

But Donald was a sad little boy when he went to bed that night.

Meanwhile we must see what is happening to the Woolly Dog. For some
time he lay there in the snow, warming his cold nose. Then, as the
voices of the children grew quiet—for they had gone away—the Dog said:

“Perhaps I can wiggle out of here. No one can see me now.”

He kicked around in the snow with his paws, but all he did was to toss
snow up his nose, and this made him sneeze. And when he sneezed it made
the tickling feeling inside him grow worse, so that he wanted to laugh
and scratch and sneeze, all at the same time. And this, I think you
will agree with me, is too much for any Dog, Woolly or not.

“No use! I can’t get out of here!” sighed the Woolly Dog. But still he
did not give up. He was kicking around a bit more when, suddenly, he
heard a voice saying:

“Here’s a hole in the snow! Maybe a rabbit went down here!”

“It’s a boy!” thought the Woolly Dog. “But it doesn’t sound like
Donald.”

Nor was it. A strange boy, walking along near the coasting hill, had
seen the hole which the Woolly Dog had made when tossed into the drift.
Thinking it was a place where a rabbit had dived in, the boy went
closer to look. Then he saw the Dog.

“Yes, it is a rabbit!” cried the boy. “And he isn’t moving! I guess
he’s frozen! I’ll take him home.”

The Woolly Dog, being white, looked a little like a rabbit—that is, at
first glance. But when the boy reached his arm down in the snow bank
and pulled up the object, he saw what it was.

“Oh, only a toy dog!” cried the boy. “But I’ll take him home! He’s a
dandy!

“Mother, look what I found!” cried the boy, whose name was Frank, as he
hurried into the house, carrying the Woolly Dog. “Look!”

“Where did you get it, Frank?”

“In a snowdrift. He was down in a hole on the coasting hill.”

“Then some little child playing there must have lost the toy,” said
Frank’s mother. “And whoever it was will feel bad about it. If you knew
who owned the Dog, Frank, you could take it to him.”

“Yes, and if it was in a rich family maybe they’d give me a reward—a
lot of money!” cried Frank, for he and his mother were poor.

“You shouldn’t want a reward for doing what is right,” said Mrs. Ward.
“But as we don’t know to whom the Dog belongs, put him on the mantel
over the stove to dry. You’re too big to play with such toys.”

“Yes, I don’t want him for myself,” answered Frank. “But I’m glad I
found him.”

The Woolly Dog was glad, too, and he felt much better up over the warm
stove than down in the cold snowdrift. All night the Woolly Dog stood
on the mantel. There were no other toys for him to speak to or play
with. There was a match box, in the shape of an Alligator, but the
Alligator’s head was broken off and he could not talk.

“It is very lonesome here,” said the Woolly Dog aloud, in the middle of
the night.

“Tick-tock! Tick-tock!” went the clock.

“Oh, I can’t talk to you,” sighed the Dog, “for you only say the same
thing over and over again.” And this was true. A clock is one of the
most tiresome beings in the world to talk to, and it is so busy that
it never has time to play—it goes “tick-tock” all the while.

“I can see I am not going to have a very good time here,” said the
Woolly Dog. “There was more fun back in the store with the poor toys.”

But still he had a few adventures. Once he fell off the mantel into
the scuttle of coal when a door slammed too hard, and Mrs. Ward had to
put him in one of her tubs of suds to wash him. Mrs. Ward did washing
to make a living, and Frank worked in a store. Another time the Woolly
Dog was placed in a dark closet out of the way, and there a big Rat got
hold of him, thinking he was something good to eat.

“Oh, bah! You’re only stuffed with cotton!” snarled the Rat, after he
had tried to drag the Woolly Dog into its hole. “I can’t eat you!”

“I’m glad of it,” said the Woolly Dog.

[Illustration: “You’re Only Stuffed With Cotton!” Snarled the Rat.

  _The Story of a Woolly Dog._      _Page 106_
]

The Rat left the Woolly Dog on the floor of the closet and went in
search of something else to gnaw. The next morning Frank, looking
for his rubbers, as it was raining, saw the Dog.

“I’ll put you back on the mantel,” said the boy. “I wish I knew who
owned you, as they must miss you.”

For over a week the Woolly Dog remained in the home of Mrs. Ward, and a
very lonesome week it was, for no one played with the toy. The Woolly
Dog was growing very sad.

Then, one day, he heard outside a voice he well knew. The voice asked:

“Will you have time to do some extra washing this week, Mrs. Ward?”

“Yes, Mrs. Cressey, I think so,” answered Frank’s mother. “Won’t you
come in for a moment and get warm?”

“Thank you, I will,” and Donald’s mother, who had come to see about
getting the washing done, entered the very room where the Woolly Dog
stood on the mantel.

In another instant Donald’s mother saw the Dog. Her eyes opened wide
with wonder.

“Oh, where did you get that?” she cried.

“What?” asked Mrs. Ward.

“That Woolly Dog! It belongs to Donald—at least, I’m sure it’s the
same one he lost in a snow bank. I can easily tell by looking. If it’s
Donald’s Dog it will have an extra seam underneath where I sewed him up
after Jane cut him open.”

Mrs. Ward lifted the Woolly Dog down.

“Oh,” thought the birthday toy, “suppose she can’t find that seam? Then
she won’t know me and I’ll never get back home again!”




CHAPTER X

A STRANGE DISCOVERY


Donald’s mother slowly turned over the Woolly Dog. She looked carefully
at the under side of his stomach.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, “it’s the same Dog. I know my stitches very well.
This is Donald’s toy! I suppose you won’t mind my taking it?” she asked.

“Oh, not at all,” answered Mrs. Ward. “Frank found him in a snow bank——”

“Just where Donald lost him off his sled, I suppose!” exclaimed Mrs.
Cressey.

“And he brought the toy home here,” went on Mrs. Ward. “Frank is too
big for such playthings, and he often said he wished he knew to whom
the Dog belonged. I’m so glad you have found him.”

“Donald will be glad, also,” said Mrs. Cressey.

She talked a little longer, arranging a day for Mrs. Ward to come and
wash, and then Donald’s mother said:

“I want to reward Frank in some way. I know he is fond of reading, for
he told me so one day when he was doing errands for me. I have some
books I’d like to give him.”

“That will please him,” said Mrs. Ward. “He likes books much better
than a Woolly Dog.”

“Well, everything seems to be turning out for the best,” thought the
Woolly Dog, as Mrs. Cressey took him home. “If I could get rid of that
ticklish feeling inside me I’d be very happy. But then one mustn’t
complain of small troubles. I’ve gotten over some big ones—the beehive
and the snow bank.”

Donald was very glad to get his Woolly Dog back.

“Oh, look, Jane!” he cried when his mother gave him his lost birthday
plaything. “My Woolly Dog has come home!”

“Where was he?” asked Jane.

Mrs. Cressey told where she had, by the merest accident, found the
Woolly Dog, and Donald and his sister smoothed out his rumpled woolly
coat, for he had been sadly mussed when the Rat dragged him along in
the closet.

“Oh, Don, I know what we ought to do!” cried Jane.

“What?” asked her brother.

“We ought to have a little play party for your Woolly Dog,” went on
Jane. “Always when somebody comes back after they been away they have a
party.”

“Yes, that’ll be fun,” answered the little boy.

The children ran to their mother.

“May we have a party?” begged Donald.

“For his Woolly Dog,” explained Jane. “He ought to have a party because
he was lost and now he’s home again.”

“Just a little party,” begged Donald.

“Oh, I guess so!” laughed Mrs. Cressey.

And so the party was arranged for. After some talk Mrs. Cressey
suggested that it would be nice to make it a “toy party”—that is, each
boy and girl who came should bring his or her favorite toy. And when
this was told to Donald and Jane they clapped their hands in delight.

The invitations were sent out. Dorothy was to come with her Sawdust
Doll and Dick with his White Rocking Horse. Sidney would bring his
Calico Clown, Herbert his Monkey on a Stick, Madeline her Candy Rabbit,
Arnold his Tin Soldier and Mirabell her Lamb on Wheels. There were to
be other toys—the China Cat, the Stuffed Elephant and many more.

“Oh, what a fine time we’ll have!” laughingly cried Jane.

“And there’s to be a cake with candles on!” exclaimed Donald. “For, as
the Woolly Dog was my birthday present, this is a birthday party—sort
of.”

At last the afternoon of the party came, and with it arrived the boys
and girls with their toys and playthings. The Woolly Dog was given a
place of honor, standing on a box in the middle of the table, next to
the cake with its blazing candles.

“This party is for my Woolly Dog,” explained Donald to his guests.

“Hurray for the Woolly Dog!” cried Herbert, and the boys and girls gave
three cheers.

The Woolly Dog wanted to thank them, but he dared not. However, he
tried not to feel proud as all the other toys looked at him. But it was
a great honor—all the toys said so later on.

Oh, but such fun as there was at the Woolly Dog’s party! And then, all
of a sudden, something happened.

Just how, no one knew, but the Woolly Dog fell over against the party
cake and one of the blazing candles set fire to his wool. It began to
smoke and singe.

“Oh, your Woolly Dog’s on fire!” shouted Arnold.

“If I only had my toy fire engine I could put it out!” cried Sidney.

But at the word “fire,” Mrs. Cressey rushed in. She saw at once what
had happened, and caught up the Woolly Dog. Quickly she rolled him in
a thick rug on the floor, thus smothering the flames. The fire was out
almost before it started.

But when Mrs. Cressey unrolled the Woolly Dog from the rug he was a sad
sight. Underneath, on his stomach, there was a black and burned patch.

“Oh, I shall die! I know I shall die!” thought the Woolly Dog. “This is
certainly the end of me!”

Donald saw what had happened to his plaything.

“Oh, my poor Woolly Dog!” he cried. “He’s no good any more!”

“Oh, yes, I can fix him,” said Mrs. Cressey. “I have a piece of white
lamb’s wool up in the sewing room. I’ll cut off the burned part and sew
on a new piece. Then your Dog will be as good as ever.”

“May we come up and watch you fix him?” asked Mirabell, who owned a
lamb on wheels which had the same kind of wool that was on the Dog.

“Yes, come up to the sewing room,” answered Mrs. Cressey.

With her scissors she cut away the burned wool. The Dog was brave. He
never uttered a whimper or a cry as the scissors went snip—snip.

But Mrs. Cressey suddenly exclaimed:

“Oh! Oh, my! What’s this?”

“Did you cut yourself?” asked Donald.

“No. But look what I found inside your Woolly Dog!” answered his
mother. “My lost diamond ring! It has been inside the Dog all this
while! My ring must have slipped off my finger when I was sewing up
your Dog the time Jane cut him, and I sewed my diamond up in the
cotton stuffing. Oh, how glad I am! My lost diamond ring is found!”

And there it was, sparkling like a rainbow inside the Woolly Dog. Mrs.
Cressey put the ring on her finger, a happy smile was on her face, and
she hugged the Woolly Dog.

“I must telephone Daddy,” she said, and when Mr. Cressey heard the good
news he, too, was glad.

Then Donald’s mother put the new piece of wool in place of the burned
patch, she sewed the Dog together again and gave him to Donald.

“Now we’ll finish the party!” shouted the little boy.

Once again the Woolly Dog was placed in the middle of the table, but
this time far enough away from the blazing candles on the cake to be
safe. The Calico Clown looked strangely at the Dog. Perhaps the Calico
Clown remembered the time his trousers were burned by a gas jet in the
toy store.

“Hurray for the Woolly Dog!” cried the children.

“And hurray for Mother’s diamond ring!” shouted Donald.

That night, when the party was over, the Woolly Dog was placed in the
playroom with the other toys.

“What has happened to you?” asked the Celluloid Doll. “You look
different, somehow or other.”

“I feel different,” was the reply.

“Perhaps it’s the new piece of wool that was sewed on him,” said the
Jack-in-the-Box, after the Dog had told of his adventure.

“No, it doesn’t seem to be that,” said the Celluloid Doll.

“I know what makes me look different,” said the Woolly Dog. “It’s
because that ticklish feeling is gone. All the while, after Jane cut me
open and I was sewed up, I had the queerest feeling. It was as though I
itched or tickled on the inside.”

“What made it?” asked the Jumping Jack.

“It was the diamond ring,” answered the Woolly Dog. “That ring inside
me kept tickling me all the while. Now that it’s out I no longer feel
tickled.”

“That’s good,” said the other toys.

“And I am very happy,” went on the Woolly Dog. “Do you think I shall
ever be put in a book?” he asked the Jumping Jack.

“Maybe,” answered the Jumping Jack.

And the Woolly Dog was put in a book. This book is the story of his
adventures, and I hope you like it.


THE END




THE STORY LADY SERIES

By GEORGENE FAULKNER

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  Transcriber’s Notes

  pg 64 Changed: diamong ring was highly prized
             to: diamond ring was highly prized





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