"There, now look what you did!" cried the girl.
"I didn't do it! You did!" said the boy. "If you hadn't jiggled it out of my hand when I was taking it down it wouldn't have fallen."
I don't know how long they might have gone on disputing in this fashion if the office boy from next door had not poked his head in and called:
"What's the matter?"
Then he saw the Calico Clown lying on the floor and he added:
"Has Santa Claus been here?" and he laughed.
"It came out of the pocket of the Boss," explained the first office boy. "He put it on his desk. I was going to look at it and pull the strings, 'cause the Boss is out to lunch, but she jiggled my hand and made me drop it. Now it's busted."
"Maybe it isn't," said the second office boy. "I'll see."
He picked the Calico Clown up off the floor, punched him in the chest, and the gay red and yellow chap banged his cymbals together.
"He's all right so far," said the second office boy. "Now we'll pull the strings."
"And there's where trouble may come in," thought the Calico Clown himself, for he heard and saw and felt all that went on. "I'm almost sure my glued leg is broken," said the Clown to himself.
But when the strings were pulled, one after another, and the arms and legs and head of the funny fellow twisted and turned and jerked, the two office boys and the typewriter girl laughed. And the Clown himself was glad, for he felt that he was not broken.
"If the Boss comes in and finds you playing with that Clown you'll catch it," said the girl to the first office boy, after a while.
"I guess I'd better put him back on the desk. I'm going out to get my dinner pretty soon," the boy said.
And a little later, while the girl was in an outer office looking over some papers and while the Man was still at his lunch and while the office boy was out getting something to eat, the Calico Clown was left alone with the Ink-Well Dwarf.
"How do you do?" politely asked the Clown.
[Illustration: Calico Clown Has a Chat With Ink-Well Dwarf.]
"Very well, thank you," answered the Dwarf. "And how are you? Where did you come from? Are you going to work here?"
"I never work!" exclaimed the Clown. "I am only to make jolly fun and laughter."
"Then this is no place for you," went on the Dwarf. "This is an office, and we must all work, though I must admit that those boys seem to get as much fun out of it as any one. They're always skylarking, cutting up, and playing jokes. But I work myself. I hold ink for the Boss."
"I see you do," answered the Clown. "I suppose I don't really belong here, made only for fun, as I am. And I did not want to come here. It was quite accidental. I was brought."
"How!" asked the Ink-Well Dwarf.
"In the pocket of the Man they call the Boss," was the reply. And then the Clown told of how he had fallen out of the tree.
All the remainder of the day the Calico Clown sat on the desk of theMan, wondering what would happen to him. At last he found out.
At the close of the afternoon, when no more business was to be done, the Man arose and closed his desk. He put papers in his different pockets to take home with him, and then he saw the Calico Clown.
"Oh, I mustn't forget you!" he said, speaking out loud as he sometimes did when alone. And he was alone in the office now, for the boy and the typewriter girl had gone. "I'll take you home and ask Arnold or Mirabell to whom you belong," went on the man. "You are some child's toy, I'm sure of that, and one of my children may know where you live."
The Calico Clown knew this to be so, and he knew that either Arnold orMirabell would at once be able to say that the Clown belonged toSidney, for they had seen Sidney playing with this toy.
"Back into my pocket you go!" said the Man, and he took the Clown down off the top of the desk. "There are a lot of handkerchiefs in that pocket," the man went on. "They'll make a good, soft bed for you to lie on."
And, surely enough, there was a soft bed of handkerchiefs for the Calico Clown. They were handkerchiefs the man had been carrying in his pocket for some time, and he had forgotten to put them in the wash, as his wife, over and over again, had told him to do.
A little later, with the Calico Clown nestled down in among a pile of handkerchiefs in his pocket, the Man started for home from his office.
"Well, I am certainly doing some traveling this day," thought the Clown, as he reposed in the Man's pocket. "First I am carried up a tree, and then I fall down. Next I am taken to an office, just as if I were in business like the Ink-Well Dwarf, and now I am being taken to the home of Mirabell and Arnold. I wonder what will happen next."
He did not have to wait long to find out.
Down the street walked the Man, and soon he was within sight of his home, where Mirabell and Arnold lived. The two children were out in front, waiting for their father. As soon as they saw him coming they stopped swinging on the gate and cried:
"Here comes Daddy!"
He waved his hand to them.
Down the street they raced to meet him, and taking hold of his hands, one on either side, they led him toward the house.
Just then out of the side gate came Mandy, the jolly fat colored washer-woman. She had a basket full of clothes on a small express wagon.
"Oh, that reminds me!" exclaimed Mirabell's father. "I'll put these handkerchiefs from my pocket in your basket of wash, Mandy! You can take them home with you, wash them clean and iron them and bring them back to me."
"'Deed an' dat's just what I can do!" exclaimed Mandy, smiling broadly. "Put 'em right down yeah in mah basket!"
She turned back the sheet she had spread over the soiled clothes and made a little place down in one corner for the Man to put his handkerchiefs.
There was quite a bundle of them, all wadded together.
"There, you can tell Mother I didn't forget my handkerchiefs this time," said Daddy to his two children. "You saw me put them in the wash, didn't you?"
"Yes, Daddy, we did!" exclaimed Mirabell. "And, oh, you ought to see what happened to my Lamb on Wheels to-day!"
"What happened?" asked Daddy, as he straightened up after having stooped down to thrust the handkerchiefs into the basket.
"Why, Arnold's Bold Tin Soldier got caught in the curly wool on my Lamb's back," explained Mirabell, "and they both fell into the flour barrel!"
"That WAS funny!" laughed Daddy. And he was thinking so much about this and laughing so with Arnold and Mirabell that he never stopped to think of the Calico Clown in among the handkerchiefs he had put in the wash-basket.
But that is what he had done. He had thrust the Clown, with the handkerchiefs, down in Mandy's basket of soiled clothes.
"Oh, my! Oh, dear me! Oh, what is going to happen now?" thought the Calico Clown as he felt himself covered up and taken away. "Oh, if I could only tell Mirabell or Arnold I am here. Oh, this is dreadful."
But he could do nothing! Away he was taken in the wash-basket.
Daddy hurried into the house with Mirabell and Arnold. The children were eager to show their father into what a funny pickle the Bold Tin Soldier and the Lamb on Wheels had got. Of course, it wasn't exactly a "pickle." I only call it that for fun. It was really the flour barrel into which the two toys had fallen.
"How did it happen?" asked Daddy, as the children brought out their playthings, the Soldier still entangled in the Lamb's wool, and both of them white with flour.
"It happened when we were in the kitchen watching the cook make a cake," explained Mirabell. "I was playing with my Lamb on the floor and I lifted her up to let her see how nice the cake looked."
"But what about your Soldier, Arnold?" asked Daddy.
"Oh, I had set my Soldier Captain on the back of Mirabell's Lamb to give him a ride," explained the little boy.
"I said he could," remarked Mirabell.
"And when she lifted her Lamb up she lifted my Soldier up, too," addedArnold.
"And then!" burst out Mirabell, laughing, "my foot slipped and I let go of my Lamb on Wheels, and she fell into the flour barrel, and so did Arnold's Bold Tin Soldier."
"And they were a sight, all white and covered with flour!" exclaimed the little boy.
But now we must see what happened to the Calico Clown.
At first he was very uncomfortable, stuck down in among the soiled clothes. He feared he would smother; but really he did not need much air, and he soon found he was getting all he needed. The clothes were so soft that they did not crush him, and—he was not near any of Mirabell's or Arnold's play clothes—he soon found that they were not badly soiled. So, after getting over his first distaste, he began rather to like the ride in the little express wagon.
"It isn't as smooth as an automobile," thought the Calico Clown, "but it is jolly for a change. The only thing that's worrying me is what is going to happen next; and to know whether or not I shall ever see Sidney again."
And at this time, which was early in the evening, Sidney was still looking everywhere for his Calico Clown. The little boy told his mother and sister how he and Herbert had left the Clown and the Monkey on a Stick on the porch while they went to get bread and jam.
"And when we came back my Monkey was there," said Herbert, "but Sid'sClown was gone."
"It is very strange where your toy has got to," said Mother. She helped Sidney and Herbert look, but the Clown seemed gone forever, and Sidney felt sorry.
"Now we can never have that circus," he said to his brother.
"Oh, maybe he'll be found some day," was the answer. But Sidney sadly shook his head.
Trundling the little express wagon with her basket of clothes along the streets, Mandy finally reached her home where she did the washing and ironing. Her children were waiting for her to come to supper. Liza Ann, the oldest girl, had set the table, and Jim, the next oldest boy, was out on the steps watching for his mother, just as Arnold and Mirabell watched for their daddy.
"Is de table all set, honey?" asked Mandy of Liza Ann. "I hopes it is, 'cause I wants to put dese yeah clothes in to soak after I eats."
"De table is all sot," explained Liza Ann. "An' de meat an' taters is all ready to hotten up."
"Dass good," sighed Mandy, for she was rather tired. "I'll jest leave these yeah clothes till after supper," she went on, putting the basket down in a corner of the room.
"Dear me! I wonder how much longer I shall have to stay here," thought the Calico Clown, tucked away under the sheet and in the pile of handkerchiefs. "Aren't they ever going to let me out? This is worse than being in jail!"
But at last Mandy's supper was finished, and, with Liza Ann and Jim to help her sort the clothes, she filled a tub with water and began. The big sheet was taken off the top of the basket, and then Liza Ann reached in and took up the bundle of handkerchiefs.
"You wants to be keerful o' dem, honey," said her mother. "Dem's de bestest an' most special hankowitches o' Mirabell's pa, an' he's very 'tickler how dey is washed. Better let me have dem, honey."
Mandy reached over to take the handkerchiefs from Liza Ann, and at that moment the little colored girl saw something red and yellow among them.
"Oh, what a funny handkowitch!" she called, and the next moment they all saw the Calico Clown. Mandy took him out of the bundle.
"Oh, Mammy! I want him!" cried Jim.
"Nope! He's mine! I saw him, fustest!" exclaimed Liza Ann, and she reached for the Calico Clown.
"Wait a minute, now, chilluns. Wait a minute!" said Mandy, and she held the toy close to her breast. "Dish yeah don't belongs to us."
"But it come in de basket of wash, Mammy!" said Jim. "Why can't we keep it?"
"'Cause tain't belongin' to us," answered his mother. "I can jest guess how it come in. Mirabell or Arnold, dey done drop it in dere Daddy's pocket, an' he didn't know nothin' about its bein' in. He took it out wif his hankowitches, and put it in mah basket of wash. An' I brung it home. My! My! It suah is funny how it happened!"
She held the Calico Clown up and looked at him.
"Oh, ain't he jest grand!" cried Jim, his eyes shining with delight.
"He suah is a gay fellow all right," said Mandy.
Liza Ann reached up and pulled one of the Clown's strings. Quickly his legs jiggled and he cut some funny capers.
"Oh, my! Dat suah is scrumptious!" laughed the little colored girl.
"Oh, Mammy, jest let us play with him a little while!" begged Jim."Den I'll take him back to where he belongs."
"All right," agreed Mandy. "But be mighty keerful of him! If dat Calico Clown should get busted Mirabell or Arnold is gwine to feel mighty bad!"
You see she didn't know the Clown belonged to Sidney, and not to either Mirabell or Arnold.
"Come on, we'll have some fun wif him!" said Liza Ann to her brother.
And then, while their mother put the clothes to soak, the children played with the Calico Clown. They were good and gentle children, and the gay toy did not in the least mind clanging his cymbals for them or doing his funny dance. He jiggled and joggled his arms and legs, and went through such funny antics that Jim and Liza Ann laughed again and again.
"Po' li'l honey lambs!" said Mandy with a sigh, as she bent over the wash tub. "I wish dey had some toys of dere own. But den I'se got good clean and soft watah to wash wif, an' dat's a blessin'! Lots of folks hasn't got only hard watah, what won't make no suds."
After the clothes had been put to soak in a tub Mandy dried her hands and sat and looked at Liza Ann and Jim playing with the Calico Clown.
"Come now, you'd better get ready to take him back," she said to Jim, after a while.
"Does you mean to take him back where you got de basket of wash,Mammy?" asked the colored boy.
"Yes," his mother answered. "You know de big green house. You's been dere befo', honey. You go dere now, Jim—tisn't late yet—an' you take back dis Clown. Tell Mirabell or Arnold dat it got in de wash wif dere daddy's pocket hankowitches."
"All right," said Jim, with a sigh. "I will. But I suah does wish we could keep him!"
"So do I," sighed Liza Ann in a low voice.
"Well, maybe some day I can make money enough to git you somethin' to play wif," said their mother.
As she had said, it was not late, though the sun had set. It was a warm, summer night, and the moon was shining brightly. Jim knew the way to the house where Mirabell and Arnold lived, for he had often gone there both with his mother and alone, either to get or bring back the clothes.
With the Calico Clown wrapped in a piece of paper, Jim set off on his trip. He hurried along, thinking how nice it would be if he had a toy like that. He was wondering how long it would be before his mother could earn enough money to buy one when, just as he turned into the yard of the house where Arnold and Mirabell lived, Jim stumbled and fell.
The Calico Clown shot out of his hands, and the poor toy, as he flew along, thought to himself:
"Oh, what is happening now!"
The next moment he fell into a deep hole, and only that he grasped the long grass at the edge of it, Jim would have fallen in himself.
"Fo' de lan' sakes!" exclaimed the little colored boy as he picked himself up. "What have done gone an' happened now?"
You see, he felt about it just as the Calico Clown did.
The door of the house in which Arnold and Mirabell lived opened, and their daddy looked out toward the front yard. He had heard the grunt made by Jim when the little colored boy fell down and dropped the Calico Clown into a hole.
"Is anybody there?" asked Mirabell's father.
"I'se heah!" exclaimed Jim, as he slowly arose. "I was bringin' back de Calico Clown, an' I 'mos' fell into a big hole."
"There, Father! I told you that hole ought to be covered up!" exclaimed Mirabell's mother, who had also come to the door.
"Oh, no'm! I didn't fall in!" answered Jim, who heard what was said. "But I almos' did, an' I guess de Clown he fell in complete an' altogether."
"The Clown? What do you mean?" asked Daddy.
"De Clown what got in Mammy's basket of wash," explained the little colored boy.
By this time he had picked himself up, and in the light that streamed out from the open door of the house he saw the hole into which he had so nearly fallen. It was a hole dug by a man who had come to fix the sewer pipes that day, and when night came he had not finished. He left a deep, wide, gaping hole just beside the front walk.
Arnold, Mirabell and the others in the house knew of the hole, and kept away from it. In the daylight, when Mandy had taken away the wash, she had seen it and had not fallen in. But poor Jim, coming after dark, had stumbled in the thick grass and had nearly plumped himself in.
As for the Clown—well, there he was down in the dirt at the bottom of the hole!
"I wonder what is the matter with me!" thought the gay red and yellow fellow as he came to a stop in some soft dirt. "I seem to be very unlucky!"
"What does Jim mean about a Clown falling in the hole?" asked Arnold curiously.
"And a Clown being in the basket with the wash?" added Mirabell.
"I think I can tell you," their father answered, suddenly remembering what he had put in his pocket to bring home from the office. "But first I will put some boards over the hole the plumber left so no one else will fall in, or nearly fall in."
"You'll get the Clown up, won't you, Daddy?" asked Mirabell. "Maybe it's like the one Sidney had."
"Did Sidney have a Calico Clown with one leg red and the other leg yellow?" asked Daddy.
"Yes, and it did all sorts of funny tricks when you pulled the strings; and he clapped his cymbals when you punched him in the chest," said Arnold.
"Well, then this must be Sidney's Clown. But how it came in my pocket is more than I can guess," said Daddy. "Yes, I'll get the Clown up out of the hole, and then I'll put some boards over it."
A lantern was brought out and flashed down into the hole. There, on the bottom, lay the Calico Clown.
"I'll bring him up!" offered Jim, and quickly he climbed down, caught hold of the gay toy, and climbed out again.
"Thank you, Jim," said Daddy.
"Yes, that's Sidney's Clown," declared Arnold, when he had looked at the red and yellow chap. "But how did he get in the basket of clothes?"
"That's quite a long story," said Daddy. "Come into the house and I'll tell you. Did your mother send you back with the Clown, Jim?" he asked of the little colored boy.
"Yes'm—I mean yes, sah!" Jim answered. "He was in de basket all done wrapped up in hankowitches."
"Those were the handkerchiefs I took from my pocket and put in Mandy's basket when I met her at the gate," said Mirabell's daddy. "And so you found him, Jim!"
"Yes'm—I mean yes, sah! Me an' Liza Ann found him. He's a jolly good Clown; but Mammy, she wouldn't let us keep him 'cause as how she said he belonged to Mirabell or Arnold."
"No, he doesn't live here," said Arnold. "Oh, Sid will be so glad to get him back!"
"I suppose you and your sister felt bad about losing the Clown," saidDaddy to Jim. "Didn't you?"
"I suahly did!" exclaimed the little colored boy. "So did Liza Ann."
Daddy and Mother talked softly together a moment, and then Mother hurried away to come back with something that made Jim's eyes sparkle and open wide.
For she had a little toy engine, which could be wound up with a key and sent whizzing along. And there was a fine Jumping Jack, which jiggled almost as nicely as did the Calico Clown.
"Here are two toys that Arnold and Mirabell are through with," saidMother, with a smile at Jim. "They are not broken, and they will eachgo. Perhaps you will like them almost as much as you did the CalicoClown."
"Oh, golly!" cried Jim. "We'll like 'em better! 'Cause dere's two of 'em—one fo' each of us! Oh, we's eber so much obligedness."
Clasping the two toys in his little brown hands, away Jim raced in the darkness to tell his sister the good news. The Jumping Jack was for her and the toy engine for him. And I may as well tell you now that the two children were made perfectly happy with their toys—just as happy as they would have been with the Calico Clown.
"Well, thank goodness, I think my adventures are over for the night," thought the Clown, as he was taken into Mirabell's house and the dirt brushed off his red and yellow trousers. "This has been such a day! Oh, SUCH a day!"
And indeed it had been from the time he fell out of the tree into the Man's coat pocket until Jim stumbled with him and he fell into the hole.
"Sidney will be glad to get his Clown back," went on Arnold, when the toy had been set on the table where Daddy took his place to tell the evening story.
"I wish we could take it to him now," said Mirabell.
"Mayn't we?" asked her brother.
"It is getting late," said their mother. "You may take the toy over the first thing in the morning."
"But all the while Sidney will be wondering where his Clown is," objected the little girl.
"I know what we can do!" exclaimed Arnold. "We can telephone and tell him it's here."
"Yes, we can do that," said Daddy.
So, a little later, Sidney was told, over the telephone, that his lost Calico Clown had been found. The story was briefly told of how it had got into the wash-basket after having been found in Daddy's pocket and taken to the office.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Sidney. "I'll be over the first thing in the morning to get him."
"But what I'm wondering about is how the Clown got in my pocket," said Daddy, with a puzzled look on his face. "If you children didn't put it there, who did?" and he looked at Mirabell and Arnold.
And I might say that this was always a mystery, as much so as theClown's riddle about what made more noise than a pig under a gate.
Daddy told Mirabell and Arnold their usual good-night story. Then the children went to bed and Mother put the Calico Clown on the mantelpiece where he would be safe for the night.
"Whoever sees Sidney first in the morning," said Mother, as she, too, got ready to go to bed, "may be the one to give him his toy."
Then the lights were put out and the house was still and quiet. Ordinarily, when this time came, the Calico Clown, like the other toys, would have been at his liveliest. But now he was so tired, with all his adventures of the day, that he just gave a long sigh and said:
"I am not going to stir! I am just going to lie down here and sleep until morning! Enough has happened for one day."
So he stretched out, with a pen wiper for a cushion, and went to sleep.
Bright and early the next morning Sidney ran over to the house of his cousins.
"Is my Calico Clown here?" he cried.
"Yes," answered Arnold, who was also up. "I'll get him for you."
"Oh, thank you!" said Sidney, when he had his toy once more. And a little later the Calico Clown was back home. But his adventures were not over.
"Oh, Sidney! aren't you glad you have your Calico Clown back?" cried his sister Madeline when she saw her brother coming toward the house with his toy which he had got at Arnold's home. "I just guess I am!" said the little boy. "I thought I'd never see him again."
"And I'm glad, too," cried Herbert, as he made his Monkey go up and down the Stick. "Now we can get ready for our circus."
"Are you going to have a show?" asked Madeline.
"Yes," answered Sidney. "We have a Clown and a Monkey, and they're always the funniest things in a circus. Don't you remember when we had the show with my Monkey in it?"
"Yes. And that was lots of fun," said Madeline. "But I know something better than a show."
"What?" Sidney asked.
"A party," went on Madeline. "Let's have a Toy Party. That will be better than a show, even a circus show."
Sidney wanted to know how it would be better, and Madeline said:
"'Cause you can have things to eat at a Toy Party, and you can't always have things at a circus, lessen you buy 'em; and maybe not then, 'cepting peanuts and lemonade. Let's have a Toy Party and we can get mother to give us real things to eat."
"Oh, that will be fun!" cried Sidney. "I should say so!" agreedHerbert.
"And we'll ask Dorothy to bring her Sawdust Doll," said Madeline,"Arnold can bring his Bold Tin Soldier, and Mirabell her Lamb onWheels. And I'll bring my Candy Rabbit."
"You did have a party for him," said Herbert.
"Well, this one can be for Sid's Calico Clown," explained Madeline."And you can bring your Monkey on a Stick, Herb."
The idea of a Toy Party seemed to please the two boys, and Madeline was glad she had thought of it. She lost no time in getting ready for it.
"I'll go and put a new ribbon on the neck of my Candy Rabbit," she said to her brothers. "You get your Monkey and Clown all nice and clean, and then I'll ask Mother if Cook can make a special cake."
"My Monkey is clean enough," said Herbert. "Dirt doesn't show on him, anyhow. He's colored brown."
"And my Clown's pretty good, even if he did fall in a dirt hole," went on Sidney. "A Clown has to be a little dirty, for he falls all over the circus ring, you know."
"There isn't going to be any circus ring at our Toy Party," laughedMadeline. "Now I'll go and see about the cake."
"And we'll go and tell Dick, Arnold and the girls," said Sidney. "Here, Madeline, please keep my Calico Clown for me until I come back."
Away he ran with his brother, who carried the Monkey on a Stick. The Calico Clown rather hoped the long-tailed chap would be left to keep him company, but it was not to be just yet.
"But perhaps I can talk to the Candy Rabbit while Madeline is getting ready for the party," thought the Clown. "He and I are old friends."
But even this was not to be. Madeline probably did not think that the Clown would have liked to be with some of the other toys for a while. She just kept hold of the gay red and yellow fellow after her brother had handed him to her, and took him with her to the kitchen, where she knew her mother was.
"Oh, Mother! may Cook bake us a cake for the Toy Party?" criedMadeline, and, not thinking what she was doing, she laid the CalicoClown down in a large basket of oranges which the fruit man had justset on the kitchen table.
"A cake for a Toy Party?" repeated Mother. "Yes, I think so. Tell me more about it."
So Madeline told about the Toy Party that was going to be held, and how the Sawdust Doll, the White Rocking Horse, and all the other jolly creatures were to come.
"Course they won't EAT the cake—only make believe," explainedMadeline. "We'll eat the cake—we children."
"Yes, I supposed you would," said Mother, with a laugh as she looked at Cook.
"And, please, may I help?" asked Madeline.
"Yes," promised Cook, and then, not thinking what she was doing and not seeing the Calico Clown, who had slipped away down in among the oranges, she took the basket of fruit from the table.
"I'll just set the oranges in the ice box," she said. "They need to be well chilled for the orangeade, and it's a hot day."
And that is how it was that the Clown, a little later, found himself beginning to feel freezing cold. He had not minded being laid for a time in with the golden, yellow fruit. It smelled so nice that he shut his eyes and breathed deep of the perfume. He even took a little sleep. And then, the next thing he knew, he felt a breath of cold air after a door was slammed shut.
"Dear me! what can have happened now?" said the Calico Clown, suddenly awakening. "Am I back again at the North Pole workshop of Santa Claus? It feels like it, but it doesn't look like it. For his shop was nice and light, though it was sometimes cold. Here it is dark."
"Well, I simply am freezing!" went on the Clown. "I've got to keep warm, somehow!"
So what did he do but stand up and begin to dance around among the oranges. Up and down, first to this side and then to the other danced the jolly fellow, jerking his arms and swinging his legs. He clapped his hands together to warm them, and his cymbals clanged in the cold, frosty air of the ice box.
After a while the Clown began to feel warmer. But as soon as he stopped jumping around he felt cold again.
"I've got to keep moving, that's all there is to it!" he said to himself, and he had to dance again.
Really he must have looked funny, doing a jig on a basket of oranges, but it was not so funny for the poor Clown himself. He was beginning to get tired, and he was wondering how long he would have to keep up his exercise, when the ice-box door suddenly opened and Cook lifted out a bowl of cream.
"Oh, for the love of trading stamps!" she cried, as she saw the Clown in among the oranges. "How did you ever get there? You must be almost frozen!"
And the poor fellow would have been, if he had not danced.
"I certainly didn't see you there when I put the fruit in the ice box," went on the cook. "Madeline must have put you among the oranges."
And, of course, this was just what had happened. Naturally you may say that the reason the cook saw the Clown the second time, after she opened the ice-box door, was because some of the oranges rolled to one side, allowing the Clown to be seen. But that isn't how it happened at all. The Clown simply climbed out from among the fruit to dance and keep himself warm, and that's how he happened to be seen.
"Oh, dear me! To think I should do a thing like that!" cried Madeline, when the cook handed her the Calico Clown. "Sidney might have thought his toy was lost again if you hadn't found him. Now we'll bake the cake, and I'll put the Clown by the stove to get warm."
After a while everything was ready for the party. The cake was baked and covered with icing. There were also some crullers and some cookies.
Herbert, Sidney and Mirabell put on their party clothes, and with the Monkey on a Stick nicely brushed, the Candy Rabbit with a new ribbon on his neck, and with the last specks of dirt shaken off the red and yellow trousers of the Clown, they all waited for the others to come.
"Here's Dorothy with her Sawdust Doll!" cried Madeline, running to the window.
[Illustration with caption: "Oh, I Have So Many Things to Tell You!"]
"Yes, and Arnold is helping Dick carry over the White Rocking Horse," added Sidney. "Oh, what fun we'll have!"
"I hope Arnold brought his Bold Tin Soldier Captain and all the others," said Herbert.
Arnold brought them, and his sister Mirabell came with her Lamb onWheels.
Then such fun as there was at the Toy Party! I really don't know whether the children or the toys enjoyed it most. But I do know that the children ate the cakes and cookies, which was something the toys could not do.
While Dick, Dorothy and the other boys and girls were in the room, the toys could not speak to one another. But when, in playing some game the lads and lassies went out into the yard, the toys had their chance.
"Oh, I have so many things to tell you!" said the Calico Clown. "I have had so many adventures!"
Then he related how the monkey had taken him up into the tree and how finally he had got back home.
"Quite remarkable," said the Lamb on Wheels. "You certainly have—Ouch! Oh, dear!" said the Lamb, suddenly switching one of her legs.
"What's the matter?" asked the Bold Tin Soldier. "If anybody is teasing you I'll make him stop!" and he drew his sword and looked very fierce—as all tin soldiers look.
"It was nothing," said the Lamb on Wheels. "Just a pang of rheumatism. The remains of the cold I caught in one of my wheels the time I made the voyage down the brook on the raft the boys built."
Then the Sawdust Doll told of a little adventure she had had recently, when she was left in the wrong doll carriage by mistake and was taken home to the wrong house.
"Nothing as remarkable as jumping downstairs and scaring the burglars has happened to me," said the White Rocking Horse. "But Dick was riding me in the kitchen the other day and he ran me over an egg."
"Did it hurt you?" asked the Monkey.
"No; but it spoiled the egg," said the Horse, laughing.
"Well, I must say it is very nice of the children to get up a party for us like this," said the Calico Clown. "And I, for one—"
"Hush! Here they come! We must be very still and quiet!" whispered theCandy Rabbit.
And back into the room trooped the merry children, and they played more games and ate more cake until none was left, and then the party was over.
"Well, I certainly have come to a happy home," thought the CalicoClown, when he was put to bed that night on a closet shelf. "This isjust as jolly as being in the store!" And he snuggled up close to theCandy Rabbit and the Monkey on a Stick. Then they all went to sleep.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Calico Clown, by Laura Lee Hope