the bin, and get the Lamb that way," Dorothy's mother said.

"Yes-sum, I could do it dat way!" the colored man said. "I'se been down
in yo' cellar befo'. I'll get de Lamb on Wheels."

Dorothy's mother waited on the front porch, and Mirabell and Arnold
waited on the sidewalk near the coal hole. A little while after the
colored man had gone in the side entrance, through the cellar and into
the coal bin, the two children heard him calling, as if from the ground
beneath them.

"I got de Lamb!" said the driver, in a voice that sounded far-off and
rumbly. "Watch out, now! I'se gwine to frow it up de hole!"

"All right!" said Arnold. "I'll catch her!"

"No, don't throw my Lamb!" objected Mirabell. "She might fall on the
sidewalk and break."

"All right--den I'll HAND her up out ob de hole," called the colored
man, who was now in the partly filled bin under the sidewalk. "Watch out
fo' her!"

Mirabell and Arnold could hear him walking around on the coal under the
sidewalk. In another half minute a black hand was thrust up through the
hole, and in the hand was a white, woolly Lamb on Wheels. Wait a minute!
Did I say white? Well, I meant to have said a BLACK Lamb.

For Mirabell's white, clean Lamb on Wheels was now covered with black
coal dust.