CHAPTER VI

SAVING THE SAWDUST DOLL


The bird was just going to flutter down and pull some more wool from
the back of the Lamb on Wheels, when the Bold Tin Soldier, waving
his sword, happened to strike it on the iron wheels of the wooden
platform on which Miss Lamb stood. The shiny sword made a clanking
sound, and, hearing this, the bird, instead of fluttering to the
Lamb's back, perched on the porch railing.

"Well, you'd better not come and pull any more wool from my friend,
Miss Lamb!" said the Soldier Captain.

"Oh, please excuse me!" chirped the bird. "Oh, what a mistake I have
made! Why, you are only a _toy_ lamb, aren't you?" he asked the
plaything.

"Of course I am a toy," answered the Lamb on Wheels. "But I can talk
and move around when no human eyes watch me."

"That's just the trouble," said the bird. "I took you for a
_real_ lamb, and that is why I pulled some wool from your back.
I wouldn't have done it for the world if I had known you were a toy!
Please excuse me. I made a mistake."

"Do you mean to say," asked the Bold Tin Soldier, "that you could
pull wool from the back of a real, live lamb?"