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Once Mirabell held up her Lamb on Wheels at the same time that Dick had his Rocking Horse close to the window, and the two toys saw each other for the first time since they had been separated.

“Oh, there is my old friend, the White Rocking Horse!” thought the Lamb on Wheels. “How I wish I could talk to him.”

The Horse wished the same thing, and he even thought perhaps he might get a chance to run over some evening after dark and talk to the Lamb. But the doors of both houses were locked each night, and though the Horse and Lamb could roam about and seem to come to life when no one was watching them, they could not unlock doors. So they had to be content to look at each other through the windows.

“I wish I could see the Sawdust Doll,” thought the Lamb, when she had looked over at the Horse one day. “I’d like to speak to her.”

There came a few days of bright sunshine, when the weather was not so cold. One afternoon Arnold said to Mirabell:

“I’m going to take my little express wagon out on the sidewalk in front of the house. Why don’t you bring out your Lamb?”

“I will, if Mother will let me,” said Mirabell.

And Mother did. Soon the two children were running up and down in front of the house, Mirabell pulling her Lamb along by a string, and Arnold pretending to be an expressman with his wagon.

“Oh, there comes a man to put some coal in Dorothy’s house!” called Arnold, as a big wagon, drawn by two strong horses, stopped in front of the place where the Sawdust Doll and the White Rocking Horse lived. “Let’s go down and watch!” he said.

“All right,” agreed Mirabell. So she pulled her Lamb on Wheels down the sidewalk, and Arnold hauled his express wagon along.

At Dorothy’s house the coal bin was partly under the pavement, and to put in coal a round, iron cover was lifted up from a hole in the sidewalk, and the coal was dumped through this hole. As the children watched, and as Dorothy, who was now better, stood at the window with her brother Dick, also looking on, the coal man took the cover off the hole in the sidewalk, so he could dump the black lumps through the opening into the bin.

“I wouldn’t want to fall down there!” said Mirabell to her brother.

“I should say not!” exclaimed Arnold. “You’d get all black!”

The coal man, after opening the large, round hole in the sidewalk, climbed back on his wagon to shovel off his load. And just then Carlo, the dog belonging to Dorothy, ran barking out of the side entrance of the house where he lived. Carlo always became excited when coal was being put in the sidewalk hole.

“Bow-wow! Wow!” barked Carlo.

“Look out you don’t fall down the hole!” cried Mirabell.

Just then Carlo gave a jump around behind the little girl, and, somehow or other, he became entangled in the string that was tied on the Lamb.

“Look out, Carlo! Look out!” cried Mirabell. “Be careful or you’ll break my Lamb’s string!”

But Carlo was not careful. He did not mean to make trouble, but he did. He barked and growled and jumped around until his legs were all tangled up in the cord.

“Oh, look!” suddenly cried Arnold. “Look at your Lamb!”

And, as he spoke, Carlo gave a big jump to get the tangling string off his legs. The string broke, but, as it did so, the Lamb started to roll toward the open coal hole. And, at the same moment, the driver of the wagon began shoveling some of the black lumps down the opening.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Mirabell.

And then the white, woolly Lamb on Wheels rolled across the sidewalk, and disappeared down into the dark coal hole!

CHAPTER VII

THE LAMB CARRIED AWAY

Mirabell and Arnold were so surprised for a moment at what had happened that they could only stand, looking at the hole in the sidewalk down which the Lamb on Wheels had fallen. Carlo, the fuzzy little dog, seemed to know he had done something wrong in getting tangled in the string, breaking it off, and so sending the Lamb wheeling along until she slid into the coal hole. And the dog gave a howl and ran back toward the house, having finally managed to get his legs loose from the cord.