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

“Oh, that isn’t my Lamb on Wheels at all!” cried Mirabell, and there were real tears in her eyes as her brother took the coal-dust covered toy from the colored man’s hand. “That isn’t my Lamb at all!”

“Oh, yes, it must be, Mirabell,” said Dorothy’s mother. “No other Lamb has fallen down the coal hole.”

“But my Lamb was WHITE, and this one is BLACK,” sobbed the little girl.

“Well, bring her in here and we’ll wash her nice and clean and white again,” said Dorothy’s mother. “Bring your Lamb in, Mirabell. Dorothy is better now, though she cannot be out yet, and she will be glad to see you. Come in and I’ll wash your Lamb!”

“And I certainly do need a bath!” thought the Lamb to herself, when she heard this talk. She could look down at her legs and see how black they were. “Oh, what a terrible adventure it is to fall into a coal hole! I wonder what will happen next!”

And she soon found out. For when the colored man had come out of the cellar, and was again shoveling the coal down the hole, Mirabell and Arnold took the black Lamb on Wheels into Dorothy’s house. Dorothy and her brother Dick were glad to see the children from next door.

“Now to give Mirabell’s Lamb a bath,” said Dorothy’s mother.

“I wonder if I’ll be put in the bathtub, as the Wooden Lion was,” thought the Lamb.

And she was, though she was not dipped all the way in, for fear of spoiling the wooden, wheeled platform on which she stood. With a nail brush and some soap and water, Dorothy’s mother scrubbed the coal dust out of the Lamb’s wool.

“There, she is nice and clean again,” said Dorothy’s mother, as she held the Lamb on Wheels up for the four children to see.

“But she is all wet!” cried Mirabell.

“I’ll set her down by the warm stove in the kitchen, and she will soon dry,” said the mother of Dick and Dorothy.

“And I’ll put my Sawdust Doll down there with the Lamb so she won’t be lonesome,” said Dorothy.

And then the four children played games in the sitting room, while waiting for the Lamb to dry. And as Mary, the cook, was not in the kitchen just then, the Lamb and the Sawdust Doll were left alone together for a time.

“Oh, my dear, how glad I am to see you again!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll when they were alone. “But, tell me! what happened? You are soaking wet!”

“Yes, it’s very terrible!” bleated the Lamb. “I fell down a coal hole and had a bath!”

Then she told her different adventures, and the Sawdust Doll told hers, so the two toys had a nice time together. Soon the warm fire made the Lamb nice and dry and fluffy again. And she was as clean as when jolly Uncle Tim, the sailor, had bought her in the store.

“How is the White Booking Horse?” asked the Lamb of the Doll, when they had finished telling each other their adventures.

“Oh, he’s just fine!” exclaimed the Sawdust Doll. “Did you hear about his broken leg, how he went to the Toy Hospital, and how he scared away some burglars by kicking one downstairs?”

“No, I never heard all that news,” said the Lamb. “Please tell me,” and the Sawdust Doll did. Then the two toys had to stop talking together as Mirabell, Arnold, Dorothy and Dick came into the kitchen.

“Oh, now my Lamb is all nice again!” cried Mirabell, when she saw her toy. “Oh, I am so glad.”

“So am I,” said Dorothy.

For many days Mirabell had jolly good times with her Lamb on Wheels. Sometimes the Lamb was taken to Dorothy’s house, and then there was a chance for the woolly toy to talk to the Sawdust Doll and the White Rocking Horse.