So he and the Sawdust Doll talked together until, all of a sudden, Jack called out: “Hark!” “What’s the matter?” asked the Sawdust Doll. “The cook is grinding the coffee,” was the answer. “That means she is up and getting breakfast. It will soon be daylight. You had better go back where you came from. It would never do for you to be seen moving about. Folks would think you were alive.” “Yes, I had better go back,” said the Sawdust Doll. Down the scarf-ladder she went, and soon she was in bed with Dorothy again, and when the little girl awakened she never knew that her Sawdust Doll had been wandering about in the night, talking to Jack-in-the-Box. “Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Dorothy, when, fully awake, she looked at her Sawdust Doll on the pillow. “You have a big spot of ice cream on your new rose-colored silk dress! That must have happened at the party. Oh, dear! But I know what I can do! I’ll make you a gingham dress to wear around every day. Yes, that’s what I’ll do! I’ll make you a gingham dress!” And after breakfast the little girl asked her mother if it would not be a fine thing to make an every-day dress for the Sawdust Doll. “I think it would be very nice,” Mother answered. “You may take my rag-bag. You’ll find some odd pieces in it and you can, very nicely, make a doll’s dress from them.” So Dorothy got the rag-bag and, placing her doll down on a low bench near her, began to measure her new toy for a gingham dress. “Then if you drop ice cream on yourself it won’t be so bad,” said the little girl. “A gingham dress will wash.” All the morning long Dorothy sewed away on the dress for the Sawdust Doll. She had it nearly done, while the Doll lay on a pile of cloth near the rag-bag ready to be fitted. Dorothy was just sewing a sleeve in the gingham dress, and thinking how nice it would look on her doll, when there came a ring at the door, and Mirabell, a little girl who lived in the next house, came in. “Can you come over a minute, Dorothy?” asked Mirabell. “My mother is baking, and she said I could make a little pie all by myself. And there’s enough dough so you can make one, too! Come on over!” “Oh, that will be fun!” cried Dorothy, and, forgetting for a moment all about her Sawdust Doll and the new gingham dress, up jumped Dorothy and away she ran with Mirabell, leaving the pieces of cloth, rags, rag-bag, Doll and everything on the floor. When Martha, the maid, came in a little later and saw the pile in confusion on the floor, she just bundled everything up together--new gingham dress, rags, Doll, and all--and stuffed them into the rag-bag. “Dorothy forgot to pick up her playthings,” thought the maid, as she stuffed the odd pieces of cloth into the rag-bag. “I’ll do it for her.” And the maid never knew that she had also put the Sawdust Doll into the rag-bag. CHAPTER VIII IN THE JUNK SHOP