"Doesn't matter to _me_ whether I spend the night with a bald-headed
old gentleman or a bird-dog--all the same to _me_," said the False
Hare meekly. This speech sounded so like him that the children looked
at one another and burst out laughing again, at which the False Hare
gave a kind of solemn wink, sighed, and touched his eyes with a little
paper handkerchief he held gracefully in one paw.
The Sandman turned his back on the silly fellow, and went on with his
explanations to the children: "We have a very select set of
customers," he said, "and it's our aim to supply 'em with the finest
line of goods on the market. Wears me to a frazzle sometimes, this
business does," he stopped to wipe from his brow a tiny stream of sand
that was trickling down it, "but I've got to keep at it! All the
folks, big and little, like Good Dreams, and want 'em every night, and
if they get mixed up or the quality's inferior, or there's not enough
to go around, I tell you what, it makes trouble for Sandy! But just
step a little nearer, and you shall see for yourselves how the whole
thing is managed."
The children followed Sandy, who walked back to the pile of empty
sacks, picked one up, compared the label on it with a name on his
list, and called out in a loud voice: "Mrs. Patrick O'Flynn, Wash
Lady--excellent character--never misses on a Monday--six
children--husband not altogether satisfactory. Here, now,
Noddy--Blink! I'll want some help, boys."
As he called out these two names, two very fat, sleepy boys, looking
like pillows with strings tied round their waists, slouched from
behind the rock where they had been waiting, and stood sulkily at
attention. There was a scramble and a rush and a fuss among the Good
Dreams, just as there had been before when the children first peeped
into the glade, each one struggling and pushing and crowding to get
ahead of the next, without any regard as to whether or not it was
wanted. It took a tremendous effort on the part of Sandy, together
with all the help the sleepy sulky boys would give, to get the right
collection of dreams into the Wash Lady's sack, and to keep the wrong
ones out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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