But as the two little girls were just then thinking of the new trunk for the Sawdust Doll, neither of them thought of the Lamb, and they did not see the dog take her.

“Oh, what a nice trunk!” said Mirabell to Dorothy.

“I’m glad you like it,” said Dorothy.  She had her Sawdust Doll in her arms, and, as it happened, the Doll saw the dog running away with the Lamb on Wheels in his mouth.

“Oh!  Oh!  Oh, dear me!  That is dreadful!” said the Sawdust Doll to herself.  “Oh, the poor Lamb!  What will happen to her?”

Away ran the dog with the Lamb on Wheels in his mouth down the street, over a low fence, and soon he was in the vacant lots where the weeds grew high.  And then, as there were no human eyes in the vacant lots to see her, the Lamb thought it time to do something.  She began to wiggle her legs, though she could not get them loose from the platform with wheels on, and she cried out: 

“Baa!  Baa!  Baa!”

“Hello there! what’s the matter?” barked the dog, and it made his nose tickle to have the Lamb, whom he was carrying in his teeth, give that funny Baa! sound in his mouth.

“Matter?  Matter enough I should say!” exclaimed the Lamb on Wheels.  “Why are you carrying me away like this, you very bad dog?”

For, being a toy, she could talk animal language as well as her own, and the dog could understand and talk it, too.

“Why am I carrying you away?” asked the dog.  “Because I am hungry, of course.”

“But I am not good to eat,” bleated the Lamb.  “I am mostly made of wood, though my wheels are of iron.  Of course I have real wool on outside, but inside I am only stuffed.”

“Dear me! is that so?” asked the dog, opening his mouth and putting the Lamb down amid a clump of weeds in the vacant lot.

“Yes, it’s just as true as I’m telling you,” went on the Lamb.  “I am only a toy, though when no human eyes look at me I can move around and talk, as can all of us toys.  But I am not good to eat.”

“No, I think you’re right about that,” said the dog, after smelling of the Lamb.  For that is how dogs tell whether or not a thing is good to eat—­by smelling it.

“You looked so natural,” went on the dog, “that I thought you were a real little Lamb.  That’s why I carried you off when that little girl left you and ran away.  I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“No, you didn’t hurt me, but you have carried me a long way from my home,” the Lamb said.  “I don’t know how I am ever going to get back to Mirabell.”

“Can’t you roll along to her on your wheels?” asked the dog.  “I haven’t time now to carry you back.”

“Not very well,” the Lamb answered.  “It is very rough going in this lot, full of weeds and stones.  I can easily roll myself along on a smooth floor, in the toy shop or at Mirabell’s home.  But it is too hard here.”

“Ill leave you here now,” barked the dog, “and when it gets dark I’ll come and get you.  I’ll carry you back to the porch of the house, from in front of which I carried you off.  Then you can roll in and get back to Mirabell, as you call her.  Shall I do that?”