She turned back the sheet she had spread over the soiled clothes and made a little place down in one corner for the Man to put his handkerchiefs.
There was quite a bundle of them, all wadded together.
"There, you can tell Mother I didn't forget my handkerchiefs this time," said Daddy to his two children. "You saw me put them in the wash, didn't you?"
"Yes, Daddy, we did!" exclaimed Mirabell. "And, oh, you ought to see what happened to my Lamb on Wheels to-day!"
"What happened?" asked Daddy, as he straightened up after having stooped down to thrust the handkerchiefs into the basket.
"Why, Arnold's Bold Tin Soldier got caught in the curly wool on my Lamb's back," explained Mirabell, "and they both fell into the flour barrel!"
"That WAS funny!" laughed Daddy. And he was thinking so much about this and laughing so with Arnold and Mirabell that he never stopped to think of the Calico Clown in among the handkerchiefs he had put in the wash-basket.
But that is what he had done. He had thrust the Clown, with the handkerchiefs, down in Mandy's basket of soiled clothes.
"Oh, my! Oh, dear me! Oh, what is going to happen now?" thought the Calico Clown as he felt himself covered up and taken away. "Oh, if I could only tell Mirabell or Arnold I am here. Oh, this is dreadful."
But he could do nothing! Away he was taken in the wash-basket.