"Oh, Mother! may Cook bake us a cake for the Toy Party?" cried
Madeline, and, not thinking what she was doing, she laid the Calico
Clown down in a large basket of oranges which the fruit man had just
set on the kitchen table.
"A cake for a Toy Party?" repeated Mother. "Yes, I think so. Tell me more about it."
So Madeline told about the Toy Party that was going to be held, and how the Sawdust Doll, the White Rocking Horse, and all the other jolly creatures were to come.
"Course they won't EAT the cake—only make believe," explained
Madeline. "We'll eat the cake—we children."
"Yes, I supposed you would," said Mother, with a laugh as she looked at Cook.
"And, please, may I help?" asked Madeline.
"Yes," promised Cook, and then, not thinking what she was doing and not seeing the Calico Clown, who had slipped away down in among the oranges, she took the basket of fruit from the table.
"I'll just set the oranges in the ice box," she said. "They need to be well chilled for the orangeade, and it's a hot day."
And that is how it was that the Clown, a little later, found himself beginning to feel freezing cold. He had not minded being laid for a time in with the golden, yellow fruit. It smelled so nice that he shut his eyes and breathed deep of the perfume. He even took a little sleep. And then, the next thing he knew, he felt a breath of cold air after a door was slammed shut.
"Dear me! what can have happened now?" said the Calico Clown, suddenly awakening. "Am I back again at the North Pole workshop of Santa Claus? It feels like it, but it doesn't look like it. For his shop was nice and light, though it was sometimes cold. Here it is dark."