“But Mrs. Clark does hardly any business,” said the Jumping Jack. “I was one of the lot of a dozen she bought from the agent, and there are eight of us left. She’ll never get rich selling toys, I’m afraid.”
“I’m afraid not,” agreed the Woolly Dog. “But if she could sell me and get the price I ought to bring, she would have several dollars. I ought to be sold for five dollars, but I heard the agent say she could let me go for three.”
“Three dollars! Think of that!” exclaimed the Calico-Dressed Doll. “That’s almost a million, isn’t it?”
“Almost, but not quite,” answered the Woolly Dog, and again he did not speak proudly as some toys might have done.
So it had come about that the Woolly Dog was among the poor toys in Mrs. Clark’s little store—the best toy of all, it might be said of the Woolly Dog. Mrs. Clark knew this, and she hoped the Woolly Dog would soon sell, so she might get enough money to make up the full amount for the rent, which must be paid in a day or two.
“I need just that three dollars the Woolly Dog would bring,” sighed the poor old lady. “Or if my son Jimmie would come home, he would pay the rent.”
But Jimmie was a sailor lad and at this time was far away, on a sort of treasure hunt. He hoped to come back with gold to give his mother, and he had written some letters in which he said he might be home almost any day now.
“But my eyes are weary watching for him,” sighed Mrs. Clark.
She moved about her store, looking at the few things she had to sell. After her husband had died she had started the store. For a time she did fairly well, but times grew hard and she lived in a poor neighborhood, where few people had money to spend on toys. They bought needles, thread and pins of Mrs. Clark, but there is not much money to be had selling these.
“I think I’ll put the Woolly Dog back in the window,” said Mrs. Clark to herself, after dusting her store for the day. “He will be seen better there, but I don’t like to keep him in the window too long, for the sun might take the curl out of his wool. But I’ll put him there this afternoon and leave him there to-morrow. Maybe someone will see him and buy him. True, I’ve had him in the window before and no one even came in to ask how much he would cost. But I’ll try it again.”