Raggedy Ann Stories. Johnny Gruelle
top of the boiler to peek out. There was too much steam and she could see nothing. For that matter, Dinah could not see Raggedy Ann, either, on account of the steam.
So Dinah, using an old broom handle, stirred the clothes in the boiler and the clothes and Raggedy Ann were stirred and whirled around until all were thoroughly boiled.
When Dinah took the clothes a piece at a time from the boiler and scrubbed them, she finally came upon Raggedy Ann.
Now Dinah did not know but that Marcella had placed Raggedy in the clothes hamper to be washed, so she soaped Raggedy well and scrubbed her up and down over the rough wash-board.
Two buttons from the back of Raggedy's dress came off and one of Raggedy Ann's shoe-button eyes was loosened as Dinah gave her face a final scrub.
Then Dinah put Raggedy Ann's feet in the wringer and turned the crank. It was hard work getting Raggedy through the wringer, but Dinah was very strong. And of course it happened! Raggedy Ann came through as flat as a pancake.
It was just then, that Marcella returned and saw Raggedy.
"Why, Dinah! How could you!" Marcella had sobbed as she snatched the flattened Raggedy Ann from the bewildered Dinah's hand.
Mamma patted Marcella's hand and soon coaxed her to quit sobbing.
When Dinah explained that the first she knew of Raggedy being in the wash was when she took her from the boiler, Marcella began crying again.
"It was all my fault, Mamma!" she cried. "I remember now that I threw dear old Raggedy Ann from me as I ran out the door and she must have fallen in the clothes hamper! Oh dear! Oh dear!" and she hugged Raggedy Ann tight.
Mamma did not tell Marcella that she had been cross and naughty for she knew Marcella felt very sorry. Instead Mamma put her arms around her and said,
"Just see how Raggedy Ann takes it! She doesn't seem to be unhappy!"
And when Marcella brushed her tears away and looked at Raggedy Ann, flat as a pancake and with a cheery smile upon her painted face, she had to laugh. And Mamma and Dinah had to laugh, too, for Raggedy Ann's smile was almost twice as broad as it had been before.
"Just let me hang Miss Raggedy on the line in the bright sunshine for half an hour," said Dinah, "and you won't know her when she comes off!"
So Raggedy Ann was pinned to the clothes-line, out in the bright sunshine, where she swayed and twisted in the breeze and listened to the chatter of the robins in a nearby tree.
Every once in a while Dinah went out and rolled and patted Raggedy until her cotton stuffing was soft and dry and fluffy and her head and arms and legs were nice and round again.
Then she took Raggedy Ann into the house and showed Marcella and Mamma how clean and sweet she was.
Marcella took Raggedy Ann right up to the nursery and told all the dolls just what had happened and how sorry she was that she had been so cross and peevish when she dressed them. And while the dolls said never a word they looked at their little mistress with love in their eyes as she sat in the little red rocking chair and held Raggedy Ann tightly in her arms.
And Raggedy Ann's remaining shoe-button eye looked up at her little mistress in rather a saucy manner, but upon her face was the same old smile of happiness, good humor and love.
RAGGEDY ANN AND THE KITE
Raggedy Ann watched with interest the preparations.
A number of sticks were being fastened together with strings and covered with light cloth.
Raggedy Ann heard some of the boys talk of "The Kite," so Raggedy Ann knew this must be a kite.
When a tail had been fastened to the kite and a large ball of heavy twine tied to the front, one of the boys held the kite up in the air and another boy walked off, unwinding the ball of twine.
There was a nice breeze blowing, so the boy with the twine called, "Let 'er go" and started running.
Marcella held Raggedy up so that she could watch the kite sail through the air.
How nicely it climbed! But suddenly the kite acted strangely, and as all the children shouted advice to the boy with the ball of twine, the kite began darting this way and that, and finally making four or five loop-the-loops, it crashed to the ground.
"It needs more tail on it!" one boy shouted.
Then the children asked each other where they might get more rags to fasten to the tail of the kite.
"Let's tie Raggedy Ann to the tail!" suggested Marcella. "I know she would enjoy a trip 'way up in the sky!"
The boys all shouted with delight at this new suggestion. So Raggedy Ann was tied to the tail of the kite.
This time the kite rose straight in the air and remained steady. The boy with the ball of twine unwound it until the kite and Raggedy Ann were 'way, 'way up and far away. How Raggedy Ann enjoyed being up there! She could see for miles and miles! And how tiny the children looked!
Suddenly a great puff of wind came and carried Raggedy Ann streaming 'way out behind the kite! She could hear the wind singing on the twine as the strain increased.
Suddenly Raggedy Ann felt something rip. It was the rag to which she was tied. As each puff of wind caught her the rip widened.
When Marcella watched Raggedy Ann rise high above the field, she wondered how much Raggedy Ann enjoyed it, and wished that she, too, might have gone along. But after the kite had been up in the air for five or ten minutes, Marcella grew restless. Kites were rather tiresome. There was more fun in tea parties out under the apple tree.
"Will you please pull down the kite now?" she asked the boy with the twine. "I want Raggedy Ann."
"Let her ride up there!" the boy replied. "We'll bring her home when we pull down the kite! We're going to get another ball of twine and let her go higher!"
Marcella did not like to leave Raggedy Ann with the boys, so she sat down upon the ground to wait until they pulled down the kite.
But while Marcella watched Raggedy Ann, a dot in the sky, she could not see the wind ripping the rag to which Raggedy was tied.
Suddenly the rag parted and Raggedy Ann went sailing away as the wind caught in her skirts.
Marcella jumped from the ground, too surprised to say anything. The kite, released from the weight of Raggedy Ann began darting and swooping to the ground.
"We'll get her for you!" some of the boys said when they saw Marcella's troubled face, and they started running in the direction Raggedy Ann had fallen. Marcella and the other girls ran with them. They ran, and they ran, and they ran, and at last they found the kite upon the ground with one of the sticks broken, but they could not find Raggedy Ann anywhere.
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