Raggedy Andy Stories

And another reason Raggedy Andy smiled was because he was not lonesome.

Inside his waist were the two little penny dolls.

The man had punched Raggedy Andy farther down into the pipe, and he had been able to reach the two little dolls and tuck them into a safe place.

"Won't they all be surprised to see us back again!" Raggedy Andy whispered as he patted the two little penny dolls with his soft rag hands.

And the two little penny dolls nestled against Raggedy Andy's soft cotton stuffed body, and thought how nice it was to have such a happy, sunny friend.

DOCTOR RAGGEDY ANDY

Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Clem and Henny were not given medicine.

Because, you see, they had no mouths.

That is, mouths through which medicine could be poured.

Their mouths were either painted on, or were sewed on with yarn.

Sometimes the medicine spoon would be touched to their faces but none of the liquid be given them. Except accidentally.

But the French doll had a lovely mouth for taking medicine; it was open and showed her teeth in a dimpling smile.

She also had soft brown eyes which opened and closed when she was tilted backward or forward.

The medicine which was given the dolls had great curing properties.

It would cure the most stubborn case of croup, measles, whooping cough or any other ailment the dolls had wished upon them by their little Mistress.

Some days all the dolls would be put to bed with "measles" but in the course of half an hour they would have every other ailment in the Doctor book.

The dolls enjoyed it very much, for, you see, Marcella always tried the medicine first to see if it was strong enough before she gave any to the dolls.

So the dolls really did not get as much of the medicine as their little mistress.

The wonderful remedy was made from a very old recipe handed down from ancient times.

This recipe is guaranteed to cure every ill a doll may have.

The medicine was made from brown sugar and water. Perhaps you may have used it for your dollies.

The medicine was also used as "tea" and "soda water," except when the dolls were supposed to be ill.

Having nothing but painted or yarn mouths, the ailments of Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Clem and Henny, the Dutch doll, mostly consisted of sprained wrists, arms and legs, or perhaps a headache and a toothache.

None of them knew they had the trouble until Marcella had wrapped up the "injured" rag arm, leg or head, and had explained in detail just what was the matter.

Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Clem, or Henny were just as happy with their heads tied up for the toothache as they were without their heads tied up.

Not having teeth, naturally they could not have the toothache, and if they could furnish amusement for Marcella by having her pretend they had the toothache, then that made them very happy.

So this day, the French doll was quite ill. She started out with the "croup," and went through the "measles," "whooping cough," and "yellow fever" in an hour.

The attack came on quite suddenly.

The French doll was sitting quietly in one of the little red chairs, smiling the prettiest of dimpling smiles at Raggedy Andy, and thinking of the romp the dolls would have that night after the house grew quiet, when Marcella discovered that the French doll had the "croup" and put her to bed.

The French doll closed her eyes when put to bed, but the rest of her face did not change expression. She still wore her happy smile.

Marcella mixed the medicine very "strong" and poured it into the French doll's open mouth.

She was given a "dose" every minute or so.

It was during the "yellow fever" stage that Marcella was called to supper and left the dolls in the nursery alone.

Marcella did not play with them again that evening; so the dolls all remained in the same position until Marcella and the rest of the folks went to bed.

Then Raggedy Andy jumped from his chair and wound up the little music box. "Let's start with a lively dance!" he cried.

When the music started tinkling he caught the French doll's hand, and danced 'way across the nursery floor before he discovered that her soft brown eyes remained closed as they were when she lay upon the "sick" bed.

All the dolls gathered around Raggedy Andy and the French doll.

"I can't open my eyes!" she said.

Raggedy Andy tried to open the French doll's eyes with his soft rag hands, but it was no use.

They shook her. This sometimes has the desired effect when dolls do not open their eyes.

They shook her again and again. It was no use, her eyes remained closed.

"It must be the sticky, sugary 'medicine'!" said Uncle Clem.

"I really believe it must be!" the French doll replied. "The 'medicine' seemed to settle in the back of my head when I was lying down, and I can still feel it back there!"

"That must be it, and now it has hardened and keeps your pretty eyes from working!" said Raggedy Ann. "What shall we do?"

Raggedy Andy and Raggedy Ann walked over to a corner of the nursery and thought and thought. They pulled their foreheads down into wrinkles with their hands, so that they might think harder.

Finally Raggedy Ann cried, "I've thought of a plan!" and went skipping from the corner out to where the other dolls sat about the French doll.

"We must stand her upon her head, then the 'medicine' will run up into her hair, for there is a hole in the top of her head. I remember seeing it when her hair came off one time!"

"No sooner said than done!" cried Uncle Clem, as he took the French doll by the waist and stood her upon her head.

"That should be long enough!" Raggedy Ann said, when Uncle Clem had held the French doll in this position for five minutes.

But when the French doll was again placed upon her feet her eyes still remained tightly closed.

All this time, Raggedy Andy had remained in the corner, thinking as hard as his rag head would think.

He thought and thought, until the yarn hair upon his head stood up in the air and wiggled.

"If the 'medicine' did not run up into her hair when she stood upon her head," thought Raggedy Andy, "then it is because the 'medicine' could not run; so, if the medicine can not run, it is because it is too sticky and thick to run out the hole in the top of her head." He also thought a lot more.

At last he turned to the others and said out loud, "I can't seem to think of a single way to help her open her eyes unless we take off her hair and wash the medicine from inside her china head."

"Why didn't I think of that?" Raggedy Ann asked. "That is just the way we shall have to do!"

So Raggedy Ann caught hold of the French doll's feet, and Raggedy Andy caught hold of the French doll's lively curls, and they pulled and they pulled.

Then the other dolls caught hold of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy and pulled and pulled, until finally, with a sharp "R-R-Rip!" the French doll's hair came off, and the dolls who were pulling went tumbling over backwards.

Laughingly they scrambled to their feet and sat the French doll up, so they might look into the hole in the top of her head.

Yes, the sticky "medicine" had grown hard and would not let the French doll's eyes open.

Raggedy Andy put his hand inside and pushed on the eyes so that they opened.

This was all right, only now the eyes would not close when the French doll lay down. She tried it.

So Raggedy Andy ran down into the kitchen and brought up a small tin cup full of warm water and a tiny rag.

With these he loosened the sticky "medicine" and washed the inside of the French doll's head nice and clean.

There were lots of cooky and cracker crumbs inside her head, too.

Raggedy Andy washed it all nice and clean, and then wet the glue which made the pretty curls stay on.

So when her hair was placed upon her head again, the French doll was as good as new.

"Thank you all very much!" she said, as she tilted backwards and forwards, and found that her eyes worked very easily.

Raggedy Andy again wound up the little music box and, catching the French doll about the waist, started a rollicking dance which lasted until the roosters in the neighborhood began their morning crowing.

Then, knowing the folks might soon be astir, the dolls left off their playing, and all took the same positions they had been in when Marcella left them the night before.

And so Marcella found them.

The French doll was in bed with her eyes closed, and her happy dimpling smile lighting up her pretty face.

And to this day, the dollies' little mistress does not know that Raggedy Andy was the doctor who cured the French doll of her only ill.

RAGGEDY ANDY'S SMILE

Raggedy Andy's smile was gone.

Not entirely, but enough so that it made his face seem onesided.

If one viewed Raggedy Andy from the left side, one could see his smile.

But if one looked at Raggedy Andy from the right side, one could not see his smile. So Raggedy Andy's smile was gone.

It really was not Raggedy Andy's fault.

He felt just as happy and sunny as ever.

And perhaps would not have known the difference had not the other dolls told him he had only one half of his cheery smile left.

Nor was it Marcella's fault. How was she to know that Dickie would feed Raggedy Andy orange juice and take off most of his smile?

And besides taking off one half of Raggedy Andy's smile, the orange juice left a great brown stain upon his face.

Marcella was very sorry when she saw what Dickie had done.

Dickie would have been sorry, too, if he had been more than two years old, but when one is only two years old, he has very few sorrows.

Dickie's only sorrow was that Raggedy Andy was taken from him, and he could not feed Raggedy Andy more orange juice.

Marcella kissed Raggedy Andy more than she did the rest of the dolls that night, when she put them to bed, and this made all the dolls very happy.

It always gave them great pleasure when any of their number was hugged and kissed, for there was not a selfish doll among them.

Marcella hung up a tiny stocking for each of the dollies, and placed a tiny little china dish for each of the penny dolls beside their little spool box bed.

For, as you probably have guessed, it was Christmas eve, and Marcella was in hopes Santa Claus would see the tiny stockings and place something in them for each dollie.

Then when the house was very quiet, the French doll told Raggedy Andy that most of his smile was gone.

"Indeed!" said Raggedy Andy. "I can still feel it! It must be there!"

"Oh, but it really is gone!" Uncle Clem said. "It was the orange juice!"

"Well, I still feel just as happy," said Raggedy Andy, "so let's have a jolly game of some sort! What shall it be?"

"Perhaps we had best try to wash your face!" said practical Raggedy Ann. She always acted as a mother to the other dolls when they were alone.

"It will not do a bit of good!" the French doll told Raggedy Ann, "for I remember I had orange juice spilled upon a nice white frock I had one time, and the stain would never come out!"

"That is too bad!" Henny, the Dutch doll, said. "We shall miss Raggedy Andy's cheery smile when he is looking straight at us!"

"You will have to stand on my right side, when you wish to see my smile!" said Raggedy Andy, with a cheery little chuckle 'way down in his soft cotton inside.

"But I wish everyone to understand," he went on, "that I am smiling just the same, whether you can see it or not!"

And with this, Raggedy Andy caught hold of Uncle Clem and Henny, and made a dash for the nursery door, followed by all the other dolls.

Raggedy Andy intended jumping down the stairs, head over heels, for he knew that neither he, Uncle Clem nor Henny would break anything by jumping down stairs.

But just as they got almost to the door, they dropped to the floor in a heap, for there, standing watching the whole performance, was a man.

All the dolls fell in different attitudes, for it would never do for them to let a real person see that they could act and talk just like real people.

Raggedy Andy, Uncle Clem and Henny stopped so suddenly they fell over each other and Raggedy Andy, being in the lead and pulling the other two, slid right through the door and stopped at the feet of the man.

A cheery laugh greeted this and a chubby hand reached down and picked up Raggedy Andy and turned him over.

Raggedy Andy looked up into a cheery little round face, with a little red nose and red cheeks, and all framed in white whiskers which looked just like snow.

Then the little round man walked into the nursery and picked up all the dolls and looked at them. He made no noise when he walked, and this was why he had taken the dolls by surprise at the head of the stairs.

The little man with the snow-white whiskers placed all the dolls in a row and from a little case in his pocket he took a tiny bottle and a little brush. He dipped the little brush in the tiny bottle and touched all the dolls' faces with it.

He had purposely saved Raggedy Andy's face until the last. Then, as all the dolls watched, the cheery little white-whiskered man touched Raggedy Andy's face with the magic liquid, and the orange juice stain disappeared, and in its place came Raggedy Andy's rosy cheeks and cheery smile.

And, turning Raggedy Andy so that he could face all the other dolls, the cheery little man showed him that all the other dolls had new rosy cheeks and newly-painted faces. They all looked just like new dollies. Even Susan's cracked head had been made whole.

Henny, the Dutch doll, was so surprised he fell over backward and said, "Squeek!"

When the cheery little man with the white whiskers heard this, he picked Henny up and touched him with the paint brush in the center of the back, just above the place where Henny had the little mechanism which made him say "Mama" when he was new. And when the little man touched Henny and tipped him forward and backward, Henny was just as good as new and said "Mama" very prettily.

Then the little man put something in each of the tiny doll stockings, and something in each of the little china plates for the two penny dolls.

Then, as quietly as he had entered, he left, merely turning at the door and shaking his finger at the dolls in a cheery, mischievous manner.

Raggedy Andy heard him chuckling to himself as he went down the stairs.

Raggedy Andy tiptoed to the door and over to the head of the stairs.

Then he motioned for the other dolls to come.

There, from the head of the stairs, they watched the cheery little white-whiskered man take pretty things from a large sack and place them about the chimneyplace.

"He does not know that we are watching him," the dolls all thought, but when the little man had finished his task, he turned quickly and laughed right up at the dolls, for he had known that they were watching him all the time.

Then, again shaking his finger at them in his cheery manner, the little white-whiskered man swung the sack to his shoulder, and with a whistle such as the wind makes when it plays through the chinks of a window, he was gone—up the chimney.

The dolls were very quiet as they walked back into the nursery and sat down to think it all over, and as they sat there thinking, they heard out in the night the "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle" of tiny sleigh bells, growing fainter and fainter as they disappeared in the distance.

Without a word, but filled with a happy wonder, the dolls climbed into their beds, just as Marcella had left them, and pulled the covers up to their chins.

And Raggedy Andy lay there, his little shoe button eyes looking straight towards the ceiling and smiling a joyful smile—not a "half smile" this time, but a "full size smile."

THE WOODEN HORSE

Santa Claus left a whole lot of toys.

A wooden horse, covered with canton flannel and touched lightly with a paint brush dipped in black paint to give him a dappled gray appearance, was one of the presents.

With the wooden horse came a beautiful red wagon with four yellow wheels. My! The paint was pretty and shiny.

The wooden horse was hitched to the wagon with a patent leather harness; and he, himself, stood proudly upon a red platform running on four little nickel wheels.

It was true that the wooden horse's eyes were as far apart as a camel's and made him look quite like one when viewed from in front, but he had soft leather ears and a silken mane and tail.

He was nice to look upon, was the wooden horse. All the dolls patted him and smoothed his silken mane and felt his shiny patent leather harness the first night they were alone with him in the nursery.

The wooden horse had a queer voice; the dolls could hardly understand him at first, but when his bashfulness wore off, he talked quite plainly.

"It is the first time I have ever tried to talk," he explained when he became acquainted, "and I guess I was talking down in my stomach instead of my head!"

"You will like it here in the nursery very much!" said Raggedy Andy. "We have such jolly times and love each other so much I know you will enjoy your new home!"

"I am sure I shall!" the wooden horse answered. "Where I came from, we—the other horses and myself—just stood silently upon the shelves and looked and looked straight ahead, and never so much as moved our tails."

"See if you can move your tail now!" Henny, the Dutch doll, suggested.

The wooden horse started to roll across the nursery floor and if Raggedy Ann had not been in the way, he might have bumped into the wall. As it was, the wooden horse rolled against Raggedy Ann and upset her but could go no further when his wheels ran against her rag foot.

When the wooden horse upset Raggedy Ann, he stood still until Uncle Clem and Henny and Raggedy Andy lifted him off Raggedy Ann's feet. "Did I frisk my tail?" he asked when Raggedy Ann stood up and smoothed her apron.

"Try it again!" said Raggedy Ann. "I couldn't see!" She laughed her cheery rag doll laugh, for Raggedy Ann, no matter what happened, never lost her temper.

The wooden horse started rolling backward at this and knocked Henny over upon his back, causing him to cry "Mama!" in his squeeky voice.

Uncle Clem, Raggedy Ann, and the tin soldier all held to the wooden horse and managed to stop him just as he was backing out of the nursery door towards the head of the stairs.

Then the dolls pulled the wooden horse back to the center of the room. "It's funny" he said, "that I start moving backward or forward when I try to frisk my tail!"

"I believe it is because you have stood so long upon the shelf without moving," Raggedy Andy suggested. "Suppose you try moving forward!"

Uncle Clem, who was standing in front of the wooden horse, jumped to one side so hastily his feet slipped out from under him, just as if he had been sliding upon slippery ice.

The wooden horse did not start moving forward as Uncle Clem had expected; instead, his silken tail frisked gaily up over his back.

"Whee! There, you frisked your tail!" cried all the dolls as joyfully as if the wooden horse had done something truly wonderful.

"It's easy now!" said the wooden horse. "When I wish to go forward or backward I'll try to frisk my tail and then I'll roll along on my shiny wheels; then when I wish to frisk my tail I'll try to roll forward or backward, like this!" But instead of rolling forward, the wooden horse frisked his tail. "I wanted to frisk my tail then!" he said in surprise. "Now I'll roll forward!" And sure enough, the wooden horse rolled across the nursery floor.

When he started rolling upon his shiny wheels, Raggedy Andy cried, "All aboard!" and, taking a short run, he leaped upon the wooden horse's back. Uncle Clem, Raggedy Ann, Henny, the Dutch doll and Susan, the doll without a head, all scrambled up into the pretty red wagon.

The wooden horse thought this was great fun and round and round the nursery he circled. His shiny wheels and the pretty yellow wheels of the red wagon creaked so loudly none of the dolls heard the cries of the tiny penny dolls who were too small to climb aboard. Finally, as the wagon load of dolls passed the penny dolls, Raggedy Andy noticed the two little midgets standing together and missing the fun; so, leaning 'way over to one side as the horse swept by them, Raggedy Andy caught both the penny dolls in his strong rag arms and lifted them to a seat upon the broad back of the wooden horse.

"Hooray!" cried all the dolls when they saw Raggedy Andy's feat. "It was just like a Wild West Show!"

"We must all have all the fun we can together!" said Raggedy Andy.

"Good for you!" cried Uncle Clem. "The more fun we can give each other, the more fun each one of us will have!"

The wooden horse made the circle of the nursery a great many times, for it pleased him very much to hear the gay laughter of the dolls and he thought to himself, "How happy I will be, living with such a jolly crowd."

But just as he was about to pass the door, there was a noise upon the stairs and the wooden horse, hearing it, stopped so suddenly Raggedy Andy and the penny dolls went clear over his head and the dolls in the front of the wagon took Raggedy Andy's seat upon the horse's back.

They lay just as they fell, for they did not wish anyone to suspect that they could move or talk.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! I knew you were having a lot of fun!" cried a cheery voice.

At this, all the dolls immediately scrambled back into their former places, for they recognized the voice of the French dollie.

But what was their surprise to see her dressed in a lovely fairy costume, her lovely curls flying out behind, as she ran towards them.

Raggedy Andy was just about to climb upon the horse's back again when the French doll leaped there herself and, balancing lightly upon one foot, stood in this position while the wooden horse rolled around the nursery as fast as he could go.

Raggedy Andy and the two penny dolls ran after the wagon and, with the assistance of Uncle Clem and Raggedy Ann, climbed up in back.

When the wooden horse finally stopped the dolls all said, "This is the most fun we have had for a long time!"