Page:Raggedy Ann Stories.pdf/98

 “When next I was taken from the grip I was in a large, clean, light room and there were many, many girls all dressed in white aprons.

“The stranger friend showed me to another man and to the girls who took off my clothes, cut my seams and took out my cotton. And what do you think! They found my lovely candy heart had not melted at all as I thought. Then they laid me on a table and marked all around my outside edges with a pencil on clean white cloth, and then the girls re-stuffed me and dressed me.

“I stayed in the clean big light room for two or three days and nights and watched my Sisters grow from pieces of cloth into rag dolls just like myself!”

“Your SISTERS!” the dolls all exclaimed in astonishment, “What do you mean, Raggedy?”

“I mean,” said Raggedy Ann, “that the Stranger Friend had borrowed me from Marcella so that he could have patterns made from me. And before I left the big clean white room there were hundreds of rag dolls so like me you would not have been able to tell us apart.”

“We could have told you by your happy smile!” cried the French dollie.

“But all of my sister dolls have smiles just like mine!” replied Raggedy Ann.

“And shoe-button eyes?” the dolls all asked.

“Yes, shoe-button eyes!” Raggedy Ann replied.

“I would tell you from the others by your dress, Raggedy Ann,” said the French doll, “Your dress is fifty years old! I could tell you by that!”

“But my new sister rag dolls have dresses just like mine, for the Stranger Friend had cloth made especially for them exactly like mine.”

“I know how we could tell you from the other rag dolls, even if you all look exactly alike!’’ said the Indian doll, who had been thinking for a long time.

“How?” asked Raggedy Ann with a laugh.