door and 'Ooh-hooed' to
Marcella to come and get a nice new doughnut. So Marcella, thinking to
return in a minute, left me lying upon the sled and ran through the snow
to Gran'ma's. And there I stayed and stayed until I began to feel stiff
and could hear the cotton inside me go, 'Tic! Tic!' as it began to
freeze.

[Illustration: Raggedy Andy on a sled at night]

"I lay upon the sled until after the sun went down. Two little Chicadees
came and sat upon the sled and talked to me in their cute little bird
language, and I watched the sky in the west get golden red, then turn
into a deep crimson purple and finally a deep blue, as the sun went
farther down around the bend of the earth. After it had been dark for
some time, I heard someone coming through the snow and could see the
yellow light of a lantern. It was Gran'ma.

"She pulled the sled over in back of her house and did not see that I
was upon it until she turned to go in the kitchen; then she picked me up
and took me inside. 'He's frozen as stiff as a board!' she told Marcella
as she handed me to her. Marcella did not say why she had forgotten to
come for me, but I found out afterward that it was because she was so
wet. Gran'ma made her change her clothes and shoes and stockings and
would not permit her to go out and play again.

"Well, anyway," concluded Raggedy Andy, "Marcella tried to limber my arm
and, being almost solid ice, it just burst. And that is the way it went
all the time we were out at Gran'ma's; I was wet nearly all the time.
But I wish you could all have been with me to share in the fun."

And Raggedy Andy again leaned over the little toy stove and rubbed his
rag hands briskly together.

Uncle Clem went to the waste paper basket and came back with some scraps
of yellow and red paper. Then, taking off one of the tiny lids, he
stuffed the paper in part of the way as if the flames were "shooting
up!"

Then, as all the dolls' merry laughter rang out, Raggedy Andy stopped
rubbing his hands, and catching Raggedy Ann about the waist, he went
skipping across the nursery floor with her, whirling so fast neither saw
they had gone out through the door until it was too late. For coming to
the head of the stairs, they both went head over heels, "blumpity,
blump!" over and over, until they wound up, laughing, at the bottom.

"Last one up is a Cocoa baby!" cried Raggedy Ann, as she scrambled to
her feet. And with her skirts in her rag hands she went racing u