Dick and Dolly

“Well, you see,” said Dolly, “we don’t think – ”

“That’s just it, you never ‘think.’ Now, I’m going to teach you to think, – somehow; I don’t know how yet, but we’ll manage to make you thinkers somehow.”

“After Aunt Nine goes away,” suggested Dick.

“Yes,” agreed Aunt Rachel, “after Aunt Nine goes away.”

CHAPTER XVI

THE PLAYHOUSE

Then they all went down to dinner, the twins holding hands with each other, round Aunt Rachel’s ample waist. As she had an arm round each of their necks, locomotion down the stairways was difficult, but they all accomplished it somehow, and made a triumphal entry at the dining-room door.

Aunt Penninah was already in her chair, and looked up sharply, as if expecting to see a doleful pair of twins.

But the laughing faces proved that, if not enjoying their punishment, the children were, at least, making the best of it, and Aunt Nine sniffed a little, as she asked:

“What have you been doing all morning?”

“Oh, having the beautifullest time!” exclaimed Dolly. “We found an old doll’s house, that used to be Auntie Rachel’s when she was a little girl.”

“And my father played with it, too,” said Dick, proudly.

“Oh, Rachel,” said Miss Abbie, with a disappointed look, “we meant to keep that for their Christmas!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said her sister, serenely; “they may as well have it now. Hannah, tell Michael to bring it down to the playroom while we’re at dinner.”

Hannah obeyed, and the twins could scarcely eat their dinner for anticipation of the fun to come.

“Your punishment doesn’t seem very hard to bear,” said Aunt Nine, looking quizzically at the children.

“Oh, yes it is, Auntie,” said Dick. “We’d ever so much rather run out of doors in this sunshiny day, and save the playhouse for a rainy day. Truly, we feel the punishment very much.”

It somehow seemed to Dick’s queer little brain that it was rude to defraud Aunt Penninah of her rights. She had evidently expected them to repine at being kept indoors, and though they hadn’t exactly done that, she was entitled to know that they really were feeling the punishment. And it was quite true. Both he and Dolly would have gladly postponed the playhouse fun, to scamper out for a run in the garden. Aunt Nine nodded a sort of approval.

“You’re an honest little chap, Dick,” she said; “I’m beginning to like you.”

“Don’t you like Dolly, too?” asked Dick, with the air of one merely seeking information.

“Yes, I like you both. If you’d be a little more thoughtful, and – ”

“Oh, we’re going to learn to think,” said Dolly. “Auntie Rachel is going to teach us.”

“I wish her joy of her task,” said Aunt Penninah, but her eyes twinkled just a little mite, and the twins began to think she was really not such an ogress as she had seemed at first.

After dinner they all went up to the playroom, and found the playhouse well placed, in a corner between two windows.

“Oh,” cried Dolly in rapture, as she saw the boxes full of furniture, and the bundles of carpet.

The carpets smelled of camphor as Aunt Rachel unrolled them, for they had been carefully put away from the moths, and proved to be in perfect condition.

The aunties all looked a bit sober, as the small squares were unfolded, for their thoughts flew back nearly forty years, when Rachel and Abbie had been little girls, and Penninah Dana had been a beautiful young woman.

But no such memories saddened the twins’ hearts, and they capered about in glee, shaking out the carpets, and holding them up for inspection.

“This is the parlour one!” cried Dolly, as a light velvety square appeared.

She tucked it into place, and it exactly fitted the parlour floor.

Two bedroom carpets were there; a library and a dining-room, – and the kitchen already had oilcloth on it.

Then came the furniture, and both twins fairly squealed with delight over the funny little things, as they took them from the boxes and put them in place in the rooms of the playhouse.

The dining-room furniture was all of iron.

“That stove,” said Miss Rachel, holding a black iron stove of the shape known as “cylinder,” “father brought me when I was getting well after the measles. ‘You can build a real fire in it,’ he said, ‘it’s a real little stove.’”

“And did you?” asked Dick.

“Yes; several times. There’s a tiny tin pipe that goes out through this hole in the wall of the house. See?”

The twins saw, but there was so much to see, little time could be spent on any one thing. The parlour furniture was of satin brocade, of deep red colour, which was unfaded, and quite as good as new.

“I helped make those chairs,” said Aunt Nine. “I cut and basted, while your mother sewed them, Rachel.”

“They’re beautifully made,” said Miss Rachel. “Dolly, if you want some more, you can make them in your sewing-hour.”

“I’ll make you some,” said Aunt Penninah. “If you can find some pretty bits of stuff, Abbie, I’ll make a few to-day.”

“Oh, do, Aunt Nine,” cried Dolly. “These chairs are all right, but it would be so lovely to have some new ones of our very own!”

“I’m going to make some little wooden chairs and tables,” said Dick. “I can cut them out with my jigsaw, and glue them together.”

“Do,” said Aunt Abbie, “and we’ll make satin cushions for them, and tie them on with little ribbons.”

The furnishing of the house went on, and it would be hard to say which were more interested, the twins or the older people.

When they came up to the bedrooms, they found the tiny sheets and pillowcases yellow with age.

“Will you make us some new ones, Aunt Rachel?” asked Dolly.

“Yes; or Delia can bleach these for you. They’re as good as ever, except their colour.”

Then the aunties discovered that the portières for the parlour were faded, and the lace curtains had turned irretrievably brown, so off went Aunt Abbie to get some bits of stuff at once, to make new ones.

And very soon the three aunties were busily engaged in cutting and sewing all sorts of pretty things for the house.

The best bedstead was of the sort that requires dimity curtains and valance to make it complete.

Aunt Penninah offered to fit this bed out entirely, and her deft needle flew in and out of the muslins Aunt Abbie brought, until she had made the little bed the most charming affair imaginable.

In addition to the curtains, she hemmed tiny sheets; she made a dear blanket, of a morsel of white flannel bound with ribbon; and lovely pillowcases, with hemstitched ends.

Then, to Dolly’s breathless delight, she made a little silk comfortable, with a layer of cotton-wool in it, and tacked at intervals with microscopic bows of blue ribbon.

Of course this work of the aunties took all the afternoon, and indeed, it wasn’t finished that day.

But the interest in the house grew more and more absorbing as the days went by, and though the children loved out of doors best, they often devoted a few hours of the pleasantest days to “Dana Cottage,” as they called it. When it was nearly finished, as to furnishing, they began to prepare a family of dolls to occupy it. Aunt Nine offered to present the entire family, and afterward assist in making their clothing.

So one fine afternoon Miss Penninah and the twins drove to town to select the dolls. It was great fun, and yet it was a responsibility, too. Dick was quite as much interested as Dolly, for somehow, the house offered so much boyish work, and play, that it didn’t seem like “playing with dolls.”

Besides the twins always did the same things, and Dolly would have lost her own interest in the playhouse if Dick hadn’t shared it.

So, after much consultation, they chose a father and a mother doll, an aunt doll, two small children dolls, and a baby doll. A nurse and two other servants were added, and then they declared they had enough.

“Enough? I should think so!” said Aunt Nine, who began to see endless doll-dressing ahead of her. But her eyes twinkled; and then she let the twins select from the shop several bits of dolls’ furniture that were not in vogue when the playhouse was originally furnished.

Laden with their treasures they all went home, and that very evening the aunties began on the dolls’ wardrobes.

“Is this your idea of disciplining the children, Aunt Nine?” said Miss Rachel, as they sewed, after Dick and Dolly had gone to bed.

Miss Penninah Dana looked a little confused, but she answered straightforwardly:

“I think you were nearer right than I, Rachel. The twins are not what we used to call ‘good children.’ I mean the meek, mild, priggish little persons that children were taught to be when I was young. Dick and Dolly are so full of life and spirits that they do wrong things from sheer thoughtlessness and gaiety of heart. But they are never wilfully mischievous, and never deceitful about it afterward. They do need firm guidance, but they do not need to be taught the difference between right and wrong, for they already know it. They are true Danas.”

When Miss Penninah announced that last fact, she felt that she had given the last word of praise to the twins, and indeed, the other two aunts thought so too.

So clannish were they, and so proud of their fine old family, that they greatly preferred Dick and Dolly to be “true Danas” than to possess many other admirable traits. And so, the three stitched away, quite agreed, at last, on the management of the children, and hoping they would grow up to manhood and womanhood, with the inherited traits of dignity, honour, and refinement that characterised their family.

Meanwhile the “true Danas” upstairs were sleeping soundly, and only awoke when the sun peeped in at their windows and winked and blinked right into their eyes.

And when, later, they danced down to breakfast, there in a row on the sofa sat a smiling and well-dressed family, all ready to take up their abode in “Dana Cottage.”

Dolly went into ecstasies over the mother doll, who wore a trailing house dress of light blue satin trimmed with lace. The aunt, too, was resplendent in crimson velvet, and the children were in the daintiest of white or light frocks.

The father-doll had been difficult to dress, but though a professional tailor might have taken exception to the cut, the aunties had made his neat suit fit him very well indeed.

Dick was interested in the new family, and admired them duly, but he was already thinking of how he could build a yard around the house itself, and he confided his plans to Dolly.

“We’ll fence off a space all round the house,” he said. “I’ll make a little picket fence with splints. It’s just as e-easy! Then we’ll get green velvet carpet for the grass.”

“Oh, carpet isn’t a bit like grass,” objected Dolly. “It’s so thick and dusty. Let’s have real dirt, – or sand.”

“I think sand is messy.”

“Yes, so do I. Oh, I tell you what, Dick! Let’s cut green tissue paper into fine fringe, and put it round where we want grass, – paste it to something, you know, – like we made fairies’ wings, – only green.”

“Yes, that’s the ticket!” exclaimed Dick. “Then we’ll make little paths of, – of brown paper, I guess, – pasted down.”

“Yes; take a big sheet of pasteboard first, and then stick everything on it.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. Then bits of evergreen for trees, and perhaps real flowers, growing in little bits of pots.”

“Oh, it will be lovely! Dick, you’re splendid to think of it all!”

The twins joined hands and jumped up and down, as was their custom when greatly pleased with each other. Then the aunties came in, and they all went to breakfast.

The children told their plan for the yard around the house, and the ladies agreed that it would be lovely.

“I’ll help you to make a pond, Dickie,” said Aunt Penninah, “like one I had when I was a little girl. That dates farther back than Aunt Rachel’s childhood.”

“How do you make a pond?” asked Dick, not much interested in comparative dates of past Danas.

“We must get a piece of mirror, – without a frame, you know, – and put it in the middle of your grass plot, and then put pretty stones or shells round the edge of the mirror, and it looks just like water.”

“And little tin ducks on it,” shouted Dick, “like a real pond! Oh, Auntie, that will be tip-top!”

“And I’ll make you a pond on the other side of your house,” put in Aunt Abbie, “of real water. In a big flat pan, you know; and little sprigs of fern all round the edge.”

“All right; we’ll have both,” declared Dick. “I don’t know which’ll be nicest, they’re both so splendid. And I’ll make a little boat to sail on the water. I can whittle it out of a stick.”

“And I’ll make a sail for it.” said Aunt Abbie, “and we’ll rig up a sail-boat.”

Such interest did the aunts take in the cottage yard, it was almost as if they were children too, and Dick and Dolly became more and more enraptured with the wonderful things they made.

Aunt Abbie fashioned a little hammock with her crochet needle and some green and white cord. When she put fringe along its edges, and suspended it from two evergreen trees in the “yard,” Dolly thought she had never seen anything so cunning. Two little dolls were put into it, and the nurse doll was set to swing them until they fell asleep. Michael, who was greatly pleased with the whole affair, fashioned a tiny arbour just like their own in their playground outside. It was made of tiny twigs, and when the gardener brought it in, as his offering to the general gaiety, it was accepted with hilarious thanks. Very small green vines were twisted about it, and tiny blossoms of forget-me-not or lilies-of-the-valley were entwined. But the little flowerets faded so soon that Aunt Abbie made some diminutive roses of pink tissue paper, which would stay fresh all summer.

Many plans were made for future additional beauties, and the little estate grew rapidly to an elaborate country place, when Michael declared that he should build a barn for it. This announcement was heralded with delight, and for many days, Michael spent all his spare time in the tool-house, Dick and Dolly bobbing about him, and helping or hindering as best they could.

The barn, when done, was a grand affair indeed. Not of very elaborate architecture, but provided with stables, carriage house, feed bins, and even a chicken coop.

Again Aunt Nine took the twins to town on a shopping expedition, and this time they returned with all the four-legged and two-legged toys necessary to complete the barn’s use and beauty. Also there were carriages for the dolls to drive in, and sleighs, too, for in doll land the lack of snow makes no difference in the sleighing season.

Aunt Penninah’s visit of a week lengthened out to a fortnight, but not until the last tiny carriage robe was finished, and the last hat and cape made for the smallest doll, did Aunt Nine make her farewells to Dana Dene.

And, then, she went away, promising to return for another visit as soon as possible, and insisting on a promise that the twins should some day visit her in her own home.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FATE OF DANA COTTAGE

Pinkie was enraptured at her first sight of Dana Cottage. She sat down in front of it and gazed in silence, seemingly unable to take it all in at once.

“Well,” she said at last, “it’s a lovely home for dolls, but wouldn’t it be a fine place for fairies?”

Dolly laughed, for she hadn’t the firm belief in fairies that Pinkie had. Dolls were good enough for her, and as Pinkie loved dolls too, they spent many happy hours with the playhouse.

Sometimes Dick and Jack played with them, and sometimes the boys went off on their own sports, while the girls were absorbed in the dolls’ house.

One afternoon the boys were busily engaged in making and flying kites, and the girls, up in the playroom, were having lots of fun with Dana Cottage, but paused in their play frequently, to run and look out of the window to see how the kites were flying.

“I don’t believe they’ll ever make them go,” said Pinkie, as she and Dolly leaned out of the playroom window. “The kites are too big.”

“Then they’ll have to trim ’em off, or make smaller ones,” said Dolly, philosophically. “I don’t see any fun in kite-flying anyway, just because they ’most never do fly.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny,” said Pinkie, “if you could fly a kite, ’way – ’way up in the air, and then pull it down again, and find a whole lot of fairies perched on it?”

“Yes; that would be fine. But fairies don’t live up in the air.”

“No; they live in the woods, hidden by the ferns and leaves. I wish I could ever see them.”

“Well, you can’t, ’cause they only come out at night. You can’t go to the woods at night, can you?”

“I will, when I’m grown up. ’Course, mother won’t let me now, but when I’m big, the first thing I’m going to do is to go to the woods, and camp out all night, and watch for fairies.”

“All right; I’ll go with you. We’ll surely see them then.”

“Yes, indeed, we will. Oh, I wish we could go now!”

“Well, we can’t. Aunt Rachel wouldn’t let me, and I know your mother wouldn’t let you. Come on, those kites will never fly; let’s go on with the party.”

The doll family in Dana Cottage were giving a very grand party. As there were no other dolls to invite, Pinkie and Dolly had made a lot of paper dolls for the guests. These were not elaborate, being hastily cut from brown paper, but they wanted a lot of guests, so they chopped out a multitude of dolls, and stood them around in the various rooms of the doll house.

“I wish we’d made them prettier,” said Dolly, regretfully, for her artistic sense was jarred upon by the crude brown paper guests in the dainty, pretty rooms.

“So do I,” agreed Pinkie. “Let’s dress them up a little, somehow.”

So they found colored tissue paper, and bedecked the dolls with floating sashes and scarfs and head-dresses, until they presented a much more festive appearance.

“That’s lots better,” declared Dolly, as they placed the improved ladies and gentlemen at the party. So many did they have, that the parlour was filled with dancers, and the dining-room with supper guests at the same time.

Pinkie was of a realistic turn of mind, and insisted on having bits of real cracker or cake or apple in the dishes on the table, and real water in the pitchers and coffee pots on the sideboard.

Dolly was quite content to have scraps of paper for cakes, or even empty dishes filled merely with imagination, but when Pinkie played with her they usually had real things wherever possible.

The china dolls of the family, and the paper guests kept up a continuous conversation, and the voices were either Pinkie’s or Dolly’s as occasion required. A deep, gruff voice represented a gentleman talking, and a high, squeaky voice, a lady.

“What a beautiful party we’re having,” said a brown paper man in Dolly’s deepest chest tones.

“Yes,” squeaked a lovely lady, in light blue crinkled tissue paper. “Please get me a glass of lemonade.”

The brown gentleman deftly poured about two drops of water from a tiny pitcher into a tinier cup, and gallantly offered it to the lady.

It accidentally soaked her tissue paper scarf, as she drank it, but two drops wouldn’t hurt anybody’s costume seriously, so the incident was overlooked, and the gay chatter went on.

“Are you going to opera to-morrow night?” asked one bewitching belle of another.

“Oh, yes,” was the reply. “I’m so fond of music. I practise an hour every day.”

“So do I. I’m learning to sing, too. That’s why I wear this boa, I have to take such care of my throat.”

“Are you warm enough here?” inquired the china hostess, who overheard her paper guests’ conversation; “because, if you aren’t, we can light a fire for you.”

“I do feel a little chilly,” began the paper belle, and then Pinkie’s voice suddenly resumed its natural tones:

“Oh, Dolly, let’s make a fire in the little stove, – a real fire. You said your aunt used to do it.”

“Yes, she did,” said Dolly. “Do you know how?”

“Why, yes; you only put in snips of paper and light ’em. The smoke goes out through the pipe.”

Carefully, the girls put crumpled bits of paper into the little iron stove, and then Dolly brought a match.

“You light it,” she said, and Pinkie struck the match, and touched off the paper.

They shut the tiny stove door, and the paper blazed away merrily. Some smoke came out through the tin pipe, but there wasn’t much of it, and as the windows of the playroom were all wide open, the smoke soon drifted away.

This was a great game indeed, and the guests from the parlour all crowded down into the dining-room to get warm.

There was much laughing and chatter, as the paper dolls came down to the dining-room, and packed themselves in groups against the walls.

“Oh, how good that fire feels,” exclaimed a lady in pink paper. “Why, it’s all gone out!”

It was astonishing how fast the paper in the stove burned itself out, and the girls had to renew it repeatedly, and light it afresh each time.

“I’m ’bout tired of playing this,” said Pinkie; “let’s make one more fire and that’ll be the last. It’s getting awful hot.”

“Yes, make one more,” said Dolly, “for Mrs. Obbercrombie has just come down to get warm.”

“All right; stand her up by the stove.”

Pinkie touched off the newly-laid fire, and Dolly stood paper Mrs. Obbercrombie up near the stove; so near, in fact, that the lady fell over against it.

Dolly reached out to pick her up, but her finger touched the hot stove, and she drew it back with an “Ouch!” The little stove, from the burning of much paper, was nearly red-hot, and when the paper doll fell over against it, she blazed up immediately.

Then the paper dolls nearest her caught fire at once, and in two seconds the paper dolls were all ablaze. The tissue paper scarfs communicated the flames like tinder; the thicker paper of the dolls themselves burned steadily, and in a few moments the curtains caught, then the wooden house itself, and as the breeze from the open windows fanned it, a real conflagration of Dana Cottage ensued!

Soon the paper grass in the cottage yard caught fire, and the wooden animals served as further fuel.

Dolly, her smarting finger still in her mouth, was too frightened even to scream, but Pinkie showed real presence of mind.

She grasped a pitcher of water from the table, and dashed it into the burning house. This was good as far as it went, but it merely checked the flames in one room, and there was no more water about. Then Pinkie seized the big rug from the floor, with intent to throw it over the house. But it was so anchored with heavy tables and other furniture that, of course, she could not budge it.

“Oh!” she gasped at last. “Do something, Dolly! Yell, can’t you? I don’t seem to have any voice!”

Sure enough, poor little Pinkie was so frightened that her voice had failed her, and Dolly was so frightened, she couldn’t think what to do.

So, at Pinkie’s suggestion, she yelled, and Dolly’s yell was that of a young, sound pair of lungs.

“Auntie!” she screamed. “Michael!” But as the playroom was on the third floor, and the aunts were down in the library, they did not hear her. Nor were the servants within ear-shot, so poor Dolly screamed in vain.

But as the flames grew bigger and threatened the window curtains of the playroom, Dolly shouted again, and this time a wild, despairing shriek of “Dick!” seemed to be her last resort.

And, by chance, the boys, with their kites, were not far from the house, and they heard the cry ring out of the playroom window.

“Hello, Dolly!” shouted Dick, back again, not thinking of danger, but merely supposing Dolly was calling to him.

His voice reached Dolly’s ears like a promise of hope, and flying to the window, where the curtains were already scorching, she screamed, “Fire, Dick! Call Michael! Pat! Bring water! Fire! Fire!”

Even as Dolly shouted, Dick and Jack saw the flames, and Dick cried out, “I’ll go for Michael; you go upstairs, Jack, and screech for Aunt Rachel as you go.”

So the two Dana ladies were startled from their quiet reading, by seeing Jack Fuller dash madly in at the front door, and whipping off his cap by instinct, almost pause, as he said politely, but hastily, “Please, Miss Rachel, – good-afternoon. Your house is on fire! Excuse me!” and he ran breathlessly by the library door and up the stairs.