sitting by at work. She was poor in pocket, but rich in knowledge of
life, and kind of heart, and she cried: “Oh, you poor, spoiled child!
If you had a nice, clean rag-doll, such as any work-woman’s child may
play with, you would, I warrant, get more pleasure from it than from
any of these big, hard, silk-clothed ladies that you can’t baby or
coddle to save your life! I’ve a good mind--” then she paused, but the
weary, little face, turned from the splendid doll in dull dislike,
brought her to a determination; she went on: “I’ll have to be quick,
though, for her mother would never give her consent, never!” So Marie
was put to sleep, and the sewing-woman left her proper occupation and
worked hard and fast on something else, for this was the day of the
creation of Dinah.
And I often ask myself this question: If that woman of bright
intelligence and good will, acting under the influence of loving pity
for an unhappy child, could yet produce such a blood-chilling nightmare
as Dinah, what under the blue canopy of Heaven could that same woman
produce if her hand were directed by hate or revenge? Nothing short of
an eye-crossing, world-convulsing creation, I’m sure! At all events, I
made a picture of Dinah, to show a friend of Mrs. Tyler, and when she
looked at it, she had a congestive chill, and it was a good picture too.
Personally, I don’t approve of written descriptions of people,
because they never describe. See descriptions of lost people given to
detectives, where height, weight, and possible age are dwelt on with
great particularity, while a large, seedy wart, mounted conspicuously
on the bridge of his nose, or a drooping, partially paralyzed lid
of the right eye is never mentioned. Then again, though Dinah was
no beauty, I felt so much respect for her powers of endurance, her
silent patience under most trying circumstances, that writing a
personal description of her becomes a painful task. However, if you
will go back to your earliest youth (a longish journey for some of
us, yes, but one still easily made), and recall the paper-dolls of
that period, dolls generally cut from the white margin of the evening
paper by the purloined scissors of that member of the family who most
objected to your using them, you will remember those dolls were always
out in very wide paper pantalettes, modest but ugly, chaste but very
inartistic--well, if you will, in your imagination, trim off the
superfluous width of those pantys, so as to make legs instead, you
will have before your mind’s eye an excellent ground plan of Dinah’s
structure.
The linen being doubled, and Dinah being all in one piece, it followed
that she had great strength of limb, and never, even during the stress
and strain of her hardest years, did she lose either leg or arm. Yet,
whenever the spoiled Marie lost her temper, the bisque, wax, and
china beauties surely lost legs or arms or eyes, Mrs. Tyler lost her
head, and poor Mr. Tyler parted with his hopes of heaven, while Dinah
remained whole and still in one piece. When her figure was complete,
she was about three hands high and without any sign of blood or race
about her. One side of the head having been selected for the back,
because it had puckered a little in the sewing, it was carefully but
lavishly inked, a plain solid coat of ink behind, while about the brow
and temples the ink formed those precise scollops, gracefully termed
by the French “water-waves.” Then followed the eyebrows, still of ink,
and of fearful and wonderful drawing, and below them--eyes?--oh, yes!
eyes of course; what else could there be beneath eyebrows but eyes?
But they certainly were peculiar eyes; there was no wearying monotony
about them, but rather a pleasing variety. One was, I remember, quite
nice and round, and looked to the front in an honest, kindly way, while
the other was square enough to have corners, and it looked downward
and inward, right into that spot where, if she had had any features,
her nose would have been. As to the mouth--I suppose I have to mention
it--there was so much of it, but I wish I could be silent; you see,
the linen was roughly woven, and here and there a coarse, heavy thread
appeared, and when the penful of red ink was applied it touched a
coarse thread, which soaked up the ink like a sponge and led straight
across her entire countenance. Of course the red ink could not be
removed, and the situation and the mouth had to be accepted, though it
seemed the more remarkable because of the infinitesimal mouths always
given to the dolls of commerce.
As to her taste in dress, only words of praise can be given to Dinah.
Never, never did I see her decked out in silk, satin, or velvet, and
only once, in the middle of an oldest inhabitant’s coldest winter, did
I see her in merino.
She usually wore print or gingham, while her undergarments, numerous
and beautifully made, were of a material so coarse and strong as to
cause surprise to strangers, but to those who had the misfortune
to know the little vixen, Marie, these coarse skirts, pantalettes
and chemises, stoutly stitched with about thirty-six cotton, were
luminous with meaning, suggesting as they did the dread possibility of
_tantrums_ on the part of said vixen, Marie.
Dinah was complete save for her shoes, which were already cut from a
pair of old kid gloves, and her name. I remember her creator wished
to call her Lillian, but with all the wisdom of my five full-fledged
years well to the fore, I suggested that it would be well for all
of us to leave the christening to Miss Marie, herself. And she of
thirty-five years bent her head to my five, and the name of Lillian
floated back to the limbo from which it had been so briefly called. As
the second shoe was taken up, Marie showed signs of waking, and the
newly created one was thrust into my hands, and I was told to go and
give it to the little tot. But deep down in my soul I said, “Nay! Nay!”
for mark you, I was a canny child, and ten years of life’s experiences
had been crowded into my five of actual time, and hell and bitter
punishments took prominent places in the religion thus far made known
to me. I said to myself therefore: “This child _is_ wicked, for all
she is so pretty, she’s _awful_, and if for her punishment she is to
be frightened to death by the sight of this nameless thing, I don’t
intend to be the instrument used in her undoing!” So, swiftly I crept
to the great crib-bed, and in a moment crept away again, leaving across
her stomach, like a hideous nightmare, that “deed without a name,” and
then I fled to the hall and waited for things, behind the partly open
door; wondering which of the little cups and glasses on a stand by the
bed, holding cooling drinks, would strike the door first. I waited and
watched. Marie’s eyes opened, a scowl instantly darkened her face; in a
querulous tone she asked, “Is my mamma, home, now?”
The voice of the sempstress answered gently, “No, dear,” and a light
like sunshine came into her brilliant eyes; she smiled sweetly and
asked, “Where’s my Cawie?” her name for me, and as near as she could
get to Carrie, and then she felt the weight across her, and the moment
had come!
She lifted the thing, and they were face to face. The child’s eyes
opened wider and wider, the pupils dilated, the lids flickered
nervously, then came a faint, long-drawn “Oh--h--h!” another pause,
broken at last by the announcement, calmly and gravely made, “She eyes,
don’t fit each other!”
Marie had trouble with her personal pronouns, as well as with her
relatives.
Next moment she rolled over and began to scramble into a sitting
posture, during which she all unconsciously pressed the doll tightly
against her little chest. (Oh, for us, happy accident!) for the next
instant, with a shout of surprise and joy, she cried, “Oh, she cuddles,
she cuddles!”
Two words which were to become familiar to every member of the family,
in the time to come, “She cuddles, and she is Dinah, my peshous! Dinah,
always!”
And she who had thought of Lillian rashly exclaimed, “But why on earth,
Dinah?”
And received for answer, “Caus’, I say so, and caus’ my mamma jess
hates the Dinah song.” A so-called “comic,” named “Wilkins and Dinah”
that Mrs. Tyler raged at when her young brother used to sing it within
her hearing.
So it was pure malice that prompted “Tyler’s little vixen” to name her
new treasure “Dinah”! Then following that rule of action familiar to
all small girls with dolls since before the building of the temple, she
turned Dinah upside down, that she might know quantity, quality, and
condition of her undergarments, and when she found that Dinah possessed
that final charm, that very crown of happy dolldom, the ability to have
her clothes put on and off, to be dressed and undressed at will, the
measure was full, her joy complete.
She turned her Dinah right side up again and kissed her fondly. At
that sight my short legs basely betrayed me, and I sat down with
unnecessary emphasis the deaf might have heard. Instantly the cry
arose: “You, Cawie, Cawie, come here and see my ‘peshous Dinah’!”
I rose and obeyed. Shortly after, when the “peshous one” had been
properly shod, and Marie was dressed for tea, we went forth to walk
Dinah; but Marie, recalling the three handsome dolls sitting bolt
upright in the parlor, suddenly commanded me to return and make faces
at them, “real bad faces, too, for being so stiff and big they couldn’t
cuddle.”
But I suggested that she should wait till the gas was burning, and
then let the dolls see Dinah, and with malicious joy she waited. And
so began the fellowship between those two. Straight into her warm and
tender, little heart the vixen took her “peshous Dinah” and gave her
a love that could not be shaken by a mother’s angry tears, a father’s
bribery, or the contemptuous sneers of friends and neighbors--a love
that lasted so long as Dinah’s self. The effect she produced on people
at first sight was remarkable. There was Mr. Tyler, for instance; a
good-looking man, very quiet, very gentle and very kind. He never
drank, yet the first time he saw Dinah he thought he did, and he was
afraid to kiss his wife, lest she should think so, too; and I saw him
secretly touch Dinah once or twice, to make sure she was real.
Marie’s young uncle, too, he was preparing for college, and though he
was gay and full of fun, his conduct was excellent, and he was very
strict about Sunday observances, but when he met Dinah he exclaimed:
“Well, I’ll be d--d!” Perhaps that was not Dinah’s fault. He might
have been thinking of his future state, and had just arrived at that
conclusion.
Perhaps the most disagreeable occurrence was when the minister,
Presbyterian, called, and not having his glasses on, sat himself down
heavily upon Dinah. He instantly sprang up to remove the foreign
substance he felt beneath him, and meeting the malevolent eye of
the “peshous one,” he exclaimed, in a startled tone: “God bless my
soul!--er--er--I should say--what on earth?”
But with a bound, the vixen, Marie, was at his side, crying: “How dare
you, you too fat, bad old man; you sat on my Dinah and swor’d, you did!”
With a crimson face he answered: “Oh, no; oh, no! my dear little child,
you are mistaken. I----”
But Marie stamped her foot at him and cried: “You swor’d! you swor’d!”
upon which tableau entered Mrs. Tyler.
Gradually, however, Dinah came to be accepted by the family, and it
was surprising to see how useful she became to its various members.
Mr. Tyler, who did a good deal of office work at home, used her almost
continuously as a pen-wiper. Instead of having to pick up a tiny round
of cloth and carefully fit the pen to a narrow fold, Dinah allowed a
largeness and freedom of movement very pleasant to him. Just a swipe
at her in almost any direction, and the pen was clean.
The young uncle, who delighted in the comfort of a rocking-chair, yet
detested its movement, used Dinah as a sort of brake, placing her under
the back of a rocker at just the right angle to prevent action, while
many a time the somewhat flighty housemaid, having forgotten to dust
the “what-not” (indispensable adjunct of the parlor of that date),
would snatch up Dinah and dust all the shelves and their contents with
her, fitting her arm or her leg into the depths of “To a Good Girl,”
or “From Chelsia,” or “Friendship’s Offering”--these cups and mugs,
with their roses and posies and fine gold lettering, being veritable
dust traps, as were the sea shells, with the Lord’s Prayer cut on their
surface, and the parian-marble Rebeccas standing by salt-cellar-like
wells, and of such was the bric-a-brac of that day, you know--the day
of wax things under glass shades.
The entire family used the back of Dinah’s head as a pin cushion, while
again and again I have seen her act as an iron-holder, when a sash
ribbon or bit of lace had to be pressed just there in the sitting-room.
But it was as a weapon of defence that she got in her really fine
work. Grasped firmly by the legs and directed by impassioned energy
toward a wisely selected point, Dinah was capable of giving a blow
as surprising to witness as it was stunning to feel. Practice makes
perfect, and so it came about that that vixen, Marie’s, aim was so
quick, so steady and so true, that she landed with Dinah right on the
intended spot every time. She paid no attention to rules about the belt
line, striking below it with as much vigor as above it. There was never
any clinching, because no one would come near enough for that, but I
have known her to strike a blow with Dinah hard enough to rupture Mrs.
Tyler’s agreement with the cook.
Some months after Dinah’s arrival I became recognized as a sort of
family lightning-rod, since I had the power of deflecting the fluid
wrath and deviltry of Marie’s temper and leading it to comparatively
harmless points.
She was very fond of me, partly because I was older than she was, and
partly because I found so many new things for her to play. Everything I
saw away from home was served up at once as a play for Marie. Oh, that
was a great occasion when I saw a lady faint in a store! Dinah had to
faint so many times in one day that she was wet clear through her whole
body, from her many revivings, and was in such a disgraceful condition
from the brandy we gave her that, being utterly unable to stand, she
had to hang on the clothes-line several hours before she could be
endured in a warm room, and I remember Marie asked me if the lady had
smelled like that.
Mr. Tyler was not a very strong man, not sickly--what a hateful
word--but rather delicate; in fact, though he never _said_ so, he had
nerves, and it must have tried them severely when he came to breakfast
and had to face Dinah, sitting in the middle of the table, with her
back against the big family castor, and her one straight eye fixed upon
his shrinking countenance. The skeleton at the banquet never made half
the effect the “peshous ’un” made, for in the first place the skeleton
was crowned with roses, and there were bright lights and a small
river of wine to help the guests forget the presence of their ghastly
companion; but no skull that was ever bleached had a smile to compare
with Dinah’s, which crossed her entire face and would have gone on and
met at the back of her head had it not been stopped by her side seams,
where her front and her back were sewed together. There were no roses
on Dinah and no wine to dim her effect, and poor Mr. Tyler chipped his
egg and crumbled his roll, but, with that eye upon him, got no further,
and merely taking his coffee, he fled. The rest of us got a side or
back view, so we did not suffer so much. This went on until dyspepsia
developed. I have said before, I was very fond of Mr. Tyler, and I
began to look for some way to help him. One day, at table, the uncle
had nearly betrayed a surprise that was being prepared for the little
Marie, and Mrs. Tyler reached out her foot and pushed him to enforce
silence, a movement at once discovered by that acute young person, who
thereupon made a scene, and thereafter passed much of her time, at
meals, hanging head downward from her chair, trying to see under the
table that she might (in her own language), “see who kicked who,” a
habit which caused many upsettings of things and much discomfort, but
one to which she clung until I made a suggestion which found favor in
her eyes.
“Ah!” said I, “if Dinah belonged to me I’d make her do something
lovely!” “Oh, what?” cried the little vixen, and after much coaxing I
spoke, with the blessed result that for over two weeks, at breakfast,
dinner and tea, Dinah, the dreadful, was carefully placed _under_ the
table to watch “who kicked who.” “Ah!” cried Marie, “yer can’t wink yer
eyes at each other, ’cause I is looking at yer all! Yer can’t kick each
other, ’cause Dinah’s looking at yer hard, and if yer spell things,
I’ll--I’ll--I’ll just hold my breff and die! so now, I’ll have to know
everyfing!”
But Mr. Tyler ate his egg and toast, and smilingly drank a _second_ cup
of coffee mornings, and he patted my shoulder and gave me a big, red
Canadian penny, which Marie, being jealous, took from me and threw down
the well, while the young uncle started the lightning-rod idea, saying
“that I had diverted Marie’s deviltry from the top of the table to the
bottom, where it was harmless.”
I will mention one episode in Dinah’s life, and that will serve to
indicate pretty fairly what the others were like. I always call it the
hail-stone episode. Late one afternoon a violent storm had come on.
We were all frightened, and poor, little, spoiled Marie was quivering
from head to foot with nervous terror. Presently the rain turned to
hail, great lumps of ice came dashing against the windows, and “crack!”
went a big window-pane, and in fell the pieces of glass. Again came the
rushing rain, and the water falling on a table covered with books, the
housemaid caught up _something_ and thrust it into the opening in the
broken window. Alas, and alas! that “something” was Dinah! The “peshous
un”! Dinah the beloved! There she was, her cross-eyes looking at us
from between her glove-shod feet, like a contortionist at a circus,
while her doubled body was thrust out into the hail and rain outside.
And there, all unknown to us, she remained for a long, long time, and
the thunder rolled and the house shook till the spoons rattled and
tinkled in their holder. And suddenly Marie lifted up a marble-white,
little face, and putting out her hand to my mother, said, faintly,
“Aunty? (courtesy title only) tell God, please stop! I’m frightened!”
The awful dazzle of lightning followed her words, and again she
buried her face, laying her tiny hands over her ears, to keep out
the terrifying sounds. A lamp was lighted, and they began to undress
her and prepare her for bed, simply to divert her attention from the
storm. She was very silent, but she shook violently, and her eyes were
strained and wild-looking. Suddenly the heavens seemed to flame! The
crash that followed left the ears ringing! We all cried out, but the
vixen gave a bound and stood in the middle of the room; her eyes fairly
blazed; she raised them to the ceiling, and in a shrill voice she
cried, “Stop! stop, I tell you! I’m frightened!”
Again a dazzle of lightning, again a roar of thunder, and in an instant
that little bundle of nerves had darted to the hall, and with both
hands succeeded in turning the knob (the wind did the rest), and to our
unutterable horror, we saw her little, white-robed figure dart down
the steps, and standing on the bit of rain-soaked lawn, mad with rage,
she lifted her challenging face to the black sky, and stamping her
bare, little foot, she cried, against the wind, “How dare you, God? I’m
little Marie Tyler, and I told you I was afraid! How dare you? a great
big God like you, frighten a little girl like me?” and then she was in
her mother’s arms, and was carried into the house dripping as from a
river, and spitting and hissing like an enraged cat.
The storm ceased at last, at least the _outer_ storm; there was another
coming, for where was my “peshous Dinah”?
Everyone looked, looked high and low, looked until we got to the place,
where we stood and looked stupidly at one another, and then there came,
in a strained whisper, from Marie: “What’s that?”
She pointed at a dripping bundle sticking in the broken window-pane.
Mrs. Tyler screamed outright! Those cross-eyes looking at her from
between those stubby feet. There was a wild _abandon_ in the attitude
that shocked her! But her scream was as nothing compared to the
succession of shrieks that broke from the throat of “Tyler’s pretty
little devil”! “Who? a--a--ah! Who? a--a--ah! Who? a--a--ah!” she
screamed after each “Who?”
At last she finished, “_Who_ put my ‘peshous Dinah’ in that hole? She
shall be killed, all dead! and put in a hole, her own-self! She shall!!
She shall!!!” She caught up a glass from the table and dashed it on
the floor, breaking it in pieces. “Hurry! or I’ll break everything, I
will!!” And when Dinah was pulled out and straightened, words of mine
fail to describe her appearance!
Marie held loving little arms out to receive the dripping stop-gap,
saying: “We’ll go to bed, right now, my ‘peshous Dinah’! Never mind
your nighty, you’ll get cold! Come, and we’ll cuddle up, until you are
all dry again!” And then the storm broke! It was simply impossible
that Marie should be allowed to go to bed with that dripping bundle
pressed in her arms, and it was equally impossible to make her obey
or listen to reason. It was a wretched scene. The mother knelt to the
child she had ruined, calling her, “her angel, her star, her flower,”
and Marie gave her a kick or a push at each word, and swore oaths that
a mule-driver would hesitate before ejecting in a row. Where had she
learned them? Who knows? Who ever knows how a beloved child learns
evil? But on and on went this battle, until at last, worn out with the
past fright and the present rage, the little vixen fainted.
Mrs. Tyler sent for the doctor, and while waiting his coming, and
after Marie’s recovery of consciousness, she said to me: “Carrie, can’t
you think of some way to keep that awful doll away from my darling
to-night? Try, child, try!”
I thought hard enough to turn my hair gray, it seemed to me, before I
was gladdened by an idea. I went to the door and beckoned Mrs. Tyler,
and asked her, in a whisper, two or three questions about an article
she had been reading aloud when the storm arose--an article about
the water-cure, then the very newest fad. She gave me the desired
information, and thus armed, I stole to Marie’s side, and with great
seeming secrecy, told her I had a lovely new play, if only her mother
would allow us (poor Mrs. Tyler!) to play it.
Rather languidly, she answered: “To-morrow, Cawie!”
But I said: “To-morrow would be too late, because Dinah had to be awful
wet to play this game.”
At once she was all eagerness, and commanded me to explain. And so it
came about, that the “peshous un” was stripped under loving eyes and
rolled in a wet dinner-napkin, and then “packed” in wet sheets, all
according to “Hoyle,” or the water-cure doctors. And I engaged to give
her several drinks of water during the night, and assured Marie that
she would find her “peshous Dinah” all right in the morning, and Marie
laughed and talked, while I did the packing. And the doctor found her
with a high pulse and red cheeks, but the wet doll was not in her arms.
She refused to show her tongue, because she said the last time she put
out her tongue at him, he was mad about it, which was very true.
He gave her a powder, she went to sleep, and the rest of us humbly
thanked our Creator.
Dinah was snatched out of her “pack” and put in the warm oven to dry,
while the other members of the family slept the sleep of the weary and
the worn.
Three entire years passed in alternate peace and strife. Acting in
the interest of decency and cleanliness, Mrs. Tyler had covered Dinah
with fresh linen several times. Little Marie had grown taller, more
beautiful, and more impish; while Dinah still reigned supreme, though
almost every bureau in the house had in its bottom drawer a wax doll or
two, rolled up in towels.
For some time before the great disaster, we had been tormented by cats.
Why our garden should have been selected for their mass-meetings, I
can’t imagine. We lived in a fashionable quarter; there was an air of
eternal Sabbath brooding over our heavily shaded street; a few lap-dogs
resided thereon, but no one stooped to cats. Yet night and cats
descended upon us together.
Mrs. Tyler raised many herbs for kitchen use, but after the arrival of
the cats the herbs entered the kitchen no more. The back garden was
destroyed.