WHAT HAPPENED TO TILLY MAUD
The first thing Sally heard the next morning when she opened her eyes
was a splash and a drip, a drip and a splash.
‘It is raining,’ said Sally. ‘My new little dove will be drowned.’
But when Sally ran to the window, her little white dove didn’t seem to
be minding the rain in the least. His coat glistened in the wet like
silver, his black eyes looked blacker, his yellow bill more yellow,
while his wings whirled briskly about in the damp wind as if the gay
little fellow were really enjoying the rainy day.
‘I believe he likes the rain, Mother,’ said Sally, ‘and so do I, if I
may have Alice over to play with me.’
Sally’s playroom was up in the attic. At one end were trunks and boxes
and bundles. These belonged to Mother and were not to be touched. But
the other end was Sally’s own, and here were gathered all her toys and
treasures, large and small.
So up the steep attic stairs this rainy morning climbed Sally, followed
by Alice from over the way, who held under one arm a gay picture book
and under the other a plump, if somewhat dingy, rag doll.
‘I thought I would bring my picture book,’ Said Alice, out of breath at
the top of the stairs, ‘and my dolly, too. Her name is Tilly Maud. But
let me see your toys first.’
Sally was only too glad to walk about her end of the attic, pointing
out her toys and telling the name and history of each one.
‘Here is my rocking horse,’ said she, patting a shabby gray pony, who
had lost most of his tail, but whose eyes still glistened brown and
bright. ‘His name is Dapple Gray. And here are three of my children.
They live in this shoe-box. Their names are Dora and Nora and Flora,
and no one can tell them apart but me.’
Dora and Nora and Flora were three little black-haired dolls with china
heads and sawdust bodies. One was dressed in pink, and one in blue, and
one in green. They sat in a stiff row and smiled sweetly up at Sally
and Alice with their tiny red mouths. They all had shining, black eyes
and round, red cheeks and black boots painted on their china feet.
‘They look just alike to me,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t see how you ever
know them apart.’
‘I will tell you,’ answered Sally, ‘only remember it is a secret.’
She leaned forward and spoke softly in Alice’s ear.
‘I know them by their clothes,’ whispered Sally. ‘Dora wears pink, and
Nora wears blue, and Flora wears green. Isn’t that easy? Now come and
see my other dolls. They are asleep in the cradle.’
Sally led the way to a low, old-fashioned wooden cradle, quite large
enough to hold a real baby or two, and with a push set it swinging
sleepily to and fro.
‘It is a really-truly cradle,’ explained Sally with a nod of her head.
‘It was mine, and it was Mother’s, and it was Grandmother’s, too. But I
use it for my dolls because we have no baby who needs it now.’
‘We have no baby, either,’ volunteered Alice, ‘only Mother and me.’
‘This is Nancy Lee,’ went on Sally, lifting from the cradle a doll
dressed in a white middy blouse and dark blue bloomers. ‘She is made of
wood. Captain Ball down the street made her. He has a little shop. See,
she can bend her arms and legs, and she will never, never break.’
Nancy Lee was a sturdy, strong little doll made of wood from head to
foot, with eyes of ocean blue and a neat row of yellow curls. Her back
was as stiff as a poker, quite different from the floppy rag doll whom
Sally now lifted from her bed.
‘Here is Paulina,’ said Sally, trying to straighten the dolly’s
drooping head. ‘She is as old as I am, and almost as worn-out looking
as your Tilly Maud. But I love her even if she is dirty and old.’
‘They are the best to sleep with,’ said Alice soberly. ‘I have a white
bed for my dolls at home. But all my toys are packed away, and I have
only Tilly Maud with me here.’
‘This is my stove, and here is my doll-house,’ went on Sally, moving
round the room. ‘Father made the house for me out of a big box last
winter. And this sofa has a broken leg. It can’t stay downstairs. So
sometimes I play it is a ship, and sometimes a train. It is anything I
like. Now what shall we play this morning, Alice? You tell first what
you want to play.’
‘I would like to play “house,”’ said Alice promptly. ‘I like “house”
best of all. Tilly Maud is sick. She ought to go to bed.’
‘So is Paulina,’ returned Sally, well pleased with this idea. ‘See how
red her face is! She has measles, I think. And Dora and Nora and Flora
ought to go to bed, too. Don’t you think their faces are too red,
Alice, to stay up any longer?’
It was quite true that the cheeks of Dora and Nora and Flora were as
red as the reddest cherries that ever grew on a tree, and Sally and
Alice were of one mind in thinking that these dollies must be very ill
indeed.
‘Let us put every one of them to bed together on the sofa,’ suggested
Alice.
So all in a row the sick and suffering children were placed on the old
sofa and tenderly covered from the chill of the rainy day.
On the end lay Tilly Maud, and next to her came Paulina, both of them
long and limp and shabby, with toes that would stick out from under the
coverlet no matter how often their nurses patted them down or tucked
them snugly in.
‘We will put Nancy Lee to bed, too,’ decided Sally, ‘because she is
sure to catch measles from the other children, even if she hasn’t them
now.’
So Nancy Lee, stiff and stubby, was snuggled down beside her sister
Paulina.
Then came the rosy Dora and Nora and Flora, still smiling sweetly in
spite of being put to bed in high black boots and the only dresses they
owned in all the world.
‘Now they must have medicine,’ said Sally with spirit. ‘Here are
spoons. But we haven’t any bottles. What shall we do?’
‘One can take a cup,’ answered Alice, who had been examining the stove
and the little tin cupboard above it, ‘and the other can use this
little pail.’
So up and down the row of sufferers went Sally and Alice, armed with
their spoons and pail and cup.
‘They must have medicine every two minutes by the clock,’ said Sally,
taking from the doll-house the little grandfather clock and setting the
tiny pendulum a-swing.
‘It is very thick and black medicine,’ said Alice, stirring round and
round in her empty pail. ‘I think thick and black medicine is the
best, don’t you?’
‘Always,’ was Sally’s answer, as she lifted poor Paulina to take her
tenth dose.
‘See how nicely Tilly Maud drinks her medicine! She doesn’t even make
a face,’ said Alice, smiling proudly down on helpless Tilly Maud, who
looked as miserable as a dolly could.
‘Paulina is not so good, I am afraid,’ said Sally, with a frown and a
severe wave of her spoon. ‘She doesn’t want to open her mouth for me.
Perhaps I shall have to hold her nose, next time.’
‘How can you,’ asked Alice, ‘when she hasn’t any nose?’
‘S-s-sh-sh!’ said Sally. ‘I only said that to make her behave. I don’t
think these children are getting well fast enough, Alice. You ride
Dapple Gray for the doctor, and I will go downstairs for Tippy to come
up and be the doctor for us.’
So Alice climbed on Dapple Gray and away she rode at a great pace to
fetch the doctor, while Sally sped downstairs in search of Master Tip.
Presently back came Sally dragging with her sleepy Buff.
‘I couldn’t bring Tippy,’ she explained, ‘because he has been out all
morning in the wet and Mother wouldn’t let him come in the house with
his muddy feet. He wanted to come. He is jumping and barking at the
back door now. But Buff will have to do instead.’
So Buff was marched up and down the sofa and made to look each sufferer
in the face. But before he had time to say whether he thought his
patients better or worse, there came a loud scratching of feet, a rush
up the attic stairs, and across the room whirled Tippy, wet and muddy,
to land with a thump on the sofa on top of the whole family of dolls.
‘Mi-e-ow!’ cried Dr. Buff in a fright, and took refuge on the
window-sill.
‘Come down, Tip, come down,’ called Sally, stamping her foot; while
Alice pressed her hands together in distress as she saw the pretty
coverlet and the row of clean dollies spattered and spotted from one
end to the other with mud.
‘Come down, come down!’ cried Sally again.
But Tippy had not finished his morning’s fun.
He did jump down from the sofa. But as he jumped, he seized in his
teeth poor plump Tilly Maud who lay on the end of the row, and with the
dolly in his mouth, ran round and round the room.
At this dreadful sight Alice hid her face in her hands. Sally called
and stamped her foot. But Tippy cared not at all. He thought only of
his fun.
Now he stopped to thump Tilly Maud up and down on the floor. Now he
threw her from him only to pounce upon her again. He ran to and fro,
round about, with a look on his face ‘just as if he were laughing’
Sally said afterward, when she told Father all about it that night.
Then Sally started downstairs to call Mother.
When Tippy saw this, he rudely pushed past Sally on the stairs, and
with Tilly Maud still in his mouth rushed like a whirlwind down through
the house and out of the back door into the wet grass.
Mother could scarcely believe her eyes when Tippy, shaking Tilly Maud,
flew past her, followed by Sally, with a very red face, calling out,
‘Mother! Mother! Stop him! Mother!’
Last of all came Alice, running very fast, her eyes filled with tears,
but not speaking a single word.
‘Sally, what is it?’ asked Mother, catching Sally by the arm and
bringing her to a stand-still. ‘You mustn’t go outdoors in the wet
grass. What has Tippy in his mouth?’
‘He has Tilly Maud, Alice’s doll,’ gasped Sally, her eyes big with
excitement and her hair standing out all round her head. ‘Stop him,
Mother, won’t you? He has Alice’s doll.’
‘She is all I have,’ wailed Alice, finding her voice. ‘She is all the
dolly I have. My other dolls are packed away at home.’
Out on the back porch they all three hurried, only to see naughty Tippy
racing round and round in the grass, flinging Tilly Maud up in the air,
dragging her along the ground, and then running as hard and fast as
ever a little brown dog could run.
Mother stepped inside and back she came with a broom. Tippy rolled his
eye up at the porch. He saw the broom.
With one great fling he tossed Tilly Maud up in the air, and then off
rushed Tippy and out of sight before you could say ‘Jack Robinson.’
At a nod from Mother down the steps darted Sally, but, oh! what a sad
dolly it was that she brought back and laid on the porch at Mother’s
and Alice’s feet.
Dirty, wet, bedraggled, torn!
Tears sprang to Sally’s eyes and tears rolled down Alice’s cheeks as
they looked at poor, miserable Tilly Maud lying there.
Even Mother’s face grew sober for a moment. Then she stooped and
tenderly raised Tilly Maud from the ground.
‘The first thing to do is to dry Tilly Maud,’ said Mother. ‘It may be,
when she is dry and cleaned, that she will be fit to play with again.
And the next thing to do is to put on our hats and coats and rubbers
and go down the street to Captain Ball’s.’
‘Captain Ball’s? What for?’ asked Sally.
Alice, winking away a tear, listened to what Mother had to say.
‘To buy a new doll for Alice,’ was Mother’s answer.
‘A Nancy Lee?’ cried Sally, spinning round on one toe. ‘Mother, will
you buy Alice a Nancy Lee?’
‘If that is the doll Alice wants,’ said Mother, with a smile at Alice’s
April face.
‘Do you?’ asked Sally, catching her friend by the arm. ‘Do you want a
Nancy Lee like mine?’
And Alice, with shining eyes, answered, ‘I would rather have a Nancy
Lee than any other doll in all the world.’