fell asleep on the floor, and when her father's step sounded below,
waked in a calmer mood. She was sorry that she had been so naughty, and
tried to make up for it by being more helpful and patient in the evening
and next day. Her mother easily forgave her, and she did not find it
hard to forgive herself, and soon forgot the event of that unhappy
afternoon. Mr. Carpenter sat down in front of his cylinders that night,
and filled them all, as he supposed, with nice little sentences to
please and surprise small doll owners, such as "Good morning, Mamma.
Shall I put on my pink or my olive frock this morning?" or "Good-night,
Mamma. I'm so sleepy!" or bits of nursery rhymes,--Bo Peep or Jack and
Jill or Little Boy Blue. Then, when the phonographs were filled, the
machinery went away to be put in the dolls, and Mr. Carpenter began on a
fresh set.
Mrs. Carpenter, meanwhile, had finished her big job of sewing, so she
felt less hurried, and had more time for the baby. The weather was
beautiful, things went well at school, and altogether life seemed
pleasant to Amy, and she found it easy to be kind and good-natured.
This agreeable state of things lasted through the autumn. The
Dolliphone, as Mr. Carpenter had christened his invention, proved a hit.
Orders poured in from all over the United States, and from England and
France, and the manufactory was taxed to its utmost extent. At last one
of Mr. Carpenter's inventions had turned out a success, and his spirits
rose high.
"We've fetched it this time, Mother," he told his wife. "The stock's
going up like all possessed, and the dolls are going out as fast as we
can get them ready. Why, we've had orders from as far off as Australia!
China'll come next, I suppose, or the Cannibal Islands. There's no end
to the money that's in it."
"I'm glad, Robert, I'm sure," returned Mrs. Carpenter; "but don't count
too much upon it all. I've thought a heap of that self-acting churn, you
remember."
"Pshaw! the churn never did amount to shucks anyhow," said her husband,
who had the true inventor's faculty for forgetting the mischances of the
past in the contemplation of the hopes of the future. "It was just a
little dud to make folks open their eyes, any way. This Dolliphone is
different. It's bound to sell like wild-fire, once it gets to going.
We'll be rich folks before we know it, Mother."
"That'll be nice," said Mrs. Carpenter, with a dry, unbelieving cough.
She did not mean to be as discouraging as she sounded, but a woman can
scarcely be the wife of an unsuccessful genius for fifteen years, and
see the family earnings vanish down the throat of one invention after
another, without becoming outwardly, as well as inwardly, discouraged.
"Now, don't be a wet blanket, Mother," said Mr. Carpenter,
good-humoredly. "We've had some upsets in our calculation, I confess,
but this time it's all coming out right, as you'll see. And I wanted to
ask you about something, and that is what you'd think of Amy's having
one of the dolls for her Christmas? Don't you think it'd please her?"
"Why, of course; but do you think you can afford it, Robert? The dolls
are five dollars, aren't they?"
"Yes, to customers they are, but I shouldn't have to pay anything like
that, of course. I can have one for cost price, say a dollar
seventy-five; so if you think the child would like it, we'll fix it so."
"Well, I should be glad to have Amy get one," said Mrs. Carpenter,
brightening up. "And it seems only right that she should, when you
invented it and all. She's been pretty good these last weeks, and she'll
be mightily tickled."
So it was settled, but the pile of orders to be filled was so incessant
that it was not till Christmas Eve that Mr. Carpenter could get hold of
a doll for his own use, and no time was left in which to dress it. That
was no matter, Mrs. Carpenter declared; Amy would like to make the
clothes herself, and it would be good practice in sewing. She hunted up
some pieces of cambric and flannel and scraps of ribbon for the purpose,
and when Amy woke on Christmas morning, there by her side lay the big,
beautiful creature, with flaxen hair, long-lashed blue eyes, and a
dimple in her pink chin. Beside her was a parcel containing the
materials for her clothes and a new spool of thread, and on the doll's
arm was pinned a paper with this inscription:--
"_For Amy, with a Merry Christmas from Father and Mother._
"_Her name is Dolly Phone._"
Amy's only doll up to this time had been a rag one, manufactured by her
mother, and you can imagine her delight. She hugged Dolly Phone to her
heart, kissed her twenty times over, and examined all her beauties in
detail,--her lovely bang, her hands, and her little feet, which had
brown kid shoes sewed on them, and the smile on her lips, which showed
two tiny white teeth. She stood her up on the quilt to see how tall she
was, and as she did so, wonder of wonders, out of these smiling red lips
came a voice, sharp and high-pitched, as if a canary-bird or a
Jew's-harp were suddenly endowed with speech, and began to talk to her!
What did the voice say? Not "Good-morning, Mamma," or "I'm so sleepy!"
or "Mistress Mary quite contrary," or "Twinkle, twinkle, little
star,"--none of these things. Her sister dolls might have said these
things; what Dolly Phone said, speaking fast and excitedly, was,--
"It's unjust! Mamma is as mean as she can be! Scolding me because that
old baby wouldn't go to sleep! I hate everybody! I wish I was dead! I
wish everybody else was dead!" And then, in a different tone, a good
deal deeper, "Good-morning, ma-m--" and there the voice stopped
suddenly.
Amy had listened to this remarkable address with astonishment. That her
beautiful new baby could speak, was delightful, but what horrible things
she said!
"How queerly you talk, darling!" she cried, snatching the doll into her
arms again. "What is the matter? Why do you speak so to me? Are you
alive, or only making believe? I'm not mean; what makes you say I am?
And, oh! why do you wish you were dead?"
Dolly stared full in her face with an unwinking smile. She looked
perfectly good-natured. Amy began to think that she was dreaming, or
that the whole thing was some queer trick.
"There, there, dear!" she cried, patting the doll's back, "we won't say
any more about it. You love me now, I know you do!"
Then, very gently and cautiously, she set Dolly on her feet again.
"Perhaps she'll say something nice this time," she thought hopefully.
Alas! the rosy lips only uttered the self-same words. "Mean--unjust--I
hate everybody--I wish everybody was dead," in sharp, unpitying
sequence. Worst of all, the phrases began to have a familiar sound to
Amy's ear. She felt her cheeks burn with a sudden red.
"Why," she thought, "that was what I said in the workshop the day I was
so cross. How could the doll know? Oh, dear! she's so lovely and so
beautiful, but if she keeps on talking like this, what shall I do?"
Deep in her heart struggled an uneasy fear. Mother would hear the doll!
Mother might suspect what it meant! At all hazards, Dolly must be kept
from talking while mother was by.
She was so quiet and subdued when she went downstairs to breakfast, with
the doll in her arms, that her father and mother could not understand
it. They had looked forward to seeing her boisterously joyful. She
kissed them, and thanked them, and tried to seem like her usual self,
but mothers' eyes are sharp, and Mrs. Carpenter detected the look of
trouble.
"What's the matter, dear?" she whispered. "Don't you feel well?"
"Oh, yes! very well. Nothing's the matter." Amy whispered back, keeping
the terrible Dolly sedulously prone, as she spoke.
"Come, Amy, let's see your new baby," said Mr. Carpenter. "She's a
beauty, ain't she? Half of her was made in this house, did you know
that? Set her up, and let's hear her talk."
"She's asleep now," faltered Amy. "But she's been talking up-stairs. She
talks very nicely, Papa. She's tired now, truly she is."
"Nonsense! she isn't the kind that gets tired. Her tongue won't ache if
she runs on all day; she's like some little girls in that. Stand her up,
Amy, I want to hear her. I've never seen one of 'em out of the shop
before. She looks wonderfully alive, doesn't she, Mother?"
But Amy still hesitated. Her manner was so strange that her father grew
impatient at last, and, reaching out, took the doll from her, and set it
sharply on the table. The little button on the sole of the foot set the
curious instrument within in motion. As prepared phrases were rolled off
in shrill succession, Mr. Carpenter leaned forward to listen. When the
sounds ended, he raised his head with a look of bewilderment.
"Why--why--what is the creature at?" he exclaimed. "That isn't what I
put into her. 'I Wish I was dead! Wish everybody else was dead!' I can't
understand it at all. I charged all the dolls myself, and there wasn't a
word like that in the whole batch. If the others have gone wrong like
this, it's all up with our profits."
He looked so troubled and down-hearted that Amy could bear it no longer.
"It's all my fault!" she cried, bursting into tears. "Somehow it's all
my fault, though I can't tell how, for it was I who said those things. I
said those very things, Papa, in your workshop one day when I was in a
temper. Don't you recollect the day, Mother,--the day when I didn't go
to the picnic, and Baby wouldn't go to sleep, and I slapped him, and you
boxed my ears? I went up-stairs, and I was crying, and I said,--yes, I
think I said every word of those things, though I forgot all about them
till Dolly said them to me this morning, and how she could possibly
know, I can't imagine."
"But I can imagine," said her father. "Where did you sit that day, Amy?"
"On the floor, by the door."
"Was there a row of things close by, with tin funnels stuck in them and
a cloth over the top?"
"I think there was. I recollect the funnels."
"Then that's all right!" exclaimed Mr. Carpenter, his face clearing up.
"Those were the phonographs, Mother, and, don't you see, she must have
been exactly opposite one of the funnels, and her voice went in and
filled it. It's the best kind of good luck that that cylinder happened
to be put into her doll. If all that bad language had gone to anybody
else, there would have been the mischief to pay. Folks would have been
writing to the papers, as like as not, or the ministers preaching
against the dolls as a bad influence. It would have ruined the whole
concern, and all your fault, Amy."
"Oh, Papa, how dreadful! how perfectly dreadful!" was all Amy could say,
but she sobbed so wildly that her father's anger melted.
"There, don't cry," he said more kindly; "we won't be too hard on you on
Christmas Day. Wipe your eyes, and we'll try to think no more about it,
especially as the spoiled doll has fallen to your own share, and no real
harm is done."
In his relief Mr. Carpenter was disposed to pass lightly over the
matter. Not so his wife. She took a more serious view of it.
"You see, Amy," she said that night when they chanced to be alone, "you
see how a hasty word sticks and lasts. You never supposed that day that
the things you said would ever come back to you again, but here they
are."
"Yes--because of the doll,--of her inside, I mean. It heard."
"But if the doll hadn't heard, some one would have heard all the same."
"Do you mean God?" asked Amy, in an awe-struck voice.
"Yes. He hears every word that we say, the minister tells us, and writes
them all down in a book. If it frightened you to have the doll repeat
the words you had forgotten, think how much more it will frighten you,
and all of us, when that book is opened and all the wrong things we have
ever said are read out for the whole world to hear."
Mrs. Carpenter did not often speak so solemnly, and it made a great
impression on Amy's mind. She still plays with Dolly Phone, and loves
her, in a way, but it is a love which is mingled with fear. The doll is
like a reproach of conscience to her. That is not pleasant, so she is
kept flat on her back most of the time. Only, now and then, when Amy has
been cross and said a sharp word, and is sorry for it, she solemnly
takes Dolly, sets her on her feet, and, as a penance, makes herself
listen to all the hateful string of phrases which form her stock of
conversation.
"It's horrid, but it's good for me," she tells the baby, who listens
with a look of fascinated wonder. "I shall have to keep her, and let her
talk that way, till I'm such a good girl that there isn't any danger of
my ever being naughty again. And that must be for a long, long time
yet," she concludes with a sigh.
A NURSERY TYRANT.
It was such a pleasant old nursery that it seemed impossible that
anything disagreeable should enter into it. The three southern windows
stood open in all pleasant weather, letting in cheerful sun and air. For
cold days there was a generous grate, full of blazing coals, and guarded
by a high fender of green-painted wire. There were little cupboards set
in the deep sides of the chimney. The two on the left were Barbara's and
Eunice's; the two to the right, Reggy's and Roger's. Here they kept
their own particular treasures under lock and key; while little May, the
left-over one, was accommodated with two shelves inside the closet
where they all hung their hats and coats.
No one slept in this nursery, but all the Erskine children spent a good
part of the daytime in it. Here they studied their lessons, and played
when it was too stormy to go out; there the little ones were dressed and
undressed, and all five took their suppers there every night. They liked
it better than any other room in the house, partly, I suppose, because
they lived so much in it.
Barbara was the eldest of the brood. It would have shocked her very
much, had she guessed that any one was ever going to speak of her as a
"tyrant." Her idea of a tyrant was a lofty personage with a crown on his
head, like Xerxes, or King John, or the Emperor Nero. She had not gotten
far enough in life or history to know that the same thing can be done in
a small house that is done on a throne; and that tyranny is tyranny even
when it is not bridging the Dardanelles, or flinging Christians to the
wild beasts, or refusing to sign Magna Charta. In short, that the
principle of a thing is its real life, and makes it the same, whether
its extent or opportunities be more or less.
This particular tyrant was a bright, active, self-willed little girl of
eleven, with a pair of brown eyes, a mop of curly brown hair, pink
cheeks, and a mouth which was so rosy and smiled so often that people
forgot to notice the resolute little chin beneath it. She was very
good-humored when everybody minded her, warm-hearted, generous, full of
plans and fancies, and anxious to make everybody happy in her own way.
She also cared a good deal about being liked and admired, as self-willed
people often do; and whenever she fancied that the children loved Eunice
better than herself (which was the case), she was grieved, and felt that
it was unfair. "For I do a great deal more to please them than Eunie
does," she would say to herself, forgetting that not what we do, but
what we are, it is which makes us beloved or otherwise.
But though the younger ones loved Eunice best, they were much more apt
to do as Barbara wished, partly because it was easier than to oppose
her, and partly because she and her many ideas and projects interested
them. They never knew what was coming next; and they seldom dared to
make up their minds about anything, or form any wishes of their own,
till they knew what their despot had decided upon. Eunice was gentle and
yielding, Mary almost a baby; but the boys, as they grew older,
occasionally showed signs of rebellion, and though Barbara put these
down with an iron hand, they were likely to come again with fresh
provocation.
The fifteenth of May was always a festival in the Erskine household.
"Mamma's May Day," the children called it, because not only was it their
mother's birthday, but it also took the place of the regular May Day,
which was apt to be too cold or windy for celebration. The children
were allowed to choose their own treat, and they always chose a picnic
and a May crowning. Barbara was invariably queen, as a matter of course,
and she made a very good one, and expended much time and ingenuity in
inventing something new each year to make the holiday different from
what it had ever been before. She always kept her plans secret till the
last moment, to enhance the pleasure of the surprise.
It never occurred to any one, least of all to Barbara herself, that
there could be rotation in office, or that any one else should be chosen
as queen. Still, changes of dynasty will come to families as well as to
kingdoms; and Queen Barbara found this out.
"Eunie, I want you to do something," she said, one afternoon in late
April, producing two long pieces of stiff white tarlatan; "please sew
this up _there_ and there, and hem it _there_,--not nice sewing, you
know, but big stitches."
"What is it for?" asked Eunie, obediently receiving the tarlatan, and
putting on her thimble.
"Ah, that is a secret," replied Barbara. "You'll know by and by."
"Can't you tell me now?"
"No, not till Mother's May Day. I'll tell you then."
"Oh, Barbie," cried Eunice, dropping the tarlatan, "I wanted to speak to
you before you began anything. The children want little Mary to be the
queen this year."
"Mary! Why? I've always been queen. What do they want to change for?
Mary wouldn't know how to do it, and I've such a nice plan for this
year!"
"Your plans always are nice," said the peace-loving Eunice; "but,
Barbie, really and truly, we do all want to have Mary this time. She's
so cunning and pretty, and you've always been queen, you know. It was
the boys thought of it first, and they want her ever so much. Do let
her, just for once."
"Why, Eunice, I wouldn't have believed you could be so unkind!" said
Barbara, in an aggrieved tone. "It's not a bit fair to turn me out, when
I've always worked so hard at the May Day, and done _everything_, while
the rest of you just sat by and enjoyed yourselves, and had all the fun
and none of the trouble."
"But the boys think the trouble is half the fun," persisted Eunice.
"They would rather take it than not. Don't you think it would be nice to
be a maid of honor, just for once?"--persuasively.
"No, indeed, I don't!" retorted Barbara, passionately. "Be maid of
honor, and have that baby of a Mary, queen! You must be crazy, Eunice
Erskine. I'll be queen or nothing, you can tell the boys; and if I
backed out, and didn't help, I guess you'd all be sorry enough." So
saying, Barbara marched off, with her chin in the air. She was not
really much afraid that her usually obedient subjects would resist her
authority; but she had found that this injured way of speaking impressed
the children, and helped her to carry her points.
So she was surprised enough, when that evening, at supper, she noticed a
constraint of manner among the rest of the party. The children looked
sober. Reggy whispered to Eunice, Roger kicked Reggy, and at last burst
out with, "Now, see here, Barbie Erskine, we want to tell you something.
We're going to have Baby for queen this time, and not you, and that's
all there is about it."
"Roger," said the indignant Barbara, "how dare you speak so? You're not
going to have anything of the kind unless I say you may."
"Yes, we are. Mamma says we ought to take turns, and we never have.
Nobody has ever had a turn except you, and you keep having yours all
the time. We don't want the same queen always, and this year we've
chosen Mary."
"Roger Erskine!" cried Barbara, hotly. "You're the rudest boy that ever
was!" Then she turned to the others. "Now listen to me," she said. "I've
made all my plans for this year, and they're perfectly lovely. I won't
tell you what they are, exactly, because it would spoil the surprise,
but there's going to be an angel! An angel--with wings! What do you
think of that? You'd be sorry if I gave it up, wouldn't you? Well, if
one more word is said about Mary's being queen, I will give it up, and I
won't help you a bit. Now you can choose."
Her tone was awfully solemn, but the children did not give way. Even the
hint about the angel produced no effect. Eunice began, "I'm sure,
Barbie--" but Reggy stopped her with, "Shut up, Eunice! Everybody in
favor of Mary for queen, can hold up their hands," he called out.
Six hands went up. Eunice raised hers in a deprecating way, but she
raised it. "It's a vote," cried Roger. Barbara glared at them all with
helpless wrath; then she said, in a choked voice, "Oh, well! have your
old picnic, then. I sha'n't come to it," and ran out of the room,
leaving her refractory subjects almost frightened at their own success.
Two unhappy weeks followed. True to her threat, Barbara refused to take
any share in the holiday preparations. She sat about in corners, sulky
and unhappy, while the others worked, or tried to work. Sooth to say,
they missed her help very much, and did badly enough without her, but
they would not let her know this. The boys whistled as they drove nails,
and _sounded_ very contented and happy.
Presently Fate sent them a new ally. Aunt Kate, the young aunt whom the
children liked best of all their relations, came on a visit, and,
finding so much going on, bestirred herself to help. She was not long in
missing Barbara, and she easily guessed out the position of affairs,
though the children made no explanations.
One afternoon, leaving the others hard at work, she went in search of
Barbara, who had hidden herself away with a book, in the shrubbery.
"Why are you all alone?" she asked, sitting down beside her.
"I don't know where the others are," said Barbara, moodily.
"They are tying wreaths to dress the tent to-morrow. Don't you want to
go and help them?"
"No, they don't want me! Oh, Aunt Kate!" with a sudden burst of
confidence, "they have treated me so! You can't think how they have
treated me!"
"Why, what have they done?"
"I've always been queen on mother's May Day,--always. And this year I
meant to be again. And I had such a nice plan for the coronation, and
then they all chose Mary."
"Well?"
"They insisted on having Mary for queen, though I told them I wouldn't
help if they did," repeated Barbara.
"Well?"
"Well? That's all. What do you mean, Aunty?"
"I was waiting to hear you tell the real grievance. That the children
should want Mary for queen, when you have been one so many times,
doesn't seem to be a reason."
Barbara was too much surprised to speak.
"Yes, my dear, I mean it," persisted her aunt. "Now let us talk this
over. Why should you always be queen on Mamma's birthday? Who gave you
the right, I mean?"
"The children liked to have me," faltered Barbara.
"Precisely. But this year they liked to have Mary."
"But I worked so hard, Aunty. You can't think how I worked. I did
everything; and sometimes I got dreadfully tired."
"Was that to please the others?"
"Y-es--"
"Or would they rather have helped in the work, and did you keep it to
yourself because you liked to do it alone?" asked Aunt Kate, with a
smile. "Now, my Barbie, listen to me. You have led always because you
liked to lead, and the others submitted to you. But no one can govern
forever. The rest are growing up; they have their own rights and their
own opinions. You cannot go on always ruling them as you did when they
were little. Do you want to be a good, useful older sister, loved and
trusted, or to have Eunice slip into your place, and be the real elder
sister, while you gradually become a cipher in the family?"
Barbara began to cry.
"Dear child," said Aunty Kate, kissing her, "now is your chance.
Influence, not authority, should be a sister's weapon. If you want to
lead the children, you must do it with a smile, not a pout."
The children were surprised enough that evening when Barbara came up to
offer to help tie wreaths. Her eyes looked as if she had been crying,
but she was very kind and nice all that night and next day. She was maid
of honor to little Queen Mary, after all. Eunice gave her a rapturous
kiss afterward, and said, "Oh, Barbie, how _dear_ you are!" and,
somehow, Barbara forgot to feel badly about not being queen. Some
defeats are better than victories.
WHAT THE PINK FLAMINGO DID.