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.
He couldn’t do a thing when he reached the playroom, for the flames were
beyond the efforts of a ten-year-old boy.
But Dolly, who had found her wits, cried, “Pull down the curtains,” and
she and Jack bravely pulled down a pair of light muslin curtains that
had already begun to burn. They stamped on these, and so extinguished
their flames, and Pinkie, in her excitement, pulled down another pair
and stamped on them, although they had not caught fire at all, and,
indeed, were in no danger of it.
But by that time, Michael and Pat had arrived. Passing the trembling
aunties on the lower landing, they tore upstairs, and Dick followed
closely at their heels.
Michael took in the situation at one glance.
“Take holt av the table,” he said to Pat, and the two strong men hustled
the big table off the rug. Then they flung aside the chairs and other
furniture that held the rug down, and, picking up the big carpet, flung
it over the burning playhouse. The house toppled over with a crash, and
the men trampled on the whole pile.
They smashed everything belonging to Dana Cottage, but it was the only
way to conquer the flames, and Michael did not hesitate.
“Keep it up!” he said to Pat, and as Pat obediently stamped his big feet
about, Michael turned to other parts of the room.
He stepped on a few smouldering papers, he pinched out a tiny flame in a
curtain ruffle, and he threw a small rug over an already blazing
waste-basket.
He unceremoniously pushed aside any children who got in his way, for
Michael was very much in earnest. And he had reason to be. His prompt
and speedy action had probably saved the whole house from burning down,
and after he was sure there was no lurking flame left anywhere, he
turned to the two ladies, who stood white-faced and trembling on the
threshold.
“All right, Miss Rachel,” he said, cheerily; “the baby-house is done
for, but we’ve saved Dana Dene from burnin’ up intirely.”
“Is everybody safe?” asked Miss Rachel, bewildered with the suddenness
and terror of it all.
“Safe an’ sound, ma’am. Now, don’t dishturb yersilves further, but you
an’ Miss Abbie an’ the childher go back downstairs, an’ me an’ Pat’ll be
afther cleanin’ up some here.”
“But Dolly is burned!” cried Miss Abbie, seeing Dolly still holding out
her blistered finger, and screwing her face in pain.
“No,” said Dolly, “I did that before the fire. It’s nothing.”
“It’s an awful blister,” said Dick, looking at it. “But how did the fire
start, Dollums? Did you do it?”
“Yes,” said Dolly, “but I didn’t mean to burn up the cottage.” And then,
as Michael and Pat were removing the big rug, and she saw the dreadful
devastation of the beautiful dolls’ house, she burst into paroxysms of
weeping.
Pinkie did the same, and as the aunts were both softly crying, too, Dick
and Jack had to be very careful lest they join the majority.
“Go downstairs, all of yez,” said Michael, again, who had, by reason of
his common sense, assumed dictatorship. “Oh, are ye there, Hannah? Take
the ladies down, and mend up Miss Dolly’s finger. Boys, ye can shtay, if
ye like, but the rest of yez must go.”
Obediently, the aunties followed Hannah, who led the weeping Dolly, and
with Pinkie trailing along behind, they went downstairs.
“Now, boys,” said Michael, “ye can help if ye like, an’ ye needn’t, if
ye don’t like. Pat an’ me, we’ll clear out this burnt shtuff, but
Mashter Dick, suppose ye look about now, an’ see if anny of the toys is
worth savin’.”
So Dick and Jack picked out some few things that the flames hadn’t
destroyed. But only china or metal toys escaped utter destruction, and
these were so smoked and charred, that they weren’t much good. Pinkie’s
hat and jacket were scorched, but Jack laid them aside, and the work of
salvage went on.
“There now, ye’d betther go,” said Michael; “ye’re good boys, an’ ye’ve
helped a lot, but now, me’n Pat, we’ll cart this shtuff down oursilves.
An’ be the same token, I’m thinkin’ we’ll dump it out the windy,—that
bein’ the quickest way.”
So Dick and Jack ran downstairs, really anxious to join the girls and
find out how it all came about.