Dick and Dolly

“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.”