Dick and Dolly

“Oh, carpet isn’t a bit like grass,” objected Dolly. “It’s so thick and dusty. Let’s have real dirt, – or sand.”

“I think sand is messy.”

“Yes, so do I. Oh, I tell you what, Dick! Let’s cut green tissue paper into fine fringe, and put it round where we want grass, – paste it to something, you know, – like we made fairies’ wings, – only green.”

“Yes, that’s the ticket!” exclaimed Dick. “Then we’ll make little paths of, – of brown paper, I guess, – pasted down.”

“Yes; take a big sheet of pasteboard first, and then stick everything on it.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. Then bits of evergreen for trees, and perhaps real flowers, growing in little bits of pots.”

“Oh, it will be lovely! Dick, you’re splendid to think of it all!”

The twins joined hands and jumped up and down, as was their custom when greatly pleased with each other. Then the aunties came in, and they all went to breakfast.

The children told their plan for the yard around the house, and the ladies agreed that it would be lovely.

“I’ll help you to make a pond, Dickie,” said Aunt Penninah, “like one I had when I was a little girl. That dates farther back than Aunt Rachel’s childhood.”

“How do you make a pond?” asked Dick, not much interested in comparative dates of past Danas.

“We must get a piece of mirror, – without a frame, you know, – and put it in the middle of your grass plot, and then put pretty stones or shells round the edge of the mirror, and it looks just like water.”

“And little tin ducks on it,” shouted Dick, “like a real pond! Oh, Auntie, that will be tip-top!”

“And I’ll make you a pond on the other side of your house,” put in Aunt Abbie, “of real water. In a big flat pan, you know; and little sprigs of fern all round the edge.”

“All right; we’ll have both,” declared Dick. “I don’t know which’ll be nicest, they’re both so splendid. And I’ll make a little boat to sail on the water. I can whittle it out of a stick.”

“And I’ll make a sail for it.” said Aunt Abbie, “and we’ll rig up a sail-boat.”

Such interest did the aunts take in the cottage yard, it was almost as if they were children too, and Dick and Dolly became more and more enraptured with the wonderful things they made.

Aunt Abbie fashioned a little hammock with her crochet needle and some green and white cord. When she put fringe along its edges, and suspended it from two evergreen trees in the “yard,” Dolly thought she had never seen anything so cunning. Two little dolls were put into it, and the nurse doll was set to swing them until they fell asleep. Michael, who was greatly pleased with the whole affair, fashioned a tiny arbour just like their own in their playground outside. It was made of tiny twigs, and when the gardener brought it in, as his offering to the general gaiety, it was accepted with hilarious thanks. Very small green vines were twisted about it, and tiny blossoms of forget-me-not or lilies-of-the-valley were entwined. But the little flowerets faded so soon that Aunt Abbie made some diminutive roses of pink tissue paper, which would stay fresh all summer.

Many plans were made for future additional beauties, and the little estate grew rapidly to an elaborate country place, when Michael declared that he should build a barn for it. This announcement was heralded with delight, and for many days, Michael spent all his spare time in the tool-house, Dick and Dolly bobbing about him, and helping or hindering as best they could.

The barn, when done, was a grand affair indeed. Not of very elaborate architecture, but provided with stables, carriage house, feed bins, and even a chicken coop.

Again Aunt Nine took the twins to town on a shopping expedition, and this time they returned with all the four-legged and two-legged toys necessary to complete the barn’s use and beauty. Also there were carriages for the dolls to drive in, and sleighs, too, for in doll land the lack of snow makes no difference in the sleighing season.

Aunt Penninah’s visit of a week lengthened out to a fortnight, but not until the last tiny carriage robe was finished, and the last hat and cape made for the smallest doll, did Aunt Nine make her farewells to Dana Dene.

And, then, she went away, promising to return for another visit as soon as possible, and insisting on a promise that the twins should some day visit her in her own home.

CHAPTER XVII

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.”