CHAPTER III

THE TEDDY BEARS TAKE A HAND

THE Teddy Bears, as one may well suppose, were no less interested in the furnishing and arrangement of the doll’s house than the members of the family themselves. They had scarcely been able to sleep a wink for thinking and talking over the subject in hand, and Peter Pan himself had proudly brought gifts, not exactly gold, frankincense and myrrh, but something much more acceptable in the shape of a wee mail-box, the very counterpart of those that hang upon the telephone posts. It had been captured during one of his predatory night raids, during which he and Bedelia had ransacked a neighboring toy store, carrying off the mail-box as Peter Pan’s share of the loot, while Bedelia joyfully abstracted a most delightful little workstand that could be shut up like a camp chair and stood against the wall if so desired, with a gorgeous yellow silk lining.

In justice to the bears, it must be said of them that they did not, in this case, break through and steal, for Peter Pan left upon the counter a piece of money, shaken down from his own little bank—a most beautiful bank in the shape of a mottled, earthenware pig, which Sally had presented to him without the smallest idea in the world that he would ever use it for legitimate purposes. But the very fact of ownership turned the Teddy Bear at once into an inveterate miser, and he hoarded like a magpie, levying on every pocketbook that his mischievous paws fell upon. He was, however, too cute to appropriate any but small coins, so that thus far nothing had been missed. Teddy Bears can scarcely be supposed to have any adequate idea of values, so when Peter Pan proudly deposited a nickel on the counter, he considered that he was paying very well for the articles chosen by himself and his wife. The piece of money was afterwards found by the shopkeeper, and as he never missed the small articles that had taken the fancy of the Teddy Bears, he considered himself a nickel in, and “As a man thinketh, so is he.”

To extract the bit of money from the bowels of the pig had been a fearful piece of work, and had it not been for the end in view, the Teddy Bear would have given up in despair. To drop a nickel into the little slot in the creature’s back, and then to listen to the delicious rattling it made in the cavernous interior was one thing, but to fish it out through that narrow aperture was quite another. Anyone who has ever tried the experiment will appreciate the dreadful quarter of an hour that ensued as the Teddy Bears, perspiring in every pore, struggled with that most niggardly of china pigs.

First they essayed to fish out the coin, using successively a hair-pin bent out straight and one end fashioned into a hook, a buttonhook, a pair of manicure scissors, ruining the curved points, a crochet needle, and nurse’s best hat-pin. Nothing, however, availed. The pig, like his predecessor in the story that would not jump over the stile, would not give up the coveted coin. Finally Bedelia seized it by its head and shook it frantically, literally as the oft quoted terrier shakes the rat. But no nickel! To be sure, they could have smashed the pig, but in spite of his obstinacy he was the Teddy Bear’s chief treasure, and Peter Pan loved his mottled exterior and gloried in his impossible snout and extremely unpiglike ears. He could not bring himself to sacrifice a thing so cherished, even on the altar of his love for Sally.

After a while the bears desisted from their efforts and held a council of war. Peter Pan had about come to the end of his tether when suddenly his eyes, roaming miserably about in search of some new weapon of offense, fell upon something that caused him to utter a little shriek of delight. And the article was nothing more nor less than a stick of chewing gum. Now the Teddy Bear knew all about gum. He had tried to chew some once and had been obliged to beg help from Sally, so closely were his jaws welded together. She had laughingly pried them open, and had advised him not to bite off more than he could chew in the future.

Peter Pan did not intend to bite off anything in this case. He put one end of the gum in his mouth and chewed on it till his jaws ached, and then passed it on to Bedelia, who repeated the performance. And in two shakes of a lamb’s tail the end of the stick of gum was reduced to a mass of stickiness that rivaled fly-paper. Peter Pan now turned the bank, that is, the pig on its back so that the coins within it came rattling down over the opening. He next carefully inserted the chewed end of the gum, using the unchewed portion as a handle by which to propel it into the aperture, and presently drew it triumphantly forth with two dimes and a nickel sticking to the mass. Great were the rejoicings at the success of the trick, and Peter Pan, supposing that the nickel was much the more valuable as it was greater in size than the dimes, laid it aside while he returned the other coins to the bank. Afterward he explained the whole performance to Sally, who was very glad indeed to hear it, for at first she had been somewhat doubtful as to the origin of her delightful mail-box.

Meanwhile the furnishing and arranging went merrily on, and Sally sighed in delighted rapture as she contemplated the work of her hands and found that it was very good.

Her drawing-room she thought was her especial delight, all done in red velvet, with a splendid red carpet and lace curtains at the windows, over which hung draperies of red silk. A tall pier glass stood between the windows, and on the mantel-shelf were a gilt clock under a glass case, and two gilt candlesticks holding real wax candles. Underneath, in the grate, a glowing flame of crimson tinfoil shone comfortably, tinfoil being the fuel universally accepted for grates in doll houses.

A fine center table, marble-topped, occupied the middle of the room. The chairs were luxurious, and Sally only wished that her size were compatible with nestling down on one of them.

Across the hall from the drawing-room was the music-room, all furnished in blue upholstered satin, and containing two pianos, a grand and an upright. Potted plants of the paper variety bloomed in the windows and a wee violin in a polished case lay atop of the music cabinet.

Sally had destined this apartment to be a living-room and music-room in one, and finally added a porch swing that hung in a frame and teetered delightfully when a doll sat in it; a couple of parrots in a gilt cage; and Bedelia’s workstand. The effect was somewhat incongruous, especially in connection with blue satin chairs and sofas, while Bob remarked, quite gratuitously, that when once the parrots got started nobody could ever hear either the violin or pianos. However, as Sally was the only one to be pleased, no one took any notice of this remark.

With regret Sally turned from the bright little music-room, but was presently just as deeply engrossed with the library. Here was a peach of a room, to use her own expression—a room all furnished and upholstered in green, with sleepy hollow chairs and a roll-top desk in one corner. Around the walls ran shelves filled with tiny books, and a wee telephone hung in one angle of the wall, near the desk. At one end of the room was a big fireplace, over which rose a high mantel-shelf, and a grandfather’s clock ticked, metaphorically speaking, in the corner.

Sally had desired that her library should be “restful” and to that end had worked out the scheme of furnishings on a somewhat subdued scale. However, she succeeded admirably in carrying out her design, an end which few grown-ups ever attain. Never was there a more charming haven of rest to which a doll might fly for refuge from the turmoil without than this dim, shadowy room, with its deep lounging chairs and bewitching tea-table drawn up at one side of the fire.

There was a tiny smoker’s set, too, ranged on an oriental looking tabouret, a collection of tiny brass articles that would have delighted the soul of any lover of the weed. Want of space had compelled Sally to unite library and den, but the union of the two made a much more charming room than either one could ever have hoped to attain to by itself.

Bob had contributed to the library a distracting pipe rack, fashioned from the bits of a cigarbox and cunningly cut out with his jig-saw, an article whose usefulness promised to be unlimited as far as a doll’s house was concerned. The rack was hung with tiny pipes picked up at one of the ten-cent stores at ten cents per dozen. Bob was proud of his handiwork and Sally considered it one of her chief treasures because Bob had made it.

On the third floor were the bed-rooms and bath-room. The bed-rooms, fascinatingly furnished with dainty patterns of cretonne, with fine brass beds, and ruffled curtains at the windows, were places of rest and delight. One of them was arranged for a nursery and contained two cunning little white enameled cribs. There was also, in this room, a most intricate folding bed for the nurse.

The bath-room was most elaborately appointed with shower and needle baths, as well as a fine, white enameled tub and a complicated system of plumbing. By means of this real water ran from a tank over the tub and furnished forth a liberal supply for the ablutions of all the dollies. To be sure, one was obliged to be very careful not to allow the tub to run over, for an overflow meant ruin and rout to ceilings below stairs.

Teddy Bears have no sense of ratio and no amount of explanation could ever convince Bedelia that she was of a size entirely out of proportion for the Walking House. Finally she made one valiant effort to establish herself therein, but was driven to retire, growling, as she could not force more than her big head and shoulders into any of the ordinary-sized rooms. There would not have been room even for Little Breeches, let alone for Bedelia’s generous proportions.