Part 16
To the friends of the family she was generally known as “Tyler’s vixen,” “Tyler’s malicious imp,” or that “pretty little devil of Tyler’s,” which seems to throw considerable light upon her every-day manners and behavior. Now, it’s almost needless to say that this child’s path through life had been simply clogged with toys, foreign and domestic, elaborate and simple, with a strong leaning toward the most expensive in the market. Even from that early period when she had but two desires on earth, one to drink long and deep at nature’s fountain, and the other to sleep profoundly, they had forced her to keep awake long enough to choose between a rattle of solid silver, with which she could easily have broken her own wee head, or one of gold and silver and coral; and her anger being great, she rejected both, and clutched at a soft rubber affair with a ring handle, offered by the nurse and positively declined by the mother as too awfully common. And it was at that point I made the small Marie’s acquaintance, being led in to look at a baby that was so wise that it had selected a ring-handle rattle, because it knew it would be cutting teeth by and by and would need the ring; at least that’s what the nurse said. One can imagine, then, what a veritable army of dolls must have fallen to the share of this so cruelly spoiled child. Creatures whose waxen beauty almost broke the hearts of less favored lookers-on; wardrobes complete and exquisitely perfect--packed in real for true trunks; tiny sets of jewelry--toilet-sets--parasols--fans--charming carriages for these gorgeous beings to ride in; blond, brown, and black-haired dreams of bisque, china, and wax beauty; families--yes, whole families of tiny, Swiss dolls, China dolls--from one scant inch to ten in height! It was maddening, and Marie would, as a wee tot, push away the great, prize doll, so heavy for her little arms, and bury her weary face in the pillow and whimper for--she knew not what! Poor, little, _blasé_ baby! Always deprived of the keen delight of wishing for a thing, of the hope and fear in waiting, of the thrill of seeing possibility become probability, and then the rapture of possession!
One day this happened in the presence of a woman, a sempstress, who was sitting by at work. She was poor in pocket, but rich in knowledge of life, and kind of heart, and she cried: “Oh, you poor, spoiled child! If you had a nice, clean rag-doll, such as any work-woman’s child may play with, you would, I warrant, get more pleasure from it than from any of these big, hard, silk-clothed ladies that you can’t baby or coddle to save your life! I’ve a good mind--” then she paused, but the weary, little face, turned from the splendid doll in dull dislike, brought her to a determination; she went on: “I’ll have to be quick, though, for her mother would never give her consent, never!” So Marie was put to sleep, and the sewing-woman left her proper occupation and worked hard and fast on something else, for this was the day of the creation of Dinah.
And I often ask myself this question: If that woman of bright intelligence and good will, acting under the influence of loving pity for an unhappy child, could yet produce such a blood-chilling nightmare as Dinah, what under the blue canopy of Heaven could that same woman produce if her hand were directed by hate or revenge? Nothing short of an eye-crossing, world-convulsing creation, I’m sure! At all events, I made a picture of Dinah, to show a friend of Mrs. Tyler, and when she looked at it, she had a congestive chill, and it was a good picture too.
Personally, I don’t approve of written descriptions of people, because they never describe. See descriptions of lost people given to detectives, where height, weight, and possible age are dwelt on with great particularity, while a large, seedy wart, mounted conspicuously on the bridge of his nose, or a drooping, partially paralyzed lid of the right eye is never mentioned. Then again, though Dinah was no beauty, I felt so much respect for her powers of endurance, her silent patience under most trying circumstances, that writing a personal description of her becomes a painful task. However, if you will go back to your earliest youth (a longish journey for some of us, yes, but one still easily made), and recall the paper-dolls of that period, dolls generally cut from the white margin of the evening paper by the purloined scissors of that member of the family who most objected to your using them, you will remember those dolls were always out in very wide paper pantalettes, modest but ugly, chaste but very inartistic--well, if you will, in your imagination, trim off the superfluous width of those pantys, so as to make legs instead, you will have before your mind’s eye an excellent ground plan of Dinah’s structure.
The linen being doubled, and Dinah being all in one piece, it followed that she had great strength of limb, and never, even during the stress and strain of her hardest years, did she lose either leg or arm. Yet, whenever the spoiled Marie lost her temper, the bisque, wax, and china beauties surely lost legs or arms or eyes, Mrs. Tyler lost her head, and poor Mr. Tyler parted with his hopes of heaven, while Dinah remained whole and still in one piece. When her figure was complete, she was about three hands high and without any sign of blood or race about her. One side of the head having been selected for the back, because it had puckered a little in the sewing, it was carefully but lavishly inked, a plain solid coat of ink behind, while about the brow and temples the ink formed those precise scollops, gracefully termed by the French “water-waves.” Then followed the eyebrows, still of ink, and of fearful and wonderful drawing, and below them--eyes?--oh, yes! eyes of course; what else could there be beneath eyebrows but eyes? But they certainly were peculiar eyes; there was no wearying monotony about them, but rather a pleasing variety. One was, I remember, quite nice and round, and looked to the front in an honest, kindly way, while the other was square enough to have corners, and it looked downward and inward, right into that spot where, if she had had any features, her nose would have been. As to the mouth--I suppose I have to mention it--there was so much of it, but I wish I could be silent; you see, the linen was roughly woven, and here and there a coarse, heavy thread appeared, and when the penful of red ink was applied it touched a coarse thread, which soaked up the ink like a sponge and led straight across her entire countenance. Of course the red ink could not be removed, and the situation and the mouth had to be accepted, though it seemed the more remarkable because of the infinitesimal mouths always given to the dolls of commerce.
As to her taste in dress, only words of praise can be given to Dinah. Never, never did I see her decked out in silk, satin, or velvet, and only once, in the middle of an oldest inhabitant’s coldest winter, did I see her in merino.
She usually wore print or gingham, while her undergarments, numerous and beautifully made, were of a material so coarse and strong as to cause surprise to strangers, but to those who had the misfortune to know the little vixen, Marie, these coarse skirts, pantalettes and chemises, stoutly stitched with about thirty-six cotton, were luminous with meaning, suggesting as they did the dread possibility of _tantrums_ on the part of said vixen, Marie.
Dinah was complete save for her shoes, which were already cut from a pair of old kid gloves, and her name. I remember her creator wished to call her Lillian, but with all the wisdom of my five full-fledged years well to the fore, I suggested that it would be well for all of us to leave the christening to Miss Marie, herself. And she of thirty-five years bent her head to my five, and the name of Lillian floated back to the limbo from which it had been so briefly called. As the second shoe was taken up, Marie showed signs of waking, and the newly created one was thrust into my hands, and I was told to go and give it to the little tot. But deep down in my soul I said, “Nay! Nay!” for mark you, I was a canny child, and ten years of life’s experiences had been crowded into my five of actual time, and hell and bitter punishments took prominent places in the religion thus far made known to me. I said to myself therefore: “This child _is_ wicked, for all she is so pretty, she’s _awful_, and if for her punishment she is to be frightened to death by the sight of this nameless thing, I don’t intend to be the instrument used in her undoing!” So, swiftly I crept to the great crib-bed, and in a moment crept away again, leaving across her stomach, like a hideous nightmare, that “deed without a name,” and then I fled to the hall and waited for things, behind the partly open door; wondering which of the little cups and glasses on a stand by the bed, holding cooling drinks, would strike the door first. I waited and watched. Marie’s eyes opened, a scowl instantly darkened her face; in a querulous tone she asked, “Is my mamma, home, now?”
The voice of the sempstress answered gently, “No, dear,” and a light like sunshine came into her brilliant eyes; she smiled sweetly and asked, “Where’s my Cawie?” her name for me, and as near as she could get to Carrie, and then she felt the weight across her, and the moment had come!
She lifted the thing, and they were face to face. The child’s eyes opened wider and wider, the pupils dilated, the lids flickered nervously, then came a faint, long-drawn “Oh--h--h!” another pause, broken at last by the announcement, calmly and gravely made, “She eyes, don’t fit each other!”
Marie had trouble with her personal pronouns, as well as with her relatives.
Next moment she rolled over and began to scramble into a sitting posture, during which she all unconsciously pressed the doll tightly against her little chest. (Oh, for us, happy accident!) for the next instant, with a shout of surprise and joy, she cried, “Oh, she cuddles, she cuddles!”
Two words which were to become familiar to every member of the family, in the time to come, “She cuddles, and she is Dinah, my peshous! Dinah, always!”
And she who had thought of Lillian rashly exclaimed, “But why on earth, Dinah?”
And received for answer, “Caus’, I say so, and caus’ my mamma jess hates the Dinah song.” A so-called “comic,” named “Wilkins and Dinah” that Mrs. Tyler raged at when her young brother used to sing it within her hearing.
So it was pure malice that prompted “Tyler’s little vixen” to name her new treasure “Dinah”! Then following that rule of action familiar to all small girls with dolls since before the building of the temple, she turned Dinah upside down, that she might know quantity, quality, and condition of her undergarments, and when she found that Dinah possessed that final charm, that very crown of happy dolldom, the ability to have her clothes put on and off, to be dressed and undressed at will, the measure was full, her joy complete.
She turned her Dinah right side up again and kissed her fondly. At that sight my short legs basely betrayed me, and I sat down with unnecessary emphasis the deaf might have heard. Instantly the cry arose: “You, Cawie, Cawie, come here and see my ‘peshous Dinah’!”
I rose and obeyed. Shortly after, when the “peshous one” had been properly shod, and Marie was dressed for tea, we went forth to walk Dinah; but Marie, recalling the three handsome dolls sitting bolt upright in the parlor, suddenly commanded me to return and make faces at them, “real bad faces, too, for being so stiff and big they couldn’t cuddle.”
But I suggested that she should wait till the gas was burning, and then let the dolls see Dinah, and with malicious joy she waited. And so began the fellowship between those two. Straight into her warm and tender, little heart the vixen took her “peshous Dinah” and gave her a love that could not be shaken by a mother’s angry tears, a father’s bribery, or the contemptuous sneers of friends and neighbors--a love that lasted so long as Dinah’s self. The effect she produced on people at first sight was remarkable. There was Mr. Tyler, for instance; a good-looking man, very quiet, very gentle and very kind. He never drank, yet the first time he saw Dinah he thought he did, and he was afraid to kiss his wife, lest she should think so, too; and I saw him secretly touch Dinah once or twice, to make sure she was real.
Marie’s young uncle, too, he was preparing for college, and though he was gay and full of fun, his conduct was excellent, and he was very strict about Sunday observances, but when he met Dinah he exclaimed: “Well, I’ll be d--d!” Perhaps that was not Dinah’s fault. He might have been thinking of his future state, and had just arrived at that conclusion.
Perhaps the most disagreeable occurrence was when the minister, Presbyterian, called, and not having his glasses on, sat himself down heavily upon Dinah. He instantly sprang up to remove the foreign substance he felt beneath him, and meeting the malevolent eye of the “peshous one,” he exclaimed, in a startled tone: “God bless my soul!--er--er--I should say--what on earth?”
But with a bound, the vixen, Marie, was at his side, crying: “How dare you, you too fat, bad old man; you sat on my Dinah and swor’d, you did!”
With a crimson face he answered: “Oh, no; oh, no! my dear little child, you are mistaken. I----”
But Marie stamped her foot at him and cried: “You swor’d! you swor’d!” upon which tableau entered Mrs. Tyler.
Gradually, however, Dinah came to be accepted by the family, and it was surprising to see how useful she became to its various members. Mr. Tyler, who did a good deal of office work at home, used her almost continuously as a pen-wiper. Instead of having to pick up a tiny round of cloth and carefully fit the pen to a narrow fold, Dinah allowed a largeness and freedom of movement very pleasant to him. Just a swipe at her in almost any direction, and the pen was clean.
The young uncle, who delighted in the comfort of a rocking-chair, yet detested its movement, used Dinah as a sort of brake, placing her under the back of a rocker at just the right angle to prevent action, while many a time the somewhat flighty housemaid, having forgotten to dust the “what-not” (indispensable adjunct of the parlor of that date), would snatch up Dinah and dust all the shelves and their contents with her, fitting her arm or her leg into the depths of “To a Good Girl,” or “From Chelsia,” or “Friendship’s Offering”--these cups and mugs, with their roses and posies and fine gold lettering, being veritable dust traps, as were the sea shells, with the Lord’s Prayer cut on their surface, and the parian-marble Rebeccas standing by salt-cellar-like wells, and of such was the bric-a-brac of that day, you know--the day of wax things under glass shades.
The entire family used the back of Dinah’s head as a pin cushion, while again and again I have seen her act as an iron-holder, when a sash ribbon or bit of lace had to be pressed just there in the sitting-room.
But it was as a weapon of defence that she got in her really fine work. Grasped firmly by the legs and directed by impassioned energy toward a wisely selected point, Dinah was capable of giving a blow as surprising to witness as it was stunning to feel. Practice makes perfect, and so it came about that that vixen, Marie’s, aim was so quick, so steady and so true, that she landed with Dinah right on the intended spot every time. She paid no attention to rules about the belt line, striking below it with as much vigor as above it. There was never any clinching, because no one would come near enough for that, but I have known her to strike a blow with Dinah hard enough to rupture Mrs. Tyler’s agreement with the cook.
Some months after Dinah’s arrival I became recognized as a sort of family lightning-rod, since I had the power of deflecting the fluid wrath and deviltry of Marie’s temper and leading it to comparatively harmless points.
She was very fond of me, partly because I was older than she was, and partly because I found so many new things for her to play. Everything I saw away from home was served up at once as a play for Marie. Oh, that was a great occasion when I saw a lady faint in a store! Dinah had to faint so many times in one day that she was wet clear through her whole body, from her many revivings, and was in such a disgraceful condition from the brandy we gave her that, being utterly unable to stand, she had to hang on the clothes-line several hours before she could be endured in a warm room, and I remember Marie asked me if the lady had smelled like that.
Mr. Tyler was not a very strong man, not sickly--what a hateful word--but rather delicate; in fact, though he never _said_ so, he had nerves, and it must have tried them severely when he came to breakfast and had to face Dinah, sitting in the middle of the table, with her back against the big family castor, and her one straight eye fixed upon his shrinking countenance. The skeleton at the banquet never made half the effect the “peshous ’un” made, for in the first place the skeleton was crowned with roses, and there were bright lights and a small river of wine to help the guests forget the presence of their ghastly companion; but no skull that was ever bleached had a smile to compare with Dinah’s, which crossed her entire face and would have gone on and met at the back of her head had it not been stopped by her side seams, where her front and her back were sewed together. There were no roses on Dinah and no wine to dim her effect, and poor Mr. Tyler chipped his egg and crumbled his roll, but, with that eye upon him, got no further, and merely taking his coffee, he fled. The rest of us got a side or back view, so we did not suffer so much. This went on until dyspepsia developed. I have said before, I was very fond of Mr. Tyler, and I began to look for some way to help him. One day, at table, the uncle had nearly betrayed a surprise that was being prepared for the little Marie, and Mrs. Tyler reached out her foot and pushed him to enforce silence, a movement at once discovered by that acute young person, who thereupon made a scene, and thereafter passed much of her time, at meals, hanging head downward from her chair, trying to see under the table that she might (in her own language), “see who kicked who,” a habit which caused many upsettings of things and much discomfort, but one to which she clung until I made a suggestion which found favor in her eyes.
“Ah!” said I, “if Dinah belonged to me I’d make her do something lovely!” “Oh, what?” cried the little vixen, and after much coaxing I spoke, with the blessed result that for over two weeks, at breakfast, dinner and tea, Dinah, the dreadful, was carefully placed _under_ the table to watch “who kicked who.” “Ah!” cried Marie, “yer can’t wink yer eyes at each other, ’cause I is looking at yer all! Yer can’t kick each other, ’cause Dinah’s looking at yer hard, and if yer spell things, I’ll--I’ll--I’ll just hold my breff and die! so now, I’ll have to know everyfing!”
But Mr. Tyler ate his egg and toast, and smilingly drank a _second_ cup of coffee mornings, and he patted my shoulder and gave me a big, red Canadian penny, which Marie, being jealous, took from me and threw down the well, while the young uncle started the lightning-rod idea, saying “that I had diverted Marie’s deviltry from the top of the table to the bottom, where it was harmless.”
I will mention one episode in Dinah’s life, and that will serve to indicate pretty fairly what the others were like. I always call it the hail-stone episode. Late one afternoon a violent storm had come on. We were all frightened, and poor, little, spoiled Marie was quivering from head to foot with nervous terror. Presently the rain turned to hail, great lumps of ice came dashing against the windows, and “crack!” went a big window-pane, and in fell the pieces of glass. Again came the rushing rain, and the water falling on a table covered with books, the housemaid caught up _something_ and thrust it into the opening in the broken window. Alas, and alas! that “something” was Dinah! The “peshous un”! Dinah the beloved! There she was, her cross-eyes looking at us from between her glove-shod feet, like a contortionist at a circus, while her doubled body was thrust out into the hail and rain outside. And there, all unknown to us, she remained for a long, long time, and the thunder rolled and the house shook till the spoons rattled and tinkled in their holder. And suddenly Marie lifted up a marble-white, little face, and putting out her hand to my mother, said, faintly, “Aunty? (courtesy title only) tell God, please stop! I’m frightened!”
The awful dazzle of lightning followed her words, and again she buried her face, laying her tiny hands over her ears, to keep out the terrifying sounds. A lamp was lighted, and they began to undress her and prepare her for bed, simply to divert her attention from the storm. She was very silent, but she shook violently, and her eyes were strained and wild-looking. Suddenly the heavens seemed to flame! The crash that followed left the ears ringing! We all cried out, but the vixen gave a bound and stood in the middle of the room; her eyes fairly blazed; she raised them to the ceiling, and in a shrill voice she cried, “Stop! stop, I tell you! I’m frightened!”
Again a dazzle of lightning, again a roar of thunder, and in an instant that little bundle of nerves had darted to the hall, and with both hands succeeded in turning the knob (the wind did the rest), and to our unutterable horror, we saw her little, white-robed figure dart down the steps, and standing on the bit of rain-soaked lawn, mad with rage, she lifted her challenging face to the black sky, and stamping her bare, little foot, she cried, against the wind, “How dare you, God? I’m little Marie Tyler, and I told you I was afraid! How dare you? a great big God like you, frighten a little girl like me?” and then she was in her mother’s arms, and was carried into the house dripping as from a river, and spitting and hissing like an enraged cat.
The storm ceased at last, at least the _outer_ storm; there was another coming, for where was my “peshous Dinah”?
Everyone looked, looked high and low, looked until we got to the place, where we stood and looked stupidly at one another, and then there came, in a strained whisper, from Marie: “What’s that?”
She pointed at a dripping bundle sticking in the broken window-pane. Mrs. Tyler screamed outright! Those cross-eyes looking at her from between those stubby feet. There was a wild _abandon_ in the attitude that shocked her! But her scream was as nothing compared to the succession of shrieks that broke from the throat of “Tyler’s pretty little devil”! “Who? a--a--ah! Who? a--a--ah! Who? a--a--ah!” she screamed after each “Who?”
At last she finished, “_Who_ put my ‘peshous Dinah’ in that hole? She shall be killed, all dead! and put in a hole, her own-self! She shall!! She shall!!!” She caught up a glass from the table and dashed it on the floor, breaking it in pieces. “Hurry! or I’ll break everything, I will!!” And when Dinah was pulled out and straightened, words of mine fail to describe her appearance!