Part 2

Sally picked up the powder-puff and gave her little friend, who drew back startled and coughing, a dusty dab with it on each cheek. "It's to make you pale," she said. "It ain't fashionable to be red." She applied the puff to her own cheeks as well. The two stood gazing in silent interest at themselves in the mirror, and gradually broke into smiles at the incongruous reflection. Sally suddenly bent one cheek, hitched up one shoulder, and brushed half her face clean; then did the same by the other cheek with her other shoulder. Tibbie, who had watched her, aped her movement faithfully. They looked at themselves again, and Tibbie remarked, "But I ain't red, anyhow."

"Law! that you ain't! When are you going to begin to get some fat on your bones, Tibbie, or to grow?"

"I don't know. Who's the gentleman, Sal, in the pretty frame?"

"That's Mrs.'s husband. He ain't been living some time."

"Oh, he isn't living. Listen, listen, Sally! What's that noise I keep hearing? I've heard it ever since we came."

Sally listened. "That? That's Jetty. It's a little bit of a dog, up at the top of the house."

"Oh, a little bit of a dog! Why does he bark all the time?"

"I guess Mrs. Bonnet shut him up there alone in the dark till she came back from gadding with Miss Pittock."

"Couldn't we get him, Sally? I hate to hear him. I want to see him awfully."

"All right. You wait here. But don't you hurt anything, or I'll skin you, sure, like I told Miss Catherine. And whatever you do, don't you go into the little room till I come back."

"Is the hundred there?"

"Yes, it's there."

Tibbie, left alone, looked at the half-open door a minute, then turned away from it: all was so interesting, anyhow, she could wait with grace. With the palm of her hand, which she frequently stopped to smell, she stroked the fine linen pillows on the bed, and the white bear rugs on the floor, and the curtains: everything felt so soft. She examined the features of the Rev. Dorel Goodhue with approbation, proposing to ask Sally whether she knew him.

The bark came nearer and nearer; when the door opened, in tumbled a small silky ball of black dog, who almost turned himself inside out in his delight at being in human company again. He ran floppily about and about the floor, in his conscious, cringing, graceful way, waving his tail round and round, tossing back his long silk ears to bark and bark.

At last the girls between them had him caught. He was squeezed tight in Tibbie's arms, where he wriggled and twitched, covering her cheeks and ears with rapid dog-kisses, interspersed still with rapturous barks. "Oh, oh!" cried Tibbie, trying vainly to hold him still long enough to get a good kiss at him. "Isn't he soft? Isn't he sweet? And he has a yellow ribbon. Oh, do keep quiet, doggie dear--you tickle!"

"I don't think we will bother any more about seeing the hundred," said Sally, a feigned coldness in her tone, and stood aloof watching child and dog.

"I had forgotten, honest, Sally."

"Put him down and come on, then."

"Mayn't I hold him and come too?"

"No; for when you see 'em, you'll drop him so quick you'll like as not break his legs."

"All right. Down, Jetty! Down, sir! Come along, Jetty; come right along, dear!"

"Wait a minute. I'll go in first and turn up the light. When I sing out, you come on."

She went ahead, and Jetty precipitated himself at her heels. Tibbie stooped with anxious inducing noises, and "Come back, sir! Come back!"

"Ready!" shouted Sally.

Tibbie made a bound for the door, but at a step's distance was overcome by a curious timidity, and instead of bolting in, pulled the door towards her tremulously, and pushed aside the lace hanging with a cold hand.

There lay the hundred, all on a couch under the gas-light, arranged as in a show-window, propped by means of silk cushions so as to form a solid sloping bank--the hundred beautiful dolls.

"Well, ma'am?" asked Sally, expectantly.

Tibbie said nothing, but looked at them vaguely, full of constraint.

"Well, I never!" said Sally. "Don't you like 'em? What on earth did you expect, child? Well, I never! Well, if it don't beat all! Why, when I was a young one--Why, Tibbie girl--don't you think they are _lovely_?"

"Yes," she whispered, moving her head slowly up and down, then letting it hang.

"Aw, come out of that," said Sally, understanding. "Come, let's look at 'em one by one, taking all our time. Come to Sally, darling, and don't feel bad. We'll have lots of fun."

She took the not unwilling Tibbie by the hand, and led her nearer the banked splendor.

The dolls were all of a size, and, undressed, would with difficulty have been told apart, except, perhaps, by their little mothers. All were very blond and wide-eyed and bow-lipped; all, though dressed like little ladies, had the chubby hands of infants; and their boots were painted trimly on with black, and their garters with blue. But how to render the coquettish fashionableness with which these wax-complexioned darlings were tricked out! all equally in silks and satins and velvets and lace, so that there could be no jealousies; all with hats of like beauty and stylishness.

Sally seated herself on the floor beside the low couch, and pulled Tibbie down into her lap, who drew up Jetty into hers. Tibbie had recovered the power to speak, but was still unduly sober and husky.

"I had almost guessed it, you know," she said, "when you said like angels with hats on. But I couldn't think there would be a hundred unless it was a store. What has the lady so many for?"

"Bless your heart! They ain't for herself! They are for orphans in a school that a minister-cousin of hers is superintendent of. She has been over a month making these clothes. Every Wednesday she would give a tea party, and a lot of ladies come and sit stitching and snipping and buzzing over the dolls' clothes the blessed afternoon. And I washed the tea things after them all!"

"They are for the orphans. Are there a hundred orphans?"

"I guess likely."

"Suppose, Sally--suppose there were only ninety-nine, and some girl got two!"

"Well, we two have got a hundred for to-night, Tibbie, so let's play, and glad enough we've got our mothers. Look, this is the way you must hold them to be sure of not crumpling anything."

She slipped her hand deftly under a doll's petticoats, and they peeped discreetly at the dainty under-clothes, crisp and snowy, more lace than linen.

"My soul and body! Did you ever see the like!" exclaimed Sally, spurring on Tibbie's enthusiasm by the tone of her voice, making the wonder more, to fill her little friend's soul to intoxication. Tibbie easily responded. She fairly rocked herself to and fro with delight.

"And not a pin among 'em," sighed Sally. "All pearl buttons and silk tying-strings and silver hooks and eyes; and, mercy on my soul! a little bit of a pocket in every dress, with its little bit of a lace pocket-handkerchief inside. D'you see that, Tibbie? And not two alike!"

"Oh, but there are some _'most_ alike!" said the quick-eyed Tibbie; "only, scattered far apart. There are three with the little rose-bud silk, and here's more than one with the speckled muslin. Perhaps those will be given to sisters."

"Come on, Tibbie; let's choose the one we would choose to get, if we was to get one given us. Now, I would like that one in red velvet. It's just so dressy, ain't it, with the gold braid sewed down in a pattern round the bottom. Which would you take?"

"I should like the one all in white. She must be a bride; see, she has a wreath and veil and necklace. I should like her the very best. But right after that, if I could have two, I should like this other in the shade-hat with the forget-me-nots, and forget-me-nots dotted all over her dress. And, see! the sky-blue hair-ribbon. If I could just have three of them, then I would take this one too, with the black lace shawl over her head fastened with roses instead of a hat. She has such a lovely face! And after her I would choose this one in green--or this one in pink; no, this one here, Sally, just look--this one in green and pink. And you, if you could have more than one, which would you choose, after the red one?"

"Well, I guess I'd choose this one in white."

"Oh no, Sally; don't you remember? That is the bride, the one I said the very first. You can have all the others, Sally dear, except the bride. But let's see, perhaps there are two brides. Yes!--no!--that is just a little girl in white, without a wreath. Should you like her as well? I was the first to say the bride, you know."

"Law! I wouldn't have wanted her if I had known she was a bride! I take this one, Tibbie--this one with the feathers in her hat. Ain't she the gay girl, in red and green plaid! And this purple silk one, and this red and white stripe, and this--"

"Wait! That's enough, Sally; that makes four for you. It's my turn now. If I could have five, I should take one of the rose-bud ones--no, two of them, so's to play I had twins. Say, Sally, let's choose one apiece--first you one, then me one, till we've chosen them all up, and got fifty apiece. Your turn."

They chose and chose, pointing each time, and detailing the costume of the chosen one aloud with the greatest enjoyment.

Jetty had laid himself down beside them, stretched his silky length, his nose between his paws. He was very tired. Perhaps among the things his great moist eyes were wondering about was the reason of this fatigue in his vocal chords.

"For my forty-fifth one," said Sally, placing her forefinger pensively against the side of her nose, "I choose her--her with the little black velvets run all through."

"Taken already," said Tibbie, promptly.

"Then her over there, with the short puffy sleeves."

"Taken!"

"She taken too? Well, then, her in the pink Mother Hubbard with the little knitting-bag on her arm."

"Taken, Sally! Can't you remember anything? Those belong to me; I chose them long ago. These are the only not taken ones; here and here and here and here and here and here and--"

"Aw, you're a great girl!" cried Sally, suddenly throwing her arms around Tibbie and casting herself backward on the floor with her, where they tumbled and rolled, laughing, Jetty jumping about on top of them, barking hoarsely in a frenzy of fun.

"Oh, Tibbie, ain't we having a time of it?"

And Tibbie almost shouted, "Yes!--ain't we having a time of it!"

"Ain't this a night?"

"Oh yes!--ain't it a night!"

Sally tickled and poked her affectionately; and she tried to tickle Sally, and laughed till she was almost hysterical, and never remembered who she was, or thought of anything outside this little room, but was filled with a sense of the crazy deliciousness of the moment.

At last, weak with laughter, she disentangled herself from the still panting and laughing Sally on the floor, and insisted on returning to the business of the distribution. She felt in the mood to be very funny. She jerked herself up and down and all about in a senseless sort of way.

"Here, Sally, now stop laughing and let's finish. It was your turn. You'd best take that one; she looks more as if she might be a little girl of yours, her cheeks are so red--red as a great big cabbage!" This remark seemed to Tibbie so inexpressibly humorous that she laughed again till she nearly cried.

"Well, it's sure none of 'em has legs to make 'em look like children of yours," retorted Sally; and that seemed a greater joke still. With a foal's action, Tibbie flung out the thin black legs with the awkward boots at the ends of them, and dropped to the floor squirming and laughing. Sally caught her suddenly again, and cast herself backward with her as before, in a gale of mirth.

There they were frolicking, when the peal of a bell rang brightly across their giggles.

Sally sat up instantly, and all in Mrs. Darling's house was for a long moment still as the very grave, for Sally had instinctively clapped her hand over Jetty's ready muzzle.

"Murder!" whispered Sally, solemnly, at last.

"What is it?" breathed Tibbie in her ear.

"Was it the front door or the back door?" asked Sally.

"I dun'no', Sally."

Sally had picked herself up, and was stroking down her things.

Tibbie stood beside her, looking up in her face, her own a trifle pale.

Sally's irresolution lasted only a second. She cast an eye on the dolls, saw that they were very nearly as she had found them, and turned down the light. She looked about Mrs. Darling's room to see that all was as usual, and turned down the lights there too, after glancing at the clock.

"It ain't late," she murmured. "It ain't a bit later than I supposed. It can't be her! It might be Mrs. Bonnet, though, getting home before Catherine, who's got the key. I shouldn't want her to catch you here for the whole world. Look here, Tibbie. You stand in here till I find out who it is, and if it's Mrs. Bonnet, you'll have to stay hidden till I find a good chance to come and smuggle you down."

Tibbie waited in the farthest corner of the hall closet, holding her breath, conscious of nothing at first but excitement and fear of she did not know quite what. After a little, the thought drifted across her fervent hope for present safety, that though she got well out of this scrape, she would probably never see those radiant dollies again, her own half or Sally's.

She heard a whiffling and scratching at the closet door. Here was Jetty, dear Jetty, whose actions would surely betray her to Mrs. Bonnet when she came that way. Tibbie whispered: "Go right away, Jetty. There's no one in this closet; go right away!" and pressed backward to the wall, among the water-proofs, feeling like a little criminal with the police on her track.

"Tibbie!" came Sally's voice from the foot of the stairs: it sounded perfectly calm, and pleasant with a sort of company pleasantness. "It's all right. It's just a friend dropped in for a moment. You can go in again and play a little longer. Turn up the light carefully. But remember what I told you."

Tibbie instantly forgot all her fears. She came out and picked up Jetty; she kissed him, explaining why she had told him to go away. The doggie seemed to bear no malice.

Tibbie tiptoed into the doll-room, and established herself on her knees before the dolls, happier than before, with a profounder happiness, in a stiller, almost devotional mood. It was so different being alone with them, having them quite to herself, to play with in her own way. She took up the bride with a reverent hand, and after long contemplating her, very seriously, tenderly kissed her. Then, touching them as if they had been snow-flakes almost, she moved the impressive little persons about, until her fifty were on one side and Sally's on the other.

"I can't play they're a family," she reflected; "they are too many all the same age, and all girls. I will play they are a hundred girls in an orphan asylum--a very rich orphan asylum--and that I am the superintendent. To-morrow I am going to give each a beautiful doll for a Christmas present. This little girl's name is Rosa. That one is Nelly. That one is Katy. That one is Sue." She named every one, passing through the list of such names as Golden-locks, Cherrylips, Diamondeyes, to end with such invented ones as Kirry, Mirry, Dirry, Birry. They seemed so much completer with names. Tibbie would say, "Miss Snowdrop!" And Miss Snowdrop, with Tibbie's assistance, would rise, answering, "Yes, ma'am." "Spell knot." "N--O--T!" "Not at all, my dear. Sit down again, my dear. Miss Lily; stand up, miss, and see if you can do any better this morning."

Suddenly, after having taken the asylum through a day's exercises, Tibbie tired of being the superintendent. She craved a relation more intimate, more affectionate, with the dollies. She did not believe a superintendent would have kissed and fondled them as she longed to do. She selected a dozen or so, to play they were her children. She gave them their supper; she washed them and made them say their prayers. She told them it was bedtime, and she would now rock them to sleep. She turned down the light, to make all very real, and drawing out a low rocking-chair that seemed made for her purpose, seated herself in it with two dolls on each arm, the rest made as comfortable as possible on her lap; for not one of them, after being included in the family, could, of course, be left out of the rocking. She rocked gently, now hushing, now singing "Bye-low-low-baby," her maternal heart swollen very large. In time, one of the daughters became fractious and restless; she had to have medicine, and the rocking for her sake had to become almost violent. Nothing would soothe her but that the chair should rock backward and forward to the very tip ends of its rockers. This had its good effect at last; all the dolls were fast asleep, and the mother, her duty done, composed herself to take a well-earned rest too. This thought was no doubt suggested to Tibbie by the fact that she was really getting sleepy. It was long past her bedtime.

She was not far from napping when she became aware of Sally saying: "Lively, Tibbie! Miss Catherine has got back. We must be packing off home. I declare I lost sight of the time. There's just no one like a fireman to be entertaining, I declare. Mrs. Bonnet won't be long coming now."

She turned up the light, and saw the dolls so disarranged.

Tibbie was rubbing her eyes.

"Law!" said Sally, a little blankly. "Do you suppose we can get them to look as they did? I hope t' Heaven she didn't know which went next to which. Do you remember, Tibbie, where each belonged?"

"Yes. The bride went here. The rose-buds here. The purple and gray here. I can put them all back, every one."

"Oh, we're all right!" said Sally, cheerfully again. "No one'll ever know in the world they've been disturbed."

She had drawn off to get the general effect, and compare it with the earlier image in her brain, when she made a dive for one of the dolls, the last one, that the sleepy Tibbie had handed her up off the floor.

"Tibbie!" she said, in a ghastly whisper, "look at its head!"

Something had happened to it, certainly. Its pink-and-white face was pushed in; it looked very much as if a chair-rocker had gone over it. Tibbie looked at it, not understanding at all.

"Oh, Tibbie!" groaned Sally, "now what'll we do!"

"I didn't do it," said Tibbie, lifting a pale face with perfectly truthful eyes. "I was just as careful! She was one of my daughters; I had her in my lap rocking her to sleep with the others; she must have slipped off my lap--there were too many for one lap, I guess--but I didn't step on her. Sure, Sally--sure as I live, I didn't step on her!"

"Oh, law! You must have rocked on her. Oh, Tibbie, what'll I do!"

She picked up the doll to examine it, but saw at once that the little face could not be made right again.

Tibbie watched her without a word; her voice seemed to have sunk far below reach.

Sally moved the dolls about tentatively, so that ninety-nine should cover the same space as a hundred. Certainly at first glance the one she held would never be missed. "But what's the good?" she said, throwing it down. "They'll count them, and there'll be the mischief of a fuss. Oh, Tibbie"--and she had reached the end of her good-nature--"why did I ever think of bringing you here? Now look at all the trouble you've brought on me, when I thought you'd be so careful! And I told you and told you till I was hoarse. And here you've ruined all!"

Tibbie's eyes could not bear to meet Sally's. She stood with her hands behind her, speechless and motionless, in the middle of the floor.

"I declare I don't know what to do!" Sally exclaimed, dropping her arms and sitting down before the wreck. "I wish I'd never seen 'em! I wish there'd never been any Christmas! Oh, it's a great job, this! Tibbie, you've done for me this time!"

At this moment Miss Catherine came in to hurry them.

"She's broken one of them!" blurted out Sally.

"You don't mean it!"

"Yes, she has!"

"Let me see it. Oh, you wicked child! She's smashed its face right in! Now who ever heard of such naughtiness?"

Tibbie twisted about ever so little, to get her back turned towards the two.

"She didn't do it out of naughtiness at all, Miss Catherine. She's as good a child as ever lived!" At that Tibbie's shoulders gave a little convulsive heave. "It was an accident entirely. But that's just as bad for me. I suppose I shall have to say it was me did it."

"And then they'll say what was I doing while the kitchen help was poking about in the Mrs.'s chamber. No; you don't get me into trouble, Sally Bean! You'd much better say how it was--how that you asked me if you just might bring a little girl to look, and I said you might, out of pure good-nature, being Christmas is rightly for children, and I've a softness for them. And while we was both in the kitchen, she slipped away from us and came here and done it before we knew. And the child herself will say that it was so. You'll be packed off dead sure out of this place if you let on you meddled with them yourself. She won't have her things meddled with--There goes the bell. There comes that old cat Bonnet."

She hurried off to open.

"What's the matter?" said Mrs. Bonnet, elevating her eyebrows as she appeared at the door and looked into the room she had expected to find dark and still. She held a paper bag; she spoke with an impediment and a breath of peppermint. Her cheek-bones and the end of her nose were brilliant pink with the cold. "What child is that?"

Miss Catherine was behind Mrs. Bonnet. "It happened this way, Mrs. Bonnet," she began, and told the story with a little tactful adaptation to the intelligence of her audience, ending, "And now, Mrs. Bonnet, what's to be done?"

"Oh, you wicked little brat!" said Mrs. Bonnet. "I just want to get hold of you and shake you!"

She made a snatch at Tibbie, who instinctively got beyond her clutch, and turning scared eyes towards Sally, said, just audibly, "I want to go home; I want to go home."

"It don't seem possible," said Mrs. Bonnet, bitterly, "that I can't run out a minute just to do an errand for Mrs. Darling herself--to get a spool of feather-stitching silk--but things like this has to happen. Catherine, I thought you, at least, was a responsible person, and here you has to go and--"

"Mrs. Bonnet," Catherine interrupted, "you just let that alone! Don't you try none of that with me! I went out of an errand every bit as much as you did. I went out to make sure the ice-cream would be sent in good season for Christmas dinner, I did. Now I don't get dragged into this mess one bit more than you do!"

Mrs. Bonnet looked at her with a poison-green eye. She seemed to be repressing what was a trifle difficult to keep the upper hand of.

"Well," she exclaimed at last, "Mrs. Darling will be here in a minute, and then we shall all see what we shall see. Lord, ain't that woman been cross to-day, and fussy! 'Tain't as if she was like other people--a little bit sensible, and could take some little few things into consideration, and remember we are all human flesh and blood. Not much! She don't consider nothing, nor nobody, nor feelings, nor circumstances! She just makes things fly! Things has to go her way, every time!"

"I want to go home," cried Tibbie, pathetically, and looked towards Sally now with a trembling face.

"No, you sha'n't go home," said Bonnet, uglily. "You shall stay right here and take the blame you deserve, after spoiling the face of that handsome doll. What do you mean by it, you little brat, you little gutter imp?"

"You let her alone, Mrs. Bonnet," said Sally, with a boldness that had never before characterized her relations with that lady. "Don't you talk to her like that! Any one can see she's as sorry as sorry can be for what she's done, and all the trouble she's got us into--"