CHAPTER XXVII

DINNER IN DOLL-LAND

Libbie brought up dabs of dough made for her special baking, and rolled them out for biscuits, with a rolling-pin the size of her middle finger, cut them, and baked them in a pan on the bottom of the oven. Bluebell cut a potato into bits and boiled it in a pot. They made tea and laid the table. The cook donated preserves, cake, rice-balls and cold meat: these were mere side-dishes, not to be compared with what they cooked themselves.

Georgiana and the imported wax lady were placed at the table opposite each other, where they half-rolled up their eyes, and refused to be a bit sociable. The other dolls were laid in a hungry circle with their feet to the table, as if to draw in sustenance through the soles.

The biscuits were burnt; but, eaten with butter and preserves, they tasted better than any grown-up biscuit was ever known to do; and though the potatoes came up saltless and without any dressing, they were too mealy for anything. And the feasters drained the teapot dry.

The wax ladies were generously helped, and ate in an invisible way, though what was before them frequently slid toward the head and foot of the table, guided by a plump white hand or a short brown one.

Outside, the cicada’s summer song kept the air full of a pleasant monotone. Scarcely a breeze stirred. The afternoon was so slumbrous one could pretend or make-believe almost anything. Occasionally a passer’s foot sounded on the brick pavement. Doctor Garde’s little girl, who sat in range of the street, often turned from the interest in hand to look, with the expectation that Someone was coming from Somewhere to her. Not exactly a nabob, or an elephant, or a fairy in gauze wings; but some herald from the wonderful future into which she seemed to be entering.

Miss Libbie Biggar’s fancy reared itself only on substantial foundations.

“Mrs. Garde,” she observed, leaning forward to fix her bead-black eyes on the shrinking Georgiana, “your daughter looks as if she had the mumps on one side of her face. I had the mumps once, and made grandma give me some pickle, and it hurt--oh, you can’t think how it hurt me! Mrs. Garde, if your daughter has the mumps, you shouldn’t brought her into my large family.”

“Oh, Mrs. Biggar, it isn’t mumps at all. She got too near the fire once when she was crying very hard, and her cheek began to run down with the tears, and forgot to run back. Mrs. Biggar, does your daughter take music-lessons?”

“O dear, yes! She can play the _Battle of Prague_ clear through without looking at her notes.”

“I s’pose you send her to the seminary to school?”

“Yes; but her health will not allow her to be confined too much.” Mrs. Biggar was quoting from her seniors.

“I am going to send my daughter to the seminary. She loves to go to school. Her health is very stout. I will have to hold her back instead of pushing her ahead.” Mrs. Garde also was quoting from her seniors.

“Won’t you have something more, Mrs. Garde?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Biggar.”

“Children will any of you be helped to something more?”

The prostrate dolls, who camped with their heels to the repast, and were supposed to be seated in a rosy circle around the general table, all responded in different tones that they didn’t want any more, thank you. So the ladies ceremoniously rose.

Mrs. Biggar led the way to the parlor-set. All the dolls, except the wax ones and the blackamoor, were sent outdoors to play in a corner, but told they could not go on the sidewalk. The colored doll was directed to clear the dinner away, which she industriously did by leaning on her stomach across the table. The fire had gone down to white ashes in the stove.

Mrs. Biggar invited Mrs. Garde to take a seat upon the sofa. But as the sofa was only a little too large for Mrs. Garde to put in her pocket, that lady only pretended she sat upon it, while her real and substantial support was the ingrain carpet.

“My daughter will play on the piano for you,” observed the hostess. “You ought to say you’d be delighted.”

“I’d be delighted, Mrs. Biggar.”

“This is the piano.”

Mrs. Garde could see no key-board. And it stood square and boxlike without legs: a small dark polished case. Even when the tall wax doll was prevailed upon to favor them, she did not open the instrument. Her mamma applied a key to it; but a vast amount of coaxing was necessary to overcome the young lady’s reluctance.

“Come, my dear, give us some music,” said Mrs. Biggar briskly.

“Mamma,” replied a voice much thinner, but in other respects strangely like the maternal tones, “Don’t ask me. You know I don’t play.”

“You urge her,” suggested Mrs. Biggar to the guest.

“What’ll I say?”

“Why, you say, ‘Oh do,’ and ‘Now don’t disappoint us,’ and ‘You play _so_ well,’ just as big folks do when a young lady acts that way.”

“Oh, do play. Miss Biggar,” pressed Mrs. Garde, “now don’t disappoint us; you do play so well!”

“Mrs. Garde,” responded the thin voice, though that wax doll sat gazing serenely forward, and never so much as wagged a curl, “please excuse me: I can’t play a bit, and my throat is so sore I don’t know what to do!”

“Now you know you can play ever so many pieces right straight along without stopping,” said Mrs. Biggar reproachfully.

“Oh, do!” chimed Mrs. Garde. Her mind flashed back to the time when pianos were an unseen mystery to her and she wanted to play on one so badly that a piece of sheet-iron binding sticking from a box became a make-believe piano, upon which she thumped with rapture. But these retrospections were not imparted to the Biggar family, and Miss Biggar suddenly yielded to pressure, seated herself before, and suffered her hands to be laid upon the polished box.

“Ah!” cried Mrs. Garde when the music started without visible assistance, “a----h! How _can_ she do it? What kind of a piano is that!”

“That’s a music-box, goosie,” replied Libbie, descending from make-believe for an instant. “My grandma brought it to me when she went over the ocean. Didn’t you ever see one?”

“No, I didn’t.”

It played _Home, Sweet Home_, caught its breath, played _Old Uncle Ned_, caught its breath again, gave a Tyrolese melody, again clicked, played _Hail Columbia_ and stopped.

“That’s all,” said Libbie. “Four tunes.”

“Play your pieces over, Miss Biggar.”

The music-box was put through its performance again.

“Now that’s enough,” said Libbie decidedly; “le’s play something else. Dolls is so old.”

“We might go out and run.”

“No, I don’t want to do that.”

“There’s somebody knocked at the door.”

“It’s just our cook.--What you want?”

“Miss Calder’s sent for the little girl that’s playing with you.”

“For me?” Bluebell ran and opened the door.

“Yes; Archie’s down-stairs and says she wants you.”

“I’ve got to go, Libbie.”

“That’s mean!”

“He says,” added the messenger, “that somebody’s come to your house.”