PLAYMATE DOROTHY
"You sit right there, Dorothy, and make yourself at home," said Mary Jane, "and I'll get Marie Georgiannamore for you to play with."
"What in the world!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill to herself as she passed Mary Jane's door on the morning after Junior had had his shower bath. "Who can be there now? I particularly told Mary Jane not to invite any children in, this week." She opened the door and was already to say, "Whose little girl are you?" as she usually did to new friends that Mary Jane brought home. But this time there wasn't any little girl there! Only Mary Jane and her dolls and her teddy bears playing as contentedly as you please.
"Oh!" laughed Mrs. Merrill, much relieved, "that's a joke on me, Mary Jane; I thought you were talking to some new little girl. I didn't know that you had named one of your dolls Dorothy."
"I was talking to a little girl," answered Mary Jane solemnly, "and I haven't changed the name of one of my dolls—not one."
"Well, that's nice," said Mrs. Merrill, but she didn't pay more than half attention to what Mary Jane said because she just happened to think of something that she surely must order from the grocery as soon as she could get downstairs. "I'm glad you are having such a good time." And she kissed her little daughter lightly and went away.
"You'll have to excuse her, Dorothy," apologized Mary Jane, "grown folks don't know much sometimes and I'm sure she didn't see you or she'd have asked you to stay for lunch." She pulled two chairs over to the window seat, got out paper and colored pencils and then sat down in one chair. "Now you make snow on your paper and I'll make a picture."
For some minutes there was quiet in the nursery except for the sound of
Mary Jane's pencil rubbing, rubbing on the paper.
"There!" she said at last, "there's a cow and two chickens and a strawberry like they have at my great-grandmother's that Dr. Smith told me about. Let's see your snow," she added politely. She picked up the blank piece of white paper that lay in front of the other chair and looked at it thoughtfully. "You do make nice snow, Dorothy," she said, "it's so clean and white. Now let's go down and see if lunch is ready."
When she reached the door of the nursery, she stepped back to let some one pass out in front of her and as she went downstairs she was careful to keep well to one side so that there was plenty of room for some one to walk beside her. She went through the empty living room, through the dining room and out into the kitchen where her mother was working.