Dinah
Dinah was not “all things to all men,” but she was everything to one small girl, and a good many things to other members of the family. I think I had better say a few words right here about the aforesaid small girl. She was an only child, and so far beyond mere prettiness as to be really beautiful. Quick, clever, and high spirited, the slavish idolatry of her mother had worked her ruin. Enfant terrible, she was a burden to herself, a terror to all those about her; except during the rare absence of that mother, when, oh! the pity, the shame of it! the little Marie became obedient, gracious, and charming; as sweetly angelic as she was beautiful.
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.