“It is my doll,” Miss Dean repeated. “Would you like to hold her?”
I had been longing to take that quaint, white-nightgowned doll into my arms. So I jumped up quickly and brought her back with me to the chair by the bed. Probably my face showed how I loved that old china doll on the spot. Anyway, after Miss Dean had watched me holding it a little while, she said: “That peppermint makes my head feel better. I will tell you about the doll.”
“What is her name?” I asked.
“Susie,” Miss Dean said, “and I have had her ever since I was five years old. The way I happen to keep her out now is this: You see, when I was younger, I used to teach children, year after year, different ones, of course. I used to think that maybe if I married and had a little daughter of my own, I would name her Susie,—my mother’s name was Susan. But I grew older, and I didn’t marry, and then, after a time, I had to give up school-teaching. My father and my mother had died, and I missed the children more and more.
“One day when it was very stormy and I was dreadfully, desperately lonely, without a human being around, I went to the old trunk under the eaves, where I had put my dolls away when I was fourteen years old, and I took Susie out for just that day. And having that doll with me made me feel so much happier that, afterward, every once in awhile, when I grew lonely, I would take her out again. I made some new dresses and nightgowns for her, because it didn’t seem quite fair not to treat her well when she gave me so much pleasure.
“Then, two or three years ago,”—Miss Dean went on; and her large brown eyes began to grow very bright now,—“I put Susie into that little rocking-chair one snowy night when I went to bed; and it was so pleasant to wake up in the morning and find her there that I began to have her out every night. By day I always put her into the bureau drawer, because I thought if people saw her, they wouldn’t understand. I should have put her away this morning when you came, only I was suffering so, I forgot her.”
“But I understand,” I said very quickly. “I am sure that if I lived alone, I should do just the same.”
“So should I. Wasn’t Miss Dean dear?” said Elsa, pushing back her cloudy golden hair as Miss Ruth stopped a moment to put a bit of fallen wood again into the fire.
“Why didn’t she have more than one doll?” Betty asked, thoughtfully, splashing her brush into the water.
“Because one is enough,” said Elsa instantly.