Annie Laurie and Azalea

by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

“What a love you are,” cried Annie Laurie.

“No more a love than you are yourself,” retorted Carin. “Look!”

She swung her friend around to face the cheval glass, and Annie Laurie saw her own tall, almost haughty, young figure mirrored there, in its plain, well fitting gown of black. She caught a glimpse of her own pretty slippers with their smart bows, of her straight fair neck—Carin had forbidden her to wear her net yoke—and of her red-brown hair wound around and around her head.

“Talk about loves!” said Carin, and led her friend down to the drawing room. There were a number of persons there, it seemed, and Annie Laurie had a confused moment as she was presented to them. She had not been in this room before—at most had glimpsed it from the corridor. Now that she was in it, with the many candles burning in their sconces, the flowers everywhere in vases little and great, with the delicate pinks and yellows of the draperies and furniture making an effect like a wonderful manufactured flower garden all about her, she had a sick feeling of shyness and almost wished that she had not accepted Mrs. Carson’s invitation.

“But that’s being cowardly,” she told herself sharply. “And I’m not afraid of these people, really. They’re all kind and good. What I’m afraid of is merely furniture! Now, who would be afraid of wood and cloth and brass! Silly goose!”

Some one—a pleasant-faced gentleman with white hair—offered his arm to the “silly goose,” and the next moment they were all making their way to the dining room. It was wonderful there, too. The lights seemed to be picked up by the silver and the crystal and to be thrown back in little sparks at Annie Laurie’s dazzled eyes. There was a bright, hurried talking all about her; a talking she could not quite follow. But she had got that new idea in her head, that she was not to be afraid of things like silver and glass and linen, and that certainly no reasonable person could fear kind friends, and so, in a minute or two, her shyness passed, and she was herself again.

There were delicious things passed her to eat, and Annie Laurie wondered what they really could be and why they tasted different from anything she ever had eaten before. The gentleman who had taken her out to dinner was very kind, and talked to her about her lessons, and the early coming of the spring, and how he had not been in those parts previously, and how much he liked it, and how he wished he did not have to go back to Town. By Town, Annie Laurie discovered that he meant New York.

Then, presently, the conversation died down, and everyone seemed to be listening to the lady who sat at Mr. Carson’s right. Her name, it seemed, was Miss Borrow, and she was known, as Mrs. Carson explained, over the mountains as “the doll lady.” She had made a great study of the mountain country, its flowers and trees, its little wild, harmless creatures, furred and feathered, and its lonely, quiet people. Sometimes she traveled for months in a wagon, sleeping in a mountain cabin or in her wagon as the case might be, eating at the simple, hospitable tables of the mountaineers, or cooking by the roadside. And because she was simple and earnest and truly, truly, a friend to all the world, she had been permitted to enter the hearts of the people and they had learned to trust her and to speak out to her almost as freely as they would to one of themselves.

“But please tell us why you are called the ‘doll lady,’ Miss Borrow,” said Carin. “I think I know, but I would so love it if you would explain to Annie Laurie, ma’am.”

“Well,” said Miss Borrow, turning her dark, rather sad eyes upon Annie Laurie, “it was this way. I had not traveled far in the lonely, silent country that lies back among the mountains, before I discovered that the saddest thing about it all was the children—the little children who had nothing to look forward to, and who did not know how to laugh in the happy, free way that children should. They got into bad and silly ways because there was nothing for them to do. So I fell to wondering how I could help them enjoy themselves, and to tell the truth, I hadn’t to wonder very long, for almost immediately it occurred to me that I would give them toys.