One afternoon, several weeks before Christmas, the Higgledy Piggledies were especially busy, an order for dressed dolls having come in that had to be filled immediately. Dressing dolls was one of the things they had not been called on to do before, but if dolls had to be dressed they must be dressed and the partners made it a rule never to turn down any form of order.
“We’ll send an S. O. S. for our reserves,” said Josie. “And then the faithful shall have to stay on and work overtime. It’s Saturday, fortunately, and we can sleep late to-morrow.”
Ursula proved an able assistant, being very clever at fashioning the miniature garments.
“I always loved to dress dolls,” she said, “but haven’t done it for years and years. Of course, Ben and Philip did not want dolls.”
“I’d of wanted one,” declared Philip. “Nobody never asked me didn’t I!” He had drawn a stool up close to his sister’s knee and watched her with adoring and wondering eyes as she fashioned a tiny ruffled apron for a blue-eyed beauty with a saucy turned-up nose and yellow hair. “I wisht you’d let me hold that dolly until you finish her dress.”
“Aw, sissy!” jeered Ben. “I wouldn’t let the boys catch me playin’ dolls.”
“I ain’t a sissy,” objected Philip. “I’m all time seein’ fathers wheelin’ their kids out on Sundays. One time I peeked in a window back in Louisville an’ I saw a man a-huggin’ an’ a-kissin’ his baby an’ playin’ with it jes’ like girls do doll babies. What’s the reason that boys that’re goin’ to grow up to be big mens can’t play doll babies as much as men can play with their own babies made out of meat? I betcher if Mr. Cheatham had played with doll babies some he wouldn’t of ’spised little boys so much when he got growed up.”
The argument being unanswerable, Ben did not attempt to answer it, but satisfied himself by asserting it was sissy all the same to play dolls. Philip looked longingly at the blue-eyed beauty but made no further request to be allowed to hold it, although the young dressmakers encouraged him to practice being a father all he wished. He merely sat and watched the fashioning of the dainty garments, ever on the alert to pick up dropped spools of thread or wait on the busy seamstresses.
Mary Louise had come in to help and Laura Hilton and Lucile Neal. Edna Barlow had promised to give her Saturday afternoon to the rush order and Jane Donovan had missed a fashionable tea, so that she, too, might have a finger in the doll pie. Some of the girls had worked all day, not even going home for luncheon but having what Josie called a “pick-up” at the shop.
“A gross of dolls to be dressed is no idle jest,” exclaimed Elizabeth, “not meaning to fall into poetry, so don’t anybody accuse me of lisping in numbers. What do you think of my flapper?” She held up a doll in a fringed skirt and slipover sweater with neat collar and cuffs, bobbed hair, rakish hat and even cleverly contrived gaiters unbuttoned according to the last cry in flapperdom.