Captain Ball’s dolls and ships were popular with the children of Seabury. Almost every little boy owned a ship. Almost every little girl owned a doll.
So the Captain was not at all surprised when Sally and Alice, followed by Mrs. Waters, stepped into his front room, which was toy shop and work room in one.
‘Well, Sally,’ said the Captain, laying down the paint-brush with which he was putting a pair of pretty red lips on a doll; ‘well, Sally, and how have you been this summer?’
‘I have been well,’ answered Sally, shaking hands with the Captain, ‘but this is Alice, and she isn’t well at all, because this morning Tippy ruined her doll. It is the only doll Alice has with her here, so we have come down to buy a Nancy Lee for her, just like mine.’
‘Too bad, too bad,’ said the Captain, shaking his head over naughty Tip, ‘but such accidents will happen. Now, I have three Nancy Lees this morning for Alice to choose from, one with brown hair, one with black hair, and one with yellow curls. And here is a brand-new little Jack Tar, finished only yesterday, in case she would like a boy doll for a change.’
The Captain waved his hand toward a low shelf where the dollies sat in an orderly row, and turned to talk to Mrs. Waters, while Alice and Sally made their choice.
As the Captain had said, there was a Nancy Lee with brown curls, a Nancy Lee with black curls, and a Nancy Lee with golden curls like the one Sally had at home. Each wore a spotless white middy blouse with trimmings of blue and a pair of dark blue bloomers. There was also one boy doll with a yellow crop of boyish curls and the same blue eyes with which the Captain had graced all the Nancy Lees. He was dressed very much like the girls, except that a tiny handkerchief peeped from a mannish pocket in his blouse.
‘Which do you like best?’ whispered Sally.
Alice whispered back, ‘I don’t know.’
But after a pause she said, ‘I think that I like the boy best, because I never have had a boy doll. Have you?’