Suddenly, after having taken the asylum through a day's exercises, Tibbie tired of being the superintendent. She craved a relation more intimate, more affectionate, with the dollies. She did not believe a superintendent would have kissed and fondled them as she longed to do. She selected a dozen or so, to play they were her children. She gave them their supper; she washed them and made them say their prayers. She told them it was bedtime, and she would now rock them to sleep. She turned down the light, to make all very real, and drawing out a low rocking-chair that seemed made for her purpose, seated herself in it with two dolls on each arm, the rest made as comfortable as possible on her lap; for not one of them, after being included in the family, could, of course, be left out of the rocking. She rocked gently, now hushing, now singing "Bye-low-low-baby," her maternal heart swollen very large. In time, one of the daughters became fractious and restless; she had to have medicine, and the rocking for her sake had to become almost violent. Nothing would soothe her but that the chair should rock backward and forward to the very tip ends of its rockers. This had its good effect at last; all the dolls were fast asleep, and the mother, her duty done, composed herself to take a well-earned rest too. This thought was no doubt suggested to Tibbie by the fact that she was really getting sleepy. It was long past her bedtime.
She was not far from napping when she became aware of Sally saying: "Lively, Tibbie! Miss Catherine has got back. We must be packing off home. I declare I lost sight of the time. There's just no one like a fireman to be entertaining, I declare. Mrs. Bonnet won't be long coming now."
She turned up the light, and saw the dolls so disarranged.
Tibbie was rubbing her eyes.
"Law!" said Sally, a little blankly. "Do you suppose we can get them to look as they did? I hope t' Heaven she didn't know which went next to which. Do you remember, Tibbie, where each belonged?"
"Yes. The bride went here. The rose-buds here. The purple and gray here. I can put them all back, every one."
"Oh, we're all right!" said Sally, cheerfully again. "No one'll ever know in the world they've been disturbed."
She had drawn off to get the general effect, and compare it with the earlier image in her brain, when she made a dive for one of the dolls, the last one, that the sleepy Tibbie had handed her up off the floor.
"Tibbie!" she said, in a ghastly whisper, "look at its head!"
Something had happened to it, certainly. Its pink-and-white face was pushed in; it looked very much as if a chair-rocker had gone over it. Tibbie looked at it, not understanding at all.