The epidemic of play-acting among the dolls gave Katy’s practical talents a chance also. There was a great demand for boy dolls. One badly damaged tin soldier and a fat sailor boy were all that could be found. But Katy was ingenious. She took her tallest doll and made her a complete outfit of men’s clothes including a cunning straw hat with a black band. She sheared Angelina’s blonde wig short and painted a smart black mustache on her rosebud mouth.
Angie was so changed she wouldn’t have known herself in the glass. But she didn’t need to. She became Horatio Seymour and was never permitted to wear petticoats again.
The other children were so charmed, Katy was besieged with teasing to make over their dolls. It was no small job and after being obliging once or twice, Katy had the happy thought of charging fifteen cents for the transformation.
This was more money than most of the little girls had, so they took to borrowing boy dolls. Horatio Seymour was much over-worked. He took the parts of villain, lover and irate father on an average of at least once every day and from two to three times on Saturdays. Katy had to put a little stick up his back-bone, he got so limp.
But the interest in this doll lovering began to wane after a time. The children looked about for something else exciting. They began to make Horatios out of the boys they knew. Some of the older girls started writing notes, and the smaller ones hung round breathlessly to hear the answers read. The boys were not always responsive. This was the height of the marble season and most of the lads were too crazy over the mooted question of “playing keeps” to care to spell out scrawly notes.
“Who is your beau, Jane?” Grace Dart demanded one day.
Chicken Little cherished a secret admiration for Carol, but she wouldn’t have betrayed it for worlds. Still she felt that she must claim somebody to be in the swim. She thought about it for several days and finally announced proudly to Grace that Johnny Carter was her beau.
“Why he’s the boy you slapped! I thought you didn’t like him Jane.”
“I don’t so very well,” confessed Chicken Little reluctantly. “That’s the reason I took him. Don’t you see—I’m going to reform him.”
Grace looked decidedly puzzled.