“It will make lovely trunk-straps; and a shawl-strap too. May I have it, Johnny?” and Tiny measured the pieces approvingly on her finger, as she spoke. It is needless to say that the articles she mentioned were for the latest addition to her doll family.
“Oh yes, you may have it, but how girls can be so foolish about dolls—!” and Johnny marched off, leaving Tiny to make the most of this gracious permission.
“I was afraid he would want it for a sling or something,” she said, contentedly. “You don’t think dolls are foolish, do you, mamma?”
“No, darling, or I wouldn’t have helped papa to give you that beauty for Christmas. I cared more for my dolls than for all the rest of my toys put together, and while you are such a good mother to your family, and make such neat clothes for it, and at the same time are such a good little daughter to me, I shall find no fault with either the dolls or their mamma.”
Tiny looked very much pleased, and went, in her usual orderly manner, to put the strap away, until she could coax Johnny into cutting it up for her. It was remarkable, considering his contempt for the whole doll race, how much he had done to better its condition! Trunks and furniture, vehicles of various sorts, and even a complete summer residence, had in turn been coaxed from him, and not a few of Tiny’s small playmates openly expressed the wish that they had brothers “just like Johnny Leslie.”
Though the cloud had lifted for a moment, it lowered again as Johnny walked to school. The twine cut his hand, the wind blew his hat off, as he was passing Jim’s stand, and I am afraid that Jim’s kindness in picking up and restoring the wanderer, just before it reached the gutter, was quite lost sight of because Jim clapped it on Johnny’s head with rather more force than was strictly necessary.
“Got the toothache?” asked Jim, sympathizingly, as he caught sight of Johnny’s glum face.
“No; what makes you think I have?” and Johnny “bristled”; he was not a little afraid of Jim’s sharp tongue.
“Oh, I thought I saw a sort of a swelled-out look around your mouth,” said Jim, very gravely, “and you don’t look happy; and those two things are what I heard a big doctor call symptom-atic!”