The two children were so absorbed in listening to this rhyming rigmarole that they did not observe the Winny Weg depart, though, when they came to think of it, the last verse was sung in the clouds, and presumably by the Funny Little Man himself, and they quite longed for him to pay them a call. But he didn't, so the goblins started off once more on their wild career, this time on horseback, making such a hammering and a clattering as almost to deafen them.
Quickly in the rear of the white horses and the spirits, who all wore little round caps with tassels at the top, came a procession of dolls—wax dolls, wooden dolls, and saw-dust dolls, very finely dressed, with here and there a doll who had lost a leg, or an arm, or a head, while some were quite cripples, and had to be carried by a train of tiny girls in very short frocks and very long sashes. At the head of these appeared the Winny Weg again, and just as they were vanishing in the shadows, a regular shower of broken dolls came down in dreadful disorder, causing the children to break from their ranks to gather up their property, as the dolls, it was evident, were their own old companions which they had discarded when new ones were given to them. One particularly disreputable doll, with a broken nose and a very battered body, was claimed by the prettiest child of all, and as she picked it up, she stepped into the centre of a ring formed by her school-fellows, and recited to them this pathetic poem:—
The Unfortunate Doll.
O poor Dolly! O pitty sing!
An' did um have a fall?
Some more tourt plaster I must bling
Or else oo'll squeam and squall!
I never knew a doll like oo—
Oo must have been made yong;
I don't fink oo were born twite new—
Oo never have been stwong!
I held oo to the fire one day
To make oose body warm;
And melted oose poor nose away—
And then oo lost oose form.
Yen some yude boy, to my surplise,
Said oo had dot a stwint;
And yen he painted both oose eyes
And wapped oo up in lint.
Your yosey cheeks were nets to fade,
Oose blush bedan to do;
And now I'm welly much aflaid
Oose lost oose big yight toe.
Oose left leg is no longer left,
Oose yight arm's left oo too;
And of your charm oo is beyeft,
And no doll tums to woo!
And oose a hollow little fing,
Oose saw-dust has yun out;
Your stweak is gone, oo cannot sing,
Oose lips tan't form a pout.
Oose hair is dyed, an' all is done,
Oose ears are in oose neck;
An' so my Dolly, darling one,
Oo is a fearful weck.
It is too bad—I loved oo so—
That oo should die so soon,
An' to the told, told drave must do
This velly afternoon!