Deep in her heart struggled an uneasy fear. Mother would hear the doll! Mother might suspect what it meant! At all hazards, Dolly must be kept from talking while mother was by.
She was so quiet and subdued when she went downstairs to breakfast, with the doll in her arms, that her father and mother could not understand it. They had looked forward to seeing her boisterously joyful. She kissed them, and thanked them, and tried to seem like her usual self, but mothers' eyes are sharp, and Mrs. Carpenter detected the look of trouble.
"What's the matter, dear?" she whispered. "Don't you feel well?"
"Oh, yes! very well. Nothing's the matter." Amy whispered back, keeping the terrible Dolly sedulously prone, as she spoke.
"Come, Amy, let's see your new baby," said Mr. Carpenter. "She's a beauty, ain't she? Half of her was made in this house, did you know that? Set her up, and let's hear her talk."
"She's asleep now," faltered Amy. "But she's been talking up-stairs. She talks very nicely, Papa. She's tired now, truly she is."
"Nonsense! she isn't the kind that gets tired. Her tongue won't ache if she runs on all day; she's like some little girls in that. Stand her up, Amy, I want to hear her. I've never seen one of 'em out of the shop before. She looks wonderfully alive, doesn't she, Mother?"
But Amy still hesitated. Her manner was so strange that her father grew impatient at last, and, reaching out, took the doll from her, and set it sharply on the table. The little button on the sole of the foot set the curious instrument within in motion. As prepared phrases were rolled off in shrill succession, Mr. Carpenter leaned forward to listen. When the sounds ended, he raised his head with a look of bewilderment.
"Why—why—what is the creature at?" he exclaimed. "That isn't what I put into her. 'I Wish I was dead! Wish everybody else was dead!' I can't understand it at all. I charged all the dolls myself, and there wasn't a word like that in the whole batch. If the others have gone wrong like this, it's all up with our profits."
He looked so troubled and down-hearted that Amy could bear it no longer.