“Do you?” said April, brightening. “Then it’s all right. As for you,” she added, turning sharply round on Max, “you can go out and sit on the steps, if you don’t want to hear it.”
“Oh!” stammered Max, dreadfully ashamed of himself, “I do. I’d just as lief hear it as not. And I beg your pardon, if I spoke rudely.”
“Very well then,” said April, pacified. “If you feel that way, I’ll proceed. This doll lived in a closet. I should never have come across her probably if it hadn’t been for the house-cleaning.
“You must know that there are countries in the world where every spring and fall the houses are all turned upside down and inside out, and then downside up and outside in, all for the sake of being clean. The women do it. What becomes of the men I don’t know: they climb trees or something to be out of the way, I suppose. I like these times, of all things. I like to swing the heavy carpets to and fro on the lines, and flap the maids’ aprons into their faces as they stand on the ledge outside to wash the windows. It is great fun. And I love to creep into holes and corners, and rummage and poke about to see what folks have got. And one day, when doing this in an old garret, I found the doll, who, as I said, was living in a closet. They had put her there to be out of the way of the cleaning.
“Her name was Maria. She was big, but not very beautiful. Her head was dented, and there were marks of finger-nails on her cheeks, which were faded and of a purplish-pink. But her arms and legs were bran new, and white as snow, and her body was round and full of sawdust. I couldn’t understand this at all until she explained it. Her head, it seemed, was twenty-five years old; and her body had only been in the world six weeks!
“Once, she said, she had possessed a body just the same age as her head, and then she belonged to a person she called ‘Baby May.’ Baby May used to bump her on the floor, and dig the soft wax out of her cheeks with her nails. This treatment soon ruined her good looks; and when she mentioned this, Maria almost cried,—but not quite, because, as she said, years had taught her self-command. I don’t know what she meant,” added April, reflectively. “I’m sure years never taught me any thing of the sort. However, that is neither here nor there! If she hadn’t had a fine constitution, Maria never could have endured all this cruelty. Her body didn’t. It soon sank under its sufferings; and, after spitting sawdust for some months, wasted away so much that May’s mother said it must go into the ragbag. People make a great fuss about having their heads cut off, but Maria said it was quite easy if the scissors were sharp. Snip, snip, rip, rip, and there you are. The head was put carefully away in a wardrobe because it was so handsome, and May’s mamma promised to buy a new body for it; but somehow she forgot, and by and by May grew so big that she didn’t care to play with dolls any more. So Maria’s head went on living in the wardrobe. Having no longer any cares of the body to disturb it, it gave itself up to the cultivation of the intellect. A wardrobe is a capital place for study, it appears. People keep their best things there, and rarely come to disturb them. At night, when the house is asleep, they wake up and talk together, and tell secrets. The silk gowns converse about the fine parties they have gone to, and the sights they have seen. There were several silk gowns in the wardrobe. One of them had a large spot of ice-cream on its front breadth. She used to let the other things smell it, that they might know what luxury was like; and once Maria got a chance, and licked it with her tongue, but she said it didn’t taste as she expected. There was an India shawl, too, which would lift the lid of its box, and relate stories—oh, so interesting!—about black faces and white turbans and hot sunshine. The laces in the drawer came from Belgium. That was a place to learn geography! And the Roman pearls had a history too. They were devout Catholics, and would tell their beads all night if nobody seemed to be listening. But the Coral in the drawer below was Red Republican in its opinions, and made no attempt to hide it. Both hailed from Italy, but they were always quarrelling! Oh, Maria knew a deal! As she grew wise, she ceased to care for tea-parties, and being taken out to walk as formerly. All she wanted was to gain information, and strengthen her mind. At least so she said; but for all that,” remarked April, with a sly smile, “she had some lingering regard for looks still, for she complained bitterly of the change in her complexion. Perhaps it was putting so much inside her head made the outside so dull and shabby!
“Well, for twenty-three long years Maria lived in the wardrobe at the head of polite society. She was treated with great respect. The dresses always bowed to her when they went in and out. When their time came for being ripped up and pieced into bedquilts, they said farewell with many tears. All this gratified her feelings, of course. So you can imagine what a shock it was when, one day, the wardrobe door was suddenly opened, and she was lifted down and laid in a pair of little clutching hands, which grasped her eagerly. A small thumb-nail pierced her left cheek. ‘I could have screamed,’ said Maria; ‘but where would have been the use? Dolls have positively no rights.’”
“Who was it took her down?” asked Max, quite forgetful of his original scorn about Maria’s history.
“It was Baby May. Not the same May, but another as like her as two peas. In fact, the first May was grown up; and this was her little girl. Grandmamma had bought a beautiful new body, and now Maria’s head had to be sewed on to it. Her feelings when the stitches were put in, she said, she could never describe. They were like those of a poor old soldier, who, after living fifty years on his pension, finds himself dragged from pipe and chimney-corner, and obliged to begin again as a drummer-boy.”
“It was really cruel, I think,” said Thekla, indignantly.