Chapter III Beth and Her Dolls
Dollie’s poor mother is quite full of care,
As she who lived in a shoe,
For this child is tousled, this one undressed—
Mother has all she can do.
More dollies there are, than possible clothes,
Some of them must go to bed.
And some to be healed by mother with glue,
Lacking an arm or a head.
Then others, wearing the invalid’s clothes,
Care not a fling or a jot
Nor know that to-morrow their own fate may be
The bed, or the mucilage pot.
The first Sunday that the children were at the seashore was warm and beautiful.
Mrs. Rayburn and Mrs. Stevens went to church in the picturesque stone chapel built by a sea captain, as a memorial to his daughter who was drowned on the coast some years before this.
“We’ll be really better girls to stay at home some of the church time,” said Ethelwyn at breakfast, “we’ll go this evening with Miss Dorothy.”
“My dolls are needing a bath and their best clothes for Sunday-school,” said Beth to Ethelwyn, who had decided to go down on the beach; “and I can do it all comfy and nice while you are gone.”
So Ethelwyn and ‘Vada went for a run on the beach, and mother Elizabeth, with a look of happy care on her face, and her beloved six dolls in her arms, came out on the porch, where she had already taken a basin of water, soap, a tiny sponge, and towels.
Directly she became aware of some one near her, and looking up saw a girl with dark eyes and short, straight hair watching the proceedings with much interest, her hands clasped behind her back.
“My name is Nan,” said the visitor as soon as she caught Elizabeth’s eye, “Who are you? Is this your house? We’ve just come, and mother is in bed with a headache, and father’s gone to church, so I’m roaming around seeking something to devour—”
“Does that mean eat?” said Elizabeth, a scene in one of her picture books of lions devouring their prey coming into her mind.
“I think it’s what my father calls a figure of speech. He’s a minister—a clergyman, you know. We’ve come down here to board, and he’s going to have the services in the Chapel of the Heavenly Rest. Mother’s sick about always, so I have to roam around—Say, I know a game; let’s baptize your children.”
“They don’t need it; they’re not born in sin—”
“Everything is,” emphatically. “Don’t try to teach a minister’s child things, for pity’s sake. I’ll do the baptizing. Come along.”
The rainwater barrel, half sunken in the ground, was at one of the rear corners of the house.
“We are not allowed to play in that, I think,” said Elizabeth uneasily.
“That doesn’t mean me, I’m older’n you. Here, give me the doll without a wig.”
Down went the beloved “bawheady” with a thud that carried desolation to Beth’s tender heart. Four others followed in quick succession before Beth could protest. Then clinging to Arabella, she started to run. Nan tried to run after her, but caught her foot on the barrel’s brim and straightway joined the five dolls. Elizabeth opened her mouth to shriek, when in an opportune moment, a young man appeared on the scene, and speedily fished out Miss Nan, who dripped and coughed and choked; inarticulate, but evidently wrathy sounds wrestled for utterance in her throat. At last she shook herself free.
“I’m perfectly degusted with this whole preformance,” she said as she went stalking off, dripping as she went.
Then the young man laughed and laughed, until he became aware of Elizabeth wistfully staring at him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“My dolls. They’re baptized clear to the bottom; please get ’em out.”
“I’ll do it, if you will take this note to Miss Dorothy Stevens,” said the young man, at once throwing off his coat and pushing up his shirt sleeve. Beth, before she trotted off, saw that he had a blue anchor on his arm. When she came back, the rescued five lay stretched on the grass in a pathetic row, and she at once ran to her prostrate children.
“You are to go to the parlor and tell Miss Dorothy all about it,” she said, in passing, to their rescuer. “Your note made Miss Dorothy cry; and she was all white ’round her mouth. Thank you for the dolls,” she called as an afterthought.
So busy was she drying her afflicted family that it was some time after the others had reached home that ‘Vada, wildly excited, came to find Elizabeth and to tell her that Miss Dorothy’s sweetheart had come back.
“From Paradise?” queried Beth, getting up at once and bristling all over with questions she wanted to ask him about that interesting place.
“Mighty nigh,” said ‘Vada, rolling her eyes. “He was shipwrecked on the raging main, and hit on de head wid somefin that done knock all de sense out of him, so he’s pick up by some folks dat didn’t know ’im, an’ he went cruisin’ aroun’, till he come to, and, by ’me by, back to see his sweetheart.”
Elizabeth went into the parlor later on, and stared so insistently at the young captain that her mother drew her gently to one side and whispered to her.
“But I’m anxious to see a sweetheart that has been in Paradise, mother,” she explained.