Also a tiny tortoiseshell comb and a powder puff. Also an extra pair of
bronzed boots. Her eyes opened and shut, and her eyebrows were real hair.
This is very unusual in a doll. “She shall be called Joan Shoesmith,”
said Christina, who had always loved the name, it had been her first
nurse’s.
Christina took Joan to her mother at once, Roy running behind her with
the box and the brown paper and the string and the wardrobe, and Chrissie
calling back every minute, “Don’t drop the powder puff whatever you do!”
“Hold tight to the hand-glass!” and things like that.
“But it’s splendid!” Mrs. Tiverton said. “There isn’t a better doll in
the world; only, Chrissie dear, be very careful with it. I don’t know but
that father would have done better to have got something stronger—this is
so very fragile. I think, perhaps you had better have it only indoors.
Yes, that’s the best way; after to-day you must play with it only
indoors.”
Thus Joan Shoesmith came to Mapleton.
How Christina loved her doll that first day! She carried it everywhere
and showed it everything—all over the house, right into the attics;
all over the garden, right into the little black stove place under the
greenhouse; into the village, to introduce her to the postmistress, who
lived behind a brass railing in the grocer’s shop; into the stables, to
kiss General Gordon, the old white horse. Jim, who groomed the General,
was the only person who did not admire the doll properly, but how could
you expect a nice feeling from a boy who sets dogs on rats?
It was two or three days after this that Roy went down to the river to
fish. He had to go alone, because Christina wanted to play with Joan
Shoesmith in the nursery; but not more than half an hour had passed when
he heard footsteps in the long grass behind him, and, looking up, there
was Christina. Now, as Christina had refused so bluntly to have anything
to do with his fishing, Roy was surprised to see her, but more surprised
still to see that Joan Shoesmith had come too.
“Why, did mother say you might bring Joan?” he asked.
“No,” said Christina, rather sulkily, “but I didn’t think she’d mind.”
Roy looked troubled: his mother did not often make rules to interfere
with their play, and when she did she liked to be obeyed. She had
certainly forbidden Christina to take Joan Shoesmith out of the house.
He did not say anything. Christina sat down and began to play. She was
not really at all happy, because she knew it was wrong of her to have
disobeyed, and she was really a very good girl. Roy went on fishing.
“Oh, do do something else,” Christina cried pettishly, after a few
minutes. “It’s so cold sitting here waiting for you to catch stupid fish
that never come. Let’s go to the cave.” The cave was an old disused
lime-kiln, where robbers might easily have lived.
“All right,” Roy said.
“I’ll get there first,” Christina called out, beginning to run.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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