Great Britain: "An Old English Doll"

      A real British dolly! I am to be the one that steps before you first, one of a very ancient and honorable family, and I myself am a great age, although my face is nearly as good as new and not the least bit wrinkled. One hundred years old! Just think of that! One hundred years! Long ages before your Daddy and Mummy were born I was loved and cuddled by a little girl who was Daddy's Mother, and I have been in the family ever since.

      Of course, I have not been on "active service" all the while. There have been periods of many years during which I have been carefully "laid up in lavender," as they say, and put away in a dark cupboard where no one visited me at all, except once a year when spring-cleaning was being done. But between whiles I have always been the treasured plaything of some girl-child, who took great care that I was not knocked about or broken or left in the sun, or else I should not look so young as I do to-day. Life was very different in England when I first opened my eyes, and I wish you could have seen the funny little wrinkled old lady, and the bow-fronted shop through the small panes of which I first looked out upon the world. Stage coaches (stagecoaches) used to rattle over the cobblestone streets and pull up at the inn with the quaint sign, where they changed horses, and where the travelers dismounted to "stretch their legs." Toys were quite simple matters in those days, and I was one of the wonders of the old lady's window. A real wax doll, with a rich silk dress in the fashion of the time. Unlike dolly of to-day, my head was quite solid and I could not open nor shut my eyes, which perhaps accounts for my having seen such a lot of the world.

      One day I was looking through my window, as usual, when the coach (stagecoach) drew up at the inn, and a very charming young lady, with long ringlets, and accompanied by a gallant gentleman, stepped down and walked straight across to my shop. They did not pause at all, but the gentleman opened the door, setting the spring bell all a- jangle, and stepped back for the young lady to walk in before him. The old lady who kept the shop came bustling through from her little parlor at the back and curtsied to both as she inquired what they would be pleased to want. Just imagine my surprise when they asked the price of me! " Oh,  Richard, do let us take her !" the young lady exclaimed. "Ellen would be so very pleased!" And there and then I passed from my place in the old shop window, and became one of the family with which I have lived ever since. For Ellen, I found, was the little girl who belonged to the lady and gentleman who came to the inn, and she took great care of me until she herself was quite grown up and married.

      I went through one of my long resting-times after that, and it must have been four or five years before I again saw the light of day, and quite twice that time since I had seen anything at all of the world in which I lived. Ellen, my first little mother, was married when she was about seventeen, and it was about four years earlier that she wrapped me up safely and ceased to play with me any more. And what a changed world I awoke to find when at last my former mother‚ now become quite a matron, and a very beautiful woman‚ unwrapped me and gave me to her own little girl for her very own dolly! Railways, with their shrieking whistles and loud rumbling roar, had become quite common. The old familiar stage coach, which I had seen twice a day for so many years, had almost disappeared, and life seemed to be lived quite twice as fast as I had previously known it. But I was very happy, and many joyous hours were spent in the sunny nursery with nurse and Katherine, until she too grew too old to play with me any more. But, although she was too old to play with me, she did not cease to care; for I was "Mother's doll," and she wrapped me away " in case," as she said with a blush, she one day had a little girl of her own. History does repeat itself very strangely, for, sure enough, one day I was again unwrapped, and there was the Katherine I had formerly known, a grown woman, sitting on a chair in the summer sunshine in a most wonderful garden. Sitting in her lap was a bonny little blue-eyed, fair-haired boy of about six months; while on the grass at her feet a dark-haired little girl was playing. I loved this little girl at once, for she was so remarkably like the young lady who had come into the little country shop so many, many years ago.

      So far my life had been a succession of living and putting away, but never before had I been plunged into such a whirl of gaiety and bustle as accompanied this resurrection, one day here, another there; rides in what the baby brother, who soon began to talk, called the " mo-car." I was simply staggered by the change that had come over the quiet, sleepy old world I used to know. The children had so many toys that I was far less thought of than used to be the case; but still, great care had to be taken with me, because I had belonged to Mother and Grandmother, and even the grandmother before that. This bit of my life was shorter, and I got put away much more quickly, for the girls seemed to outgrow their dollies much more quickly than their mothers and grandmothers did.

      And then the most wonderful episode of my whole life happened. I was packed away, with a lot more toys, in a deep cupboard that never seemed to be opened, and I did not know whether it was night or day. Time passed very slowly, and I wondered if everyone had forgotten me. Sometimes I heard queer sounds that I quite failed to recognize, and which conveyed no meaning whatever to me. Among these was a most terrific thudding that used to happen, and then die away, and happen again. In the midst of one of these curious thuddings there came one far louder and more terrific than anything I had ever imagined possible. The whole house seemed to rock, and then the world around me fell to pieces. The house, the cupboard, the shelf upon which I lay, splintered to ruin. When the noise at last ceased, and things were still once more, I found myself out of doors, gazing up at the dark sky, which was filled with thousands and millions of stars. Across this black void brilliant streaks of light were moving, and right overhead they met, showing a long, thin pencil of light -- a Zeppelin.

      Next morning all sorts of people came, looking round the spot where my house had been, and at last one of them saw me. " What a queer old doll!" she exclaimed, and she picked me up and carried me away. To-day I am displayed in a large glass case, with all my fine clothes, and a tablet recording my honorable age. They call the place a museum, and lots and lots of the most modern little girls come to look at me, just because I am one hundred years old.

      And now they tell me that I shall be better known than ever, for the other day a gentleman came and took my photograph, which is to be printed in a real book. I do hope he made me look nice.

The Kentucky Doll & Toy Museum