The Van Ness Family

The Van Ness Family

by Edna A. Needles

       Miss Eleanor Blythe, the new boarder at Brown's Mountain House, left the porch and the hammock where she had been enjoying the widespread view, and entered one of the many delightful trails that led into the redwoods. The path she chose was one she had seen little Helen Brown take earlier in the morning, and soon she came upon the child seated on a stump, gazing intently into a big box which rested upon another taller stump, and talking earnestly to herself.

       Coming nearer, Miss Blythe discovered that the box Helen sat before was really a doll-house. The dolls, however, were nothing but little rolls of white, dressed in cotton frocks.

       At the sound of approaching footsteps Helen started and looked around. But the happy friendliness of Miss Blythe's smile reassured her, and the real understanding and sympathy in her voice, as she asked, " Could I play with you for a while, Helen?" completely won the little girl's heart.

       "I'll be so glad to have you," she replied wistfully.

       "Tell me about your family," said Miss Blythe, sit f ins: down on a moss-covered stone

       "Well, this is Mrs. Santos, and this is Mr. Santos," Helen held up the two largest of the homemade dolls. " And these,"she displayed half a dozen smaller ones, "are their children. The Santoses areof a nice old Spanish family, but they are very poor, and are all taking care of this house until the real owners come back. When the real owners come, the Santoses will have to go away. But the real owners are splendid people and have lots of money, so they will pay the Santoses for keeping this so nice, and will build them a dear little house near this one."

       "Who are the 'real owners?'" asked Miss Blythe with deepening interest.

       "The Van Ness family. They are in Europe now. They have been traveling for years. There is Mr. Van Ness; and Mrs. Van Ness, and Arthur and Evelyn (Arthur's twelve and Evelyn's ten) and Ruby and Pearl, and little Freddy and the baby. It's a lovely family. Oh, I do so wish they could come home!"

       "And why can't they?" asked Miss Blythe.

       "Why, you see," explained Helen sadly, "they are real dolls in a store somewhere, probably in San Francisco, and we never can go there, it's so far away. They won't keep them in San Ramon wheremother buys her things, so sometimes it looks as if they never could come home. But then," she continued, her face brightening, "I have a good deal of fun with the Santoses. They got a letter yesterday saying Mrs. Van Ness was better she's been very sick and they think now surely Mr. Van Ness will bring her home, so Mrs. Santos is having the whole house cleaned."

       The doll-house proved upon close inspection to be made of two boxes, one set upon the other. Upstairs were two bedrooms. Here small pasteboard boxes served for beds. In each bed was a beautifully made little mattress, pillows, sheets, tiny quilts and pretty white coverlets.

       "Mother helped me to make them," said Helen.

       The carpet upstairs was a piece of blue checked gingham, and the walls both up and downstairs were papered in a plain buff color.

       "I pasted the paper on and nailed the carpet down," Helen said with some little pride. "Father put the walls in," and she pointed to the pasteboard divisions between the two bed-rooms, and between the living-room and kitchen, " and made the windows for me, but I put the curtains tip."

       The white cheesecloth curtains were very pretty. So, indeed, was everything about the little house. The living room boasted a fireplace; a pictured fireplace, cut from a magazine and pasted to the wall. Helen had painted some red flames in the grate, and it seemed to her nothing could be cheerier. On the floor were the dearest little red-and-black and blue-and-white knitted rugs, the work of Grandmother Brown's hands, and for tables there, where boxes covered with dainty white cloths. A number of beautiful shiny horse chestnuts, drawn cozily up before the fire, represented antique walnut chairs.

       In the kitchen a big black spool with pencil stuck into it, made a very good stove and pipe, and on the kitchen table were a number of acorn cups which served nicely for dishes.

       Miss Blythe and Helen became very dear friends, and every day they spent some time together at "Hidden Villa," for that was the name of the Van Ness' forest home.

       One day Helen brought out a little covered basket, and shyly displayed its contents. It was full of small doll clothes. "These are for the Van Nesses," she explained simply.

       There were long trailing house dresses for Mrs. Van Ness, frocks and aprons for the girls, and cunning white garments for Freddy and baby Dorothy.

       "I didn't make anything for Arthur and his father," she confessed, "for I didn't know how."

       After that, Miss Blythe helped her make clothes. Several suits were made for Mr. Van Ness and Arthur, and then they began making party clothes for Mrs. Van Ness and the children.

       The day before Miss Blythe went away, they fixed up a little home for the Santos family near Hidden Villa.

       "I feel very sure," said Miss Blyth "that the Van Nesses will soon be here, and we want to have everything in readiness for their coming."

       The next morning she was whirled away in the stage, and Helen, a very disconsolate little figure, stood looking down the winding road until the last cloud of dust had rolled away. Then, trying to comfort herself with the thought of the letter that was to come, she walked unsteadily toward the house. She could not see very well, for in spite of herself the tears would come.

       For the next few days, her mother kept her busy huckleberrying. Ordinarily she enjoyed this very much, for the huckleberries were thickest down a deep and beautiful canyon where ferns and the sweet scented yerba buena grew among thickets of snow drops and wild roses. And even now she forgot her loneliness a little in planning to bring Miss Blythe down here some time during the coming

summer.

       The evening of the third day, the lumberman who usually brought the afternoon mail up the mountain, handed Helen a letter and a package.

"Dear little friend," (began the letter), "Mr. and Mrs. Van Ness and the children have returned from abroad. I found them staying temporarily in a store here in the city. The traveling suits they are wearing I made for them when I was with you, evenings after you had gone to bed. I knew the Van Ness family when I found them, because the clothes fitted them so well. Hoping to see you all next summer," 

I am lovingly yours, 

"ELEANOR BLYTHE."

The Van Ness family!

       Helen gave a little inarticulate cry of joy as she bent over the box in which they lay, and it was with trembling fingers that she lifted them out.

       Mr. and Mrs. Van Ness were slender dolls with china heads and cloth bodies. The rest of the family were bisque with jointed arms and legs and very plump bodies. Evelyn and Pearl had long flaxen curl, but Ruby's hair was black and hung in a braid. Mr. Van Ness and Arthur wore light grey suits, the rest of the family, however, were dressed in heavy white linen.

       Helen took them all in her apron and started down the trail toward Hidden Villa.

       "There will be time to show them over the house before dinner, won't there, mother?" she called back.

       "Yes, dear heart," her mother replied, and be sure you bring them up to spend the evening."

       And so, at last, after long wanderings, the Van Ness family entered the ancestral home. 

Helen's handmade doll house.