"Some Day!"

The doll dreaming of a little 
girl to call her own.

       On the whole, the little wooden doll had pleasant life. 

      Only sometimes, toward dusk, when the mice were busied on their own affairs, when the spiders dozed in their hammocks, and only the little gray moths fluttered to and fro, a feeling of sadness came over her. For dolls are made for children, and deep in every doll's heart there is a longing to be loved by a child. And at times, when the rain beat on the shingles and the smell of wet earth came up through the attic window, something stirred in the little doll's memory. She recalled dimly a time when someone had really loved her, someone who had carried her about and put her to bed at night, and on rainy days like these played house with her on the nursery floor. It was so long ago that the little wooden doll could not remember very clearly, but she knew that these things had once happened, and she thought that if only some little child would come again to the attic, and play with her, she would be quite happy. 

       But there were no children in the old house, and however eagerly the little doll listened, no one ever came up the attic stairs. Still, she never quite lost hope. Sitting there in her corner, while the mice played about her, she would think, "Someday, perhaps, a little girl will come up here and find me, and then how pleased she will be!" And she made up a little story to herself of all the things they would do and the games they would play; playing house would be the nicest of all, for every doll loves playing house. She had forgotten what her own name used to be, it was so long ago, but she hoped that the little girl who found her might call her Rose, for that seemed to her the loveliest name in the world, and when she told the mice stories, on winter evenings, that was the name she always gave to the heroine. 

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