The Little Wooden Doll

The Little Wooden Doll 

by Margery Williams Bianco

The key hidden on the window sill.

       The little wooden doll had lived so long in the attic that no one even knew she was there. Such a number of things get stored away in an attic: broken furniture and disused trunks, tattered books and old preserve jars that have lost their tops, and china that doesn't match all the things that nobody wants are put up there, and there they stay, among the mice and the cobwebs, and are forgotten. This attic was just like any other, inasmuch as no one living in the house below really knew what was in it. The little wooden doll lay in a corner, between an old pile of schoolbooks thick with dust and a broken bird cage, and she must have lain there a very long time, indeed, for she was not at all like the dolls that one may see nowadays. All about her the spiders spun their webs, and the little mice scampered to and fro over the attic floor, and there was a pleasant smell of dust and dry rot. The little wooden doll was seldom lonely, for there was always some one to talk to. The mice in particular were great gossips; they knew all that went on in the house, for they ran everywhere. They knew where the nuts were stored, and how many cakes the cook baked, and why the last lot of preserves went wrong. They knew, too, just where the store-closet key was, that the housewife had been hunting for high and low these past three weeks, for they had seen her put it there. Nothing happened that the mice did not know about; they were natural busybodies, and all their news they brought to the little doll. The spiders, too, were good company, but they were inclined to be narrow minded, and dwelt too much on their own affairs. The old, old spider, who had his web just over the doll's head, was a philosopher; he had poked into all the old books that lay on the attic floor, and for that he was considered eccentric. When he chose to talk he could be most interesting, but for the most part he was silent; he disliked chatter, and would shake with rage when the young spiders annoyed him. There was a rumor that he had been disappointed in love, but no one really knew the rights of it. On summer days, when the sun shone, a beam of light came through the attic window. Golden dust motes danced in the beam, and it was beautiful to see. Sometimes, then, a bumblebee would blunder in, or a great, spotted butterfly, or sometimes a swallow would perch at the open window, and all these had news to bring of the outside world: of the cornfields and the flowers and the blue sky. And sometimes at night, when the moonlight lay on the attic floor, the mice would give parties, and to these the little wooden doll was always invited. Those were happy evenings. All the baby mice were allowed to sit up late, the crickets brought their fiddles to play the dance music, and even the old, fat spider up in the corner would stretch his legs and nod and become quite cheerful.

Mice and spiders kept the wooden doll company in the attic.

• "Some Day!"
• When the Children Came
• In the Violet Bed
• The Mice Hold a Council
• The Child Who Lived in the Wood
• "The Little Mice Brought Her"