My little Lapland mistress is sitting as near as ever she can get to the stove, for it is terribly cold, colder than you can even possibly imagine. And on her lap I sit with, dressed just as she is; I am a little miniature of my girl caretaker, Gerda. We are quite alone, for father is a fisherman and is often away for many days together, while Gerda, her mother, and I live buried beneath many feet of snow in our warm little house.
Our home is right within the Arctic Circle, and the whole of life is very simple indeed compared with the houses and high rises of people who live in big cities far away. We are the shortest race in of Western Europe, but very we are very strong indeed, and many of us live to a great old age, in spite of the hard life and intense cold. The women and girls are almost always shorter than the men, and Gerda, when she is quite grown up, will not probably be much more than 4 feet tall, with very short arms and legs and tiny feet.
When you first looked at me or my mistress Gerda, I expect you would be very puzzled as to whether we were boys or girls, for in many ways we are a topsy-turvy land, and there is so little difference between the boys' and the girls' dress, that it is difficult to tell one from another when we dress for such cold weather. We all wear trousers, boots, and gaiters, but sometimes a woman or girl wears a few beads as an ornament, while they generally have a heavier wrapping round the head.
Our dresses are very plain, but there is generally a pointed piece of fur, cut from the head or tail of an animal, that forms a tab to finish the bottom of the front of the coat. I do not know what we should do without our warm, close-fitting hoods, for though I am only a dolly I can tell how cold it is, and poor Gerda would soon have her ears and nose frozen off if they were not thus protected. Do you notice how the women always stuff their trousers into the tops of their big boots?
In winter everyone wears fur clothes, and in summer white cotton or wool. Gerda's father, as I said, is a fisherman, so that we live near the sea in a low hut made of turf, with a few stakes to hold up the roof. We do not have any windows, because they would let in the cold in winter.
Everywhere there are dogs and reindeer, the latter being especially useful to us, for while alive we use them for riding and drawing the sleds‚ just as you have horses‚ and when dead, they give us skins for clothes. Much of my own clothing is made from reindeer skins, and if we are very short of food a reindeer is killed and eaten. Another purpose that the reindeer serves to the Laplander is providing him with milk, though this is quite different in taste to that given by the cow.
If you had never been in my country before, you would have a great surprise when the winter came, for then we all shut ourselves in the hut, and Gerda plays with me most of the day; for at one time in the year it is just one long night, and it is always dark. To make up for this, we have a similar time in the summer, when it is just one long day and never gets dark.
If one of your English dollies came to live with us in our country, it would take her a whole year to get used to our topsy-turvy ways and happenings, and one of the marvels that she would see is the Northern Lights. These are a strangely brilliant glow that comes and lingers in the sky, until it turns the night almost into day. But I must not stay to tell you any more, for Gerda is calling me to go to bed, and I hope she will wrap me up very warm, for it is cold.
The Sami people are the caregivers to animals of the North.
I wonder whatever you little girls will think of me, when you look at my picture and I tell you my name. I am sure that very, very few of you ever saw a dolly that looked the least like me before, or heard such a curious name. For I am called Skelechun, and I belong to a little girl of the Flathead tribe in North America.
Years ago, before my mistress grew old enough to be able to play with me, she used to look almost exactly like I do now, and her mother used to carry her about in a cradle just like the one in which you see me hanging. For really there is only my head to be seen, and all the rest is cradle, just the same as the ones in which the women carry the live children and hang them up on the trees while they work. My cradle has been made especially pretty with red, white, and blue glass beads, sewn on in a pattern; but the cradles in which the live little girls and boys are carried are usually made of wood or bark, hollowed out, and suspended with rope. Some of those who dwell inland hang bells upon these cradles, so that as the baby is carried along, or swings gently on the tree bough, the bells continually tinkle and ring.
I daresay you wonder why we are called Flatheads, and how it is that our foreheads slope back in such a peculiar manner. This is due to a very curious custom of the tribe, for when the children are quite babies their whole body is swaddled and bound up. Pads with a board are then placed across the forehead, so that it is gradually pressed flatter and flatter, and baby is laced into the wood cradle by means of a cord passed from side to side. This flattening, as you may imagine, is far from a comfortable business, especially for the girls, for their foreheads have to be much flatter than those of the boys if the young men are to think them beautiful when they grow up. And yet they would feel very angry if their heads were allowed to grow in the usual way, for you cannot find a greater insult than to say, "Hoo, your mother was too lazy to flatten your head!"
I am a very happy dolly, and my little mistress loves me very much, as her father and mother do her, for all the Flatheads love their children. It is perhaps better to be a girl than a boy, for the girls are thought much more of, because when they grow up they can be sold to husbands, and a good price is obtained by the parents. While they live at home, although they have plenty of time to play and enjoy themselves, the girls have to learn all that there is to know about home-keeping, while the boys accompany their fathers and brothers on the hunting expeditions. We are a very happy family indeed, especially in summer, when food is plentiful, and Atuni, who is the father of my little mistress, often shakes his head at us both and says: "Oh, Skelechun, Skelechun, you are a bad pair, both of you."
One of the chief things we do is to make baskets which we trade in the towns for money upon which to live in winter. If you have ever seen any of the work that our family has done, you will be very surprised at its excellence and neatness. One thing I must tell you before we part, and that is how my little mistress boils water when her father or mother wants a meal. We never put a kettle over the fire and wait for the water to heat like you do. We make the fire and heat a number of stones red-hot; then these are dropped into the water, and, as they cool, picked out and more red-hot ones dropped in, and you would be very surprised if you saw how quickly our meal was ready and the water hot.
Yes, though my name is so funny, and my head so flat, I am a very happy dolly, and I hope that when Atuni sells my mistress to a husband, she will take me with her, for I know that I am very handsome indeed.
Carol Bremer-Bennett of Rehoboth Christian School
talks about the Navajo cradleboard and other
cultural/spiritual matters.
My name is Sadie, and I am the most wonderful doll on earth, or at least so they say. A citizen of the great United States of America, where dollies are more elaborate and perfect than anywhere else. You ought to see me when I am out with my little mistress, walking in Central Park. "Walking!" you exclaim. Oh, yes, I can walk, just as well as you can‚ after I have been wound up. And then, I am so big too. I stand about 2 1/2 feet high, and if you measure that out on a ruler by your own side, you will see how I should look if I were your own dolly. But I was telling you about my walking powers. Inside my body is placed a wonderful piece of machinery that can be wound up with a key, and when this is started, and you hold me by my hand, I can stroll along by your side, lifting each daintily booted foot exactly the same as you yourself do.
And this is just where I am different from a human child, for they have to be taught to walk, while I was able to do so right from the beginning. If you have a baby brother or sister, you will have seen Mother or Nana carefully holding them between their hands, while they scrambled along in the funniest manner. All "humans" are like that, but high-class American dollies only need to be wound up, and from their youngest days they can walk quite firmly and strongly. It is rather a funny feeling, I can tell you, the first time someone turns the key and your legs begin to step out by themselves. Of course, there are lots and lotsof American dolls that cannot walk, any more than English or Chinese ones can, and these are just as much loved by the little girls to whom they belong as we are, though everyone admires me very much, and turns round to watch me as I walk by the side of my little mistress.
Many years ago, that wonderful inventor T. A. Edison, who began life by selling papers at a railway station, invented a doll that could sing seven or eight different songs, by means of a wee gramophone placed just where my walking powers. She was never very popular with the girls to whom she was given, because she squeaked so much when she started to perform, and they did not love her half so well as a dolly that can take their hands and walk by their side along the roadway or round the garden.
I know something about England, because I have been there once to " summer " as we say, and I liked that very much, but, of course, I have seen a great deal more of my own country and the many wonderful things it contains. New York is not the least little bit like London, for here the city cannot spread outwards and outwards as London does, because it is practically an island, and so it has grown upwards and upwards until our buildings reach to over twenty storeys in height. Just think of that! I was surprised the first time I went into the city, because, you see, my home is right out in the country, where there is only one house here and not another for several miles.
One day we went down to the station and got on the car for the city, and after rushing along for hours and hours we found ourselves really and truly at Broadway Station. I did stare at the noise and the rush and bustle that surrounded me on all hands, and at the immense hotels and buildings that rose upwards in great, solid, square blocks. We were going to stay quite near to the top of one of these, and when we arrived there, we got into the lift and went up and up, until I thought we never were going to stop any more. But we did, and our hostess, Mrs. Mallison, after she had kissed my mistress, asked about me. "Her name is Sadie," said my owner, and Mrs. Mallison at once christened me afresh‚ "Sadie, the magnificent."
I did feel proud, too, as I took the hand of my mistress and walked across the apartment to the window, where we could look down from our dizzy height to the tiny people and cars, threading their way through the streets below us. But the most surprising thing of all was when we went out on to the roof garden. There, hundreds of feet above the earth, flowers were blooming in their pots, children were playing, grown-ups were sitting in deck chairs in the sunshine, while the great city hummed beneath. I was not long before I met one of my own sisters walking too, and before we returned to the country a fast friendship had sprung up between us, as well as between our two little owners, and the very next week that ever will be, she and Virginia (for that is my sister's name) are coming down to stay with us, so that we shall all have another jolly time.
"World's Largest Collection of Rustic Automata" video
O-Ku-San was most tremendously excited, for today was the Feast of Dolls, one of the many great annual festivals of Japan. She was the prettiest little girl that ever you saw, so exactly like her laughing young mother that, when you looked first at one and then at the other, you might easily have thought that you were looking at the same person, only one was very little and the other a good deal bigger.
All the Japanese girls, even when they are fully grown, are much smaller than our Western ladies, so you may suppose that O-Ku-San looked very small indeed, for she was only six years old. This morning she had awakened very early, for the maidservants are always stirring very soon after it is light, and all the houses have thin paper walls, because of the earthquakes. She wanted to get up at once and begin the wonderful day, but she had to lie quite still and listen to the birds singing until the shutters on the outside of the verandah were opened and let in the sunshine. Great preparations have to be made for this Feast of Dolls, and 0-ku-San wanted to be in it all and see everything that was to be seen; so, naturally, she was very impatient to get to the brass basin at the corner of the verandah and be washed.
But to return to the Feast of Dolls. First of all, a platform is prepared (very often in the form of several steps), and covered with red or some other brightly colored cloth. On this the ancestral dolls are set out in great state after they have been brought from their place of safety among the other family valuables, for the Japanese set great store by these dolls, and would not sell them for a very large sum of money. Numbers of them are hundreds of years old, and, of course, form a most interesting historical record of the dress and customs of the country in bygone days.
Often an Emperor, or Empress, or other famous personage is represented, and these dolls have to be treated in accordance with their rank. A little bowl of sake, which was brewed for the feast, is set before each one in its special pot, together with rice and numerous other Japanese dainties. O-Ku-San was in the wildest state of excitement when she saw the dolls, all set out and looking so prim and stately. And what a contrast they presented, from the very oldest of all right down to the newest and most modern in up-to-date clothes!
All the little girls gazed and gazed, because, of course, they were not allowed to play with these ancestral dolls‚ they are only to be looked at and admired. If you were staying in Japan, and were quite friendly with a family, you would be gladly welcomed, with much ceremony and laughter, to their Feast of Dolls, and be taken in and shown their Dolly Exhibition with great pride. To hear their merry laughter you would think they were the most care-free and most light-hearted folk in all the wide world.
The Feast of Dolls itself only lasts for one day, but the curious mixture of old and modern dolls remains on exhibition for a week; then they are carefully packed away and taken to the strong room or box, where they remain for another twelve months, awaiting the return of the feast ere they again see the light of day. These dolls, as I said, are never played with, but O-Ku-San and all the other Japanese girls do have very wonderful dolls. These dolls are exactly like their little mistresses, and, of course, always wear the fancy kimonos that look so different to us.
While they are children, the Japanese girls all wear trousers, just as if they were boys, but when they begin to grow up, these are put away and a skirt, something like that which the English girl wears, is used instead; so that you can always tell if the girl dollies are supposed to be young or older, by whether they wear trousers or skirts.
Suppose that you had been born in that vast country which is called Russia, I wonder what kind of a dolly would have fallen to your lot? Much, of course, would have depended upon the class in which you were born, for the mass of the people are very poor. Since the Revolution, when all the rich folks were captured or killed, or fled to other lands, there are hardly any people at all with money. But, even under these conditions, I expect that you would have had a doll of some kind, for the peasants are very ingenious people, and (during the long winter days, when the earth is covered with snow for months together) they make all sorts of different things, including toys for the children to play with.
Look at the picture of the two Russian woodmen dolls, and the curious things of which they are made: hewn out from rough blocks of wood, with painted faces, with fir cones for arms, and dressed entirely in moss, with shoes of plaited fiber. A strange pair they look, especially the one with the long beard and flat cap. One has a tiny hatchet stuck in his belt, that does not show in the photograph, but you can see the long wooden staves that they use to walk with. I do not think that these dolls look very "cuddly," do you? But, then, if you lived in one of the far-away small villages, you would never have seen any other kind of dolly, and so would have loved these very much indeed. The people in these villages almost all work on the land in summer, and the women and children, even quite little girls, have to work as hard as ever they can to get in the crops before the intense cold comes back again, and the country as far as you can see is buried under snow, while the rivers all freeze up.
All Russia is not like this, however, and if you had been born in one of the great cities, such as Moscow, you would have found life much easier, especially if your parents had been rich. When the cold weather came, you would have been dressed in thick furs to keep you warm, and have been driven everywhere in a sleigh. The shops were simply wonderful, and contained lovely dollies, quite as beautiful as anything that you could find in the most wonderful London shop. Here you might buy a little boy doll, - Ivan for his name - dressed in a navy blue suit, with top-boots, and an overcoat very much like ours, always lined and trimmed with thick fur. For the inside short fur is used, while the collar and cuffs have long fur that buries the hands and neck in a warm and comfortable manner. Always, too, a little round cap is worn, made of the same fur as the collar and cuffs.
If the dolly was supposed to be of the humbler peasant folk, she would be dressed in black and white with a cap, the brim of which is drawn down so far over the forehead as almost to cover the eyes. Over the dress a long, loose, shapeless black or brown coat, reaching right down to the heels, covers everything, though beneath her skirts would be long top-boots that reach almost to the knees. So, according to her rank, dolly looks in Russia, as she is cuddled and put to bed by the little peasant girl, or as she rides with her little mistress in the comfortable sleigh which glides over the frozen ice of the river near the capital at Petrograd.
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.
So we come to the last chapter on the World's Dolls. And everything that I am now going to tell you happened only the last night that ever was. It is no good telling me that it was just a dream! Nothing of the sort!
It is true that I was asleep when it began, true that I went to sleep again afterwards; but that all that happened was just a dream, nonsense! Nonsense! I tell you I was awake and saw it all, so what more can you want? The first thing that woke me was a boom. Someone had loudly struck a drum. Then again‚ boom! boom! By this time I was sitting bolt upright in my bed with the eiderdown gathered round my shoulders. Boom! boom! Again the drum, and then the trumpets and flutes, tra-tra-la-la-la-tra-la-la-la-laaa.
No, there was no mistake; it was the orchestra in a theater, just before the curtain rang up for the last scene of the pantomine. Silence! A faint ting! ting! ting! Out broke the orchestra with a will: flutes, violins, drums, trumpets, piano, faster and faster, louder and louder, until with a final crash, in which both drum and cymbals seemed to be seeing which could outdo the other, the music came to a pause.
Everything, until now, had been in complete darkness, but‚ will you believe it? ‚ as I sat there in bed, the big wardrobe (of which I could faintly see the looking-glass) slowly rolled to one side, just like the safety curtain rolls up, and there, before my eyes, was a miniature stage, brilliantly lit, and backed by decorative scenery. No one could be seen, but there were tall palm trees waving in the background, a sea, as blue as blue, a flight of steps in front leading down from a Moorish palace to the stage.
As I watched, more and more scenery seemed to roll away, and I could see further and further out to sea, where a big ship in the distance was making its way towards the shore. Then, softly and drowsily, the orchestra began to play flutes and violins, and a wee figure tripped upon the fairy stage. What a start I had, for there, before my very eyes, was the English dolly, one hundred years old, with her crinoline, red cloak, and blue ribboned bonnet, just as you see her on the first page of this book. For all the weight of her years, she moved like a girl, and, after bowing towards me, she went across the stage and sat down upon a flowery bank near the entrance to the Moorish palace towards the sea. And then things began to happen so fast that I can scarcely tell you of them quickly enough. From either side of the stage English dollies, of every kind that you can possibly imagine, began to pour in. There were soldier dolls, sailor dolls, hospital nurses, round chubby baby dolls, young ladies, pedlars, Quaker girls, country girls. Little Lord Fauntleroys, Thumbs-ups, Woolly-heads, even Teddy-bears and Penguins, until it looked as if there would not be room for another one to find a place. But each one fell into his or her own particular spot at the side and left the center quite clear.
The music by now had grown quite loud again, and as I watched I saw that the great ship which had been so far across the sea was drawing nearer and nearer, until, just as she grounded upon the shore, the orchestra broke out into "Kule, Britannia": "Britons never, never shall be slaves."
I took my eyes from the brilliant scene for just a moment to look at the orchestra. Yes, there was a miniature conductor, frantically waving his hand and baton as he conducted, and really I thought the little fellow with the drum would have burst it and himself too, so lustily did he whack at it when he came to the final bar. Then, back to the stage again!
Forward sprang the bluejackets and the soldiers and caught the ropes, which the other sailor dollies on board flung to them, and then I looked at the crowd on board, waiting to land. The ropes were secured in a trice, and the sailors, flinging their caps down, prepared to steady the gangway that was being lowered from the ship to the shore. All this time the orchestra was silent, as though waiting for a cue; it came when the gangway was safely lashed in position.
The English doll rose from her seat; the conductor tapped with his baton, and down the gang-way (just as I told you in the second chapter), stepped little Miss America, while the orchestra played "The Star-Spangled Banner." Ere she had quite reached the shore, a Japanese boy began to descend, and again the orchestra changed to appropriate music.
In rapid succession the passengers streamed off: Russia, Lapland, Italy, Hungary, France (of course, with " La Marseillaise "), Norway, Sunny Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium ("La Braban-gonne," Mr. Orchestra, please !), Turkish girls closely veiled, until you would never have believed it possible that the ship could have held so many. Finally the Captain and the crew followed, and there were only two or three men left on board, grinning broadly as they hung over the side.
Surely, I thought, this is the end; but, almost before I had had time to think it, the door of the Moorish palace was flung open, the orchestra recommenced, and down the steps came the Flathead dolly, just as I have described her to you. Really, it was too ridiculous to see (actually see!) all these dollies walking off the ship and down the steps, just like live things. The door did not shut behind her, and I caught a dazzling vision of the Precious Child of Korea, as she made her way rather totteringly down the steps. Then came the Samoan girl, the queer little Kaffir clay doll, and crowds and crowds of others of every nationality under the sun. When the ugly little Kaffir doll appeared, several others broke into a peal of laughter at her quaint appearance, and it was just here that the sailor-boys showed how fine they are all through; for, while some of the others were beginning to laugh, one stepped forward, and, with a bow, took her arm, and, with his head in the air, walked down the steps, courteous and proud as any king. Hurrah., sailor-boy! I did clap that, you may be sure.
But what is happening now? The orchestra has stopped! Out go all the lights, and it is night! A monotonous dub! dub! dub! on the small drum, gradually getting faster and faster.
Suddenly the blackness is pierced by a brilliant beam of light from the ship: they have put on a searchlight, which creeps across the sea feeling and feeling its way. For what? Ah! a great gasp of wonder! The searchlight has steadied, and there its beam is concentrated upon a tiny silvery airplane, no, two! No, there are half a dozen of them, winging their way across the black night. Even as we watch another marvel is happening, and the sun peeps, the edge of his golden disc above the edge of the sea, joining his rays to that of the searchlight. First pink, then red, then gold, then yellow, until the shadowy figures upon the stage become quite clear again and everything is illumined by bright, radiant light. Now the first of the airplanes is circling round and round as it descends, gracefully as a bird, to the stage.
And who can be inside it? We have not long to wait, for out steps Miss Serbia (too late to catch the boat). The second comes to earth with a tail-spin: Rip Van Winkle has arrived, and he is awake too, wide awake! Number three reaches the stage, and out steps the Schoolmaster, with a A Midsummer Night's Dream little skull cap and glasses through which he peers enquiringly at the scene around him. His waistcoat is white, he wears a velveteen coat and no birch is in his hand, only a kindly smile on his face as he gazes at the merry throng surrounding him. Everyone gives a hearty cheer, and, ere this has died away, the fourth 'plane grounds, and Miss Madeira steps forth. A queer little figure she looks, too, with her bulky legs and striped print dress, and her hair carried up to a stiff point. From the windows of the fifth airplane two faces can be seen‚ dusky faces and black hair decorated with gay feathers‚ an Indian chief and his squaw. Look at their moccasins as they step down, he bravely, she timidly.
Who are the passengers in the last? The Banana boy and girl. Thunders of applause greet them, for, even before they reach the ground, they begin to scatter handfuls of the fruit that they have brought with them from far-off Bermuda. What a quaint little pair of figures they make as they step from the tiny 'plane, their funny little nut heads waggling, waggling, waggling as they walk. The Banana girl holds a chic little sun-shade in her hand, and the Banana boy wears a funny little hat that makes him look exactly like Charlie Chaplin.
These are the final arrivals, and the orchestra recommences another gay tune. And now everybody that could possibly find standing-room is crowded upon the stage. Dolls from the North, dolls from the South, dolls from the East, dolls from the West, and so to the final tableau of all the nations. Britain in the center, behind her the good old Union Jack; France, with the tricolor; Belgium, black, yellow and red; Japan, the land of the Rising Sun; color massed upon color, brilliant dresses, waving flags, tuneful music working up and up to the climax.
And then, suddenly, everything went dark, and I shivered. A dream? Nothing of the kind! It is true that, when I woke in the morning with the sunlight streaming through the blind, the wardrobe was back in its place as though it had never been moved. You may be sure I did move it, in my endeavor to find the mystic Dolly Show. The paper was on the wall, and, although I tapped and tapped, I could not find any hollow-sounding place. But I know that the wardrobe did roll away. I know that the dollies were there. I know that I did sit up in bed, wrapped in the eiderdown; and anyone who says again that it's a dream, well, poof for your dream, so there!
"You can't leave Hanoi without seeing a traditional water-puppet show.
The shows, which appeal to all ages, are charming, picaresque
entertainments accompanied by a traditional Vietnamese pit orchestra.
You can join the class to make this unique puppet but it seems not
easy
to make it. Let's try to enjoy this traditional entertainment!"
