The Lonesomest Doll

Front matter

by Abbie Farwell Brown

Boston & New York Houghton Mifflin Co

Copyright, 1901, by Abbie Farwell Brown

Mignon

I

Mignon

Mignon longed to be hugged and kissed and loved like other dolls. She would rather be scarred and knocked about and broken like so many wax babies of whom she had heard, than be locked all alone day after day in tiresome safety.

You see, Mignon was the birthday gift which a great foreign Prince had sent to the little Queen Clotilde; and she was the most wonderful doll that had ever been heard of in those days. All this happened long ago, before you could buy such lovely dolls in the shops,—before jointed bodies, and shutting eyes, and real teeth, and china hands with fingers were invented. Yet Queen Clotilde’s doll was even more beautiful than these; for she was made of wax, and her face was painted by a famous artist to look ex­actly like the Queen herself; and Queen Clotilde, you must know, was a wonderfully lovely little girl.

Mignon was not a very large doll—just big enough to hold comfortably. Her hair was golden, like the Queen’s, curly and long. Her eyes were blue, her cheeks pink, and she had the dearest little turned-up nose ever seen, and red, red lips. She could talk, too, which was something in those days,—not like the Queen; that would have been too wonderful to believe. But, like some of our accomplished dollies of to-day, Mignon could say “Mamma!” when you squeezed her gently.

The proudest thing about the Queen’s wonder­ful doll was her clothes. There never was seen such a beautiful dress as Mignon wore when she came in her fine satin-lined box, on the Queen’s eighth birthday. She was all in white satin and velvet and the richest lace, copied from the Queen’s own coronation robe, with a long train; and she had a crown on her head. Moreover, the crown was of real gold set with the most beautiful jewels,—rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. In the front was a great white pearl, worth the price of a hundred such dollies as you can buy to-day. And up and down the white velvet train was embroidered in gold and silver and precious stones; so that this was the most splendid birthday doll which any little girl ever had.

But that was precisely the trouble. Mignon was too splendid for a real play doll. One would always be afraid of hurting her fine clothes. Be , with all this gold and jewels, she was so valuable that the Lord Treasurer kept her locked up in a chest in the Treasure Room of the pal­ace; and little Clotilde had her brought out only once or twice a year, to see how she herself had looked on the day when she was crowned Queen. Only once or twice a year to see one’s mamma! This is why Mignon was the lonesomest doll in the world.

Nichette

II

Nichette

Pierre, Nichette’s father, was the porter of the palace, and under the eyes of the Grand Chamberlain he had charge of the keys to the western wing where the Queen lived. So of course Pierre knew all about everything, even about the lonesomest doll whom very few per­sons had seen, though every one in the kingdom had heard of her. And of course Nichette knew all about her also.

Ever since she had first sat upon Pierre’s knee, jingling his great bunch of keys in her baby fist, till now when she was a great girl of ten, she had loved to hear about the gates and the doors and the locks which these keys opened. And although she had never gone inside the palace she knew the way in and about almost as well as Pierre himself. And she knew just where the lonesomest doll lay, and up what stairs and along what hallway and through what rooms one must go to find her. She could see the window of the very room from the corner of the Queen’s garden where she was allowed to play. And often when she was there with her own dolls she would look up at the gray tower and wish she could do something to comfort that poor, beautiful doll whose mamma was a little Queen, but did not love her.

Nichette had four ugly wooden dolls of her own, and she loved them dearly. It made her heart ache to think of the lonely doll over there in the palace shut up in her dark box, taken out but once or twice in the long year. Nichette had often planned what she would do if she could but get into that tower, and up to that room, and open that oaken chest. Her fingers ached to smooth Mignon’s hair, to kiss her and cuddle her close. She had often begged Pierre to let her go into the west wing, but he always said,—“No, no, child! The Queen does not like children, and will allow none in the pal­ace. It would make her very angry.”

So Nichette knew that she should never even see the lonesomest doll, unless some time she could steal into the palace without any one’s knowing. But fierce soldiers mounted guard at the front gate, and at all the gates except the little one in the garden, to which Pierre held the keys. Through that would be her way—if she had the keys. But she could never, never enter without her father’s keys, and he kept them always by him, very carefully, because he was the Lord Chamberlain’s porter; and he was proud of the trust.

Nichette often wondered if a clever person might not take the keys from his pocket. But she would never dare do this; for Pierre was very stem when one was naughty; and she knew he would think this the naughtiest thing which a child could do. So Nichette could only long and long, hope and hope, that some time she might see the lonesomest doll and try to make her happy as a beautiful doll should be.

In the Garden

III

In the Garden

One fine day a most interesting thing happened. After dinner Pierre went out on the porch for his usual smoke, and when he took his pipe from his pocket he pulled out by mistake the precious bunch of keys, which dropped softly on a plot of grass, so that they made no jingling to call his attention. For some time Pierre did not notice the loss; and when he went away to work, there lay the keys for Nichette to find as she came out of the cottage on her way back to her family of dolls, which she had left in the garden.

“Oh-h-h!” cried Nichette when her bright eyes spied the keys; and her heart danced up and down. Quick as a flash she popped the keys into her apron pocket, and ran as fast as her legs would carry her to the little gate which led into the Queen’s garden. Being the porter’s little girl, Nichette was allowed to play here on most days when the Queen was not about. And here, under a rosebush, was her doll-house, where the children were waiting.

Such a beautiful garden it was! Beds of the loveliest flowers were spread like gorgeous colored rugs over the green floor of the lawn. And where there was grass it grew tall and cool and tickly for one to roll in. There were great trees who held their parasols over fine shady spots. And along the wall climbed tall rosebushes; all about were roses, pink and white and laughing crim­son, nodding, quivering, shaking their sweet petals down upon the heads of Nichette’s dolls. Close by was the great sun-dial which told Nichette when it was time to go home for tea, if the queer little uncomfortable clock inside herself had not already made her guess the hour of bread and milk.

But the glory of the garden was the marble fountain which stood in the middle, with its great bronze fish holding up his wide-open mouth as if to catch flies. Pierre said that the fish could spout a stream of water ten feet high when the Queen wished him to. Nichette had never seen him do it; she was always hoping that he would some day while she was in the garden. The fountain had a lovely basin, very convenient for washing the children’s clothes, and for sailing rose-leaf boats and bigger craft of chips or paper.

Under the rosebush Nichette had told her dolls to wait for her; and she found the obedient family just as she had left them. They were a battered quartette, with but half a dozen legs, and not so many arms among them; and even when they were new they must have been ugly little wooden things. But Nichette loved them dearly. She set them all up in a row and kissed

“See what I have found, children!” she cried, pulling the bunch of keys from her apron pocket and holding them up before the dolls’ staring eyes. The dolls did not seem much impressed, but Nichette did not wait for them to exclaim.

“Do you know what these are?” she went on in a giant whisper. “They are the palace keys. See, here is the one that unlocks the little gate there in the wall behind you. Here is the key to the first turret door. This is the armory key, and this2 Oh, children, do you know what I am going to do?”

Nichette bent over and whispered to the dolls in a low voice, her eyes big with eagerness. “Do you see this little bit of a golden key? It is the key to the horrid chest where they have locked away the lonesomest doll. I am going to find Mignon and make her happy for once. Oh, children! Think how dreadful it must be to stay all the year shut up in a box, and never to see your mamma at all.” Nichette’s brown eyes filled with tears, and she gathered the four dolls in her arms and held them close.

“You are not going to be cross if I leave you here all alone for a little while?” she said coaxingly. “You will not be jealous if you know I am playing mother to that poor, lonely dollie whose own mamma does not love her as I love you, children? Oh, I am so glad I found those keys! But I must hurry, or Father will discover that he has lost them, and then it will be too late to go. Good-bye, my dears. Each of you send a kiss to the lonesomest doll.”

And Nichette received on her lips the four hard little round kisses which her children duti­fully rendered as she set them down one by one under the rosebush. They were not the least bit jealous, for they were kind-hearted dolls. But they had heard Nichette talk so much about Mignon, the lonesomest doll, that they were somewhat tired of the subject, and could not look much interested, hard though they tried.

The Bunch of Keys

IV

The Bunch of Keys

It was Nichette’s great chance,—of that she was sure. After waiting for it so long it might never come again. She did not think it could be so very wrong to do what she had in mind; for she only wanted to be kind to Mignon. She for­ got that by meddling with what did not belong to her she might get her father into trouble: and she never suspected what strange things would happen,—things which came near to upsetting the whole kingdom.

Nichette took the bunch of keys and tiptoed up to the gate in the wall behind the rosebush.

There was the moat and the drawbridge lowered for any one to pass; there was the green trim lawn, and, beyond, the gray towers of the palace where lived the proud little Queen and her beau­tiful lonesome doll. How big the palace seemed; how many windows it had peering down upon one like watchful eyes! How wide a space it was from this wicket to the little door of the southwest turret which Nichette must reach!

For a moment her courage faltered, and she was almost ready to run back to her own chil­dren and leave the Queen’s doll to herself. Then she thought again of poor Mignon and this great chance to see her which might never come again. And she screwed her courage into place again.

With one last glance behind to make sure that no one was following, Nichette stepped through the gateway upon the velvet lawn. The gate swung to behind her with a clang, and her heart gave a great thump. But she did not think of retreating.

She felt as though she were living in a fairy tale. There in front of her lay the enchanted castle, with the fair Princess waiting to be wakened from her long loneliness. And Nichette herself was the Prince, who must wake her with a kiss.

Forward, Prince! You have passed the hedge, and now it would be cowardly to turn back.

In the Queen’s Palace

V

In the Queen’s Palace

But bravely she began to climb, counting the steps as she went,—“thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five.” Evidently these stairs were seldom used, for now and then a dusty spider’s web brushed unpleasantly across her face and got into her mouth. There was another entrance upon the Queen’s lawn from Her Majesty’s own apartments, as Nichette knew. This was only the back way that Pierre the Porter and a few others sometimes found convenient.

At last she reached the top, and paused out of breath to select the third key for the door in front of her. It took but a moment, for she knew them all by heart. This was a rusty iron fellow with a queer notch in the end. He fitted easily, and the lock “clicked” an invitation to come in.

When Nichette pushed open the door, oh! she gave a scream. Almost on the threshold a figure in black armor was pointing his sword directly at her as if he meant to cut her head off. Ni­chette dodged back and almost shut the door in his face. But in a moment she saw how silly she had been to be afraid. This room was the armory. Surely, this was only an empty suit of armor placed there to frighten any intruder like herself. There were many others ranged along the walls, stiff and immovable and glum, with their iron hats pulled down over their eyes,—if they had any,—and their iron gloves grasping strange and dangerous weapons. But the doorkeeper looked so particularly alive and fierce that Nichette steered past him in a wide half-circle, keeping her eyes on him to make sure that he did not turn and follow her out of the little door opposite the first one.

She did not pause to examine the beautiful banners and shields hung all about, nor the cu­rious patterns of suns and stars made upon the walls by the blades of glittering swords and lances and knives. It was a wonderful room, but the next one was even more wonderful. Nichette entered on tiptoe, and though she had expected to see a tempting sight, she could not help cry­ing “Oh!” to find it even more delightful than her dreams.

Around the four walls were boxes upon boxes of toys, packed one above another. Games and carts, toy animals and doll-houses, and things that went when you wound them up, stood all about on the floor. And there were shelves of picture-books rising to the ceiling. Everything

looked quite new as if it had never been used, and it seemed like a toy shop where only the choicest, most expensive things were sold. Nichette looked and drew a long breath. She longed to stop and examine them, to touch them and make them go. But she thought of what she had come to do, and remembered the lonesome­ness of the lonesomest doll.

So she turned away to a tiny little door on the left,—a tiny little door that one would never find unless she knew just where to look, it seemed so like a panel in the wall. One, two, three, four, five,—yes, it was in the fifth panel, for there was the tiny keyhole to show that it was a door.

The Treasure Closet

VI

The Treasure Closet

Nichette’s fingers trembled as she took a tiny golden key from the bunch and thrust it into the lock. In a minute she had lifted up the cover; and as she did so what do you think? A weak little voice inside piped “Mamma!” in the sad­dest tone. Nichette pulled off the satin quilt that covered the top, and there lay the lonesomest doll, even more beautiful than she had imagined.

“Oh!” cried Nichette, clapping her hands. “Oh, you sweet dollie! How I love you!” And never thinking at all about the satin gown, or the lace, or the crown of jewels, or any of Mignon’s tiresome clothes, Nichette seized the doll from her box and hugged her up close in her arms.

Poor lonesome Mignon! How good it seemed really to be kissed and petted at last, even though it did snarl her golden curls and crease the velvet train; and even though a little spot of red melted off her rosy cheek when Nichette’s lips touched her. It was the first time that she had been happy in her life, though she lived in a palace with a Queen for her truly mamma. But this little girl in the coarse woolen gown, with sunburned hands, and with freckles on her dear little nose, already seemed much more like a mamma, though Mignon had seen her for only a minute and a half.

Nichette sat down on the floor with Mignon in her arms, and began to play with the lonesomest doll and to talk with her as she would talk to her own ugly darlings. She told her about the garden and the rosebush and the four wooden dolls. She explained about the fountain and the green grass and the sunshine which Mignon had never seen.

“That is because you are a Queen’s dollie, poor thing,” said Nichette, and she hugged Mignon closer. So she made the lonesomest doll happy for a long, long time, and the shad­ows began to fall more darkly, but Nichette did not notice. She was talking with Mignon about Clotilde, the Queen.

“How beautiful you are!” said Nichette. “I do not see how your truly mamma can help lov­ing you. She must be lovely to look at if, as they say, she is exactly like you. I have never seen her, but I know just what she is like inside. She is proud and disagreeable. She never goes to walk, nor plays outdoors,—she is too finely dressed,—as you are, my Mignon. I should not let you wear these lovely clothes every day. She never comes into my garden except to see the fountain play. I never saw the fountain play. Oh, how I should like to! But when she comes they lock the doors and will not let me in. Then they sweep all the rose leaves up, and shave the lawns close and ugly, and scrape the pretty green moss off the sun-dial. And she makes them throw away my playthings under the rosebush, so when I come the next day they are gone,—all my teasets and my flower chil­dren and my mud pies. I do not like the Queen, Mignon, I wish you were my dollie. You would be so much happier!”

Clotilde, the Queen

VII

Clotilde, the Queen

“You do not like the Queen,” said a voice close to her ear, it seemed. “Why, pray?” Ni­chette jumped and almost dropped Mignon, she was so startled. She turned about and then her eyes and mouth made three big round O’s as she saw what was there. In the doorway stood a little girl, about as big as Nichette herself, dressed all in shining silk. But what made Ni­chette think “Oh” so hard was this: it seemed as though it must be Mignon herself standing there, this beautiful little girl was so like her. There

“Oh—oh! You must be the Queen!” gasped Nichette at last, “you are so like the lonesomest doll.”

“The ‘lonesomest doll’? Why do you call her that? And how do you come here?” asked the

Nichette sat staring at the stranger dazedly. She was so beautiful, her voice was so soft, how could this be the proud, haughty, disagree­able little Queen whom Nichette did not love? Yet there was Mignon, beautiful also; and the Queen did not love her, but had neglected her and made her the lonesomest doll. Nichette’s eyes flashed, and she rose to her feet unafraid, clasping Mignon tight.

“I came to see the poor lonesomest doll whom you do not love. I came to tell her that I love her though I am not her truly mamma, and to hug and kiss her as dollies like to be hugged and kissed,” she said.

The Queen’s cheeks turned a shade pinker. “She is my doll,” she said coldly. “How dared you touch her? How did you get in?”

“My father is Pierre the Porter,” answered Nichette bravely. “I found his bunch of keys to-day and I came to see Mignon. I have not hurt her, and she is very happy.” The Queen looked at the doll closely hugged in Nichette’s arms, and a strange look came into her face.

“Do you really think she cares?” she asked.

“Of course she cares,” said Nichette. “Dolls love to be played with. They are lonesome if you leave them always in a box. How would you like to be left day after day alone, with no one to love and kiss you?”

The Queen’s face turned still pinker.

“I have no one to love me,” she said. Nichette stared. A Queen, and no one to love her! This was very strange. ‘‘Why don’t you play with your dollie, then?” she demanded. “I have no brothers nor sisters, but I have my dolls, and I play with them in the garden all day long.”

The Queen looked puzzled.

“Play?” she said. “How do you play with a doll? I don’t know how to play.”

“Don’t know how to play!” Nichette ex­claimed. “Why, you play just as you do with other playthings. You just play.”

“But I never played in my life.” The Queen stood looking at Nichette in helpless puzzlement, and Nichette stared frankly back.

“Never played! Then what do you do with all those things?” she pointed at the toys in the room beyond.

“I never play with them. I don’t know how. There is nobody to play with,” explained the Queen bitterly. “Oh, I never knew what it was until I watched you. I never before saw a little girl play with a doll. I never before talked with a little girl. Why did they not tell me about you?”

Now the poor little Queen’s father and mo­ther had died when she was a wee baby. Only grown-up uncles and aunts had watched her and tried to make her wise and dignified as they thought a Queen should be. There were no little cousin princes or princesses, no neighbor­ing highborn ladykins to be her playmates; and they had never dreamed of asking any real live children from round about to play with their noble Queen. She was just the age of Nichette, but she had never once been outdoors to play; never once run or hopped or skipped in the good warm sun; never once sat on the floor with a box of toys, nor put a doll to sleep. They thought a Queen ought not to care for any of these things.

The Queen and Nichette looked hard at each other. “I am glad you came,” said the Queen at last. She smiled and held out her hand. “Come and show me how to play,” she added, and they went out into the toy-room to­gether.

The Toy-Room

VIII

The Toy-Room

“Oh, what lovely, lovely playthings!” cried Nichette, jumping up and down and clapping her hands over a fine teaset.

“Are they lovely?” said the Queen, “I never thought so before. I don’t know what to do with them. My subjects are always sending me expensive things which my guardians say are too nice to use. So they pack them off here to be kept safely. But we will use them now, Nichette, and you shall play with me.”

So they emptied out the gold-and-silver dishes that were so easily scratched. And they set up the play-house furniture of real rosewood that showed every thumb-mark and had always been handled by servants with gloves. And they ar­ranged the best doll-house for Mignon to live in, and gave a tea party.

Oh, what fun it was! The lonesomest doll had never been so happy. And as for the Queen, she actually laughed out loud six times, which was something no one had ever heard her do. All this time she had not touched Mignon,—she seemed almost afraid to handle the doll, poor little Queen. But at last she said,2

“Nichette, I think I will take Mignon for a little while.” And with a sigh Nichette handed the lonesomest doll to her truly mamma. Clotilde held her awkwardly at first.

“Do you think she likes it?” she asked tim­idly. “I don’t yet know how, very well.”

Nichette clapped her hands and danced for joy. “Oh, she is so happy!” she cried. “Kiss her, Queen.”

Clotilde hesitated. “I—I don’t know how,” she faltered.

“Don’t know how to kiss her! Oh, Queen! I will show you,” and Nichette threw her arms about the two, and kissed first the doll, then the little royal mother. Clotilde turned very pale, then red as one of the garden roses.

“I never had any one kiss me before,” she said. “No one in the palace would dare. My uncles and aunts would not think of doing any­thing so—so undignified. Is that why you called Mignon the lonesomest doll,—because I left her all alone and never kissed her?”

Nichette nodded.

“Well, I am more lonesome than she, Ni­chette,” said the little Queen sadly, looking down at the doll and hugging her close. “Does your mamma kiss you often like that?”

“Every night and every morning and some­times in between,” returned Nichette proudly. “Often in between when I am very good.”

The Queen gave a sudden sigh, and the tears began to roll down her cheeks. “I never had any mother to kiss me,” she said. “Oh, how I wish I could have a real mother-kiss once, just once, Nichette!”

Nichette was busy thinking. It was growing dark, and she began to realize that she must be going home, though she hated to leave her new friend the Queen and the dear doll, no longer lonesome. Suddenly she clapped her hands and turned to Clotilde eagerly. “Oh, I have a plan!” she cried. “Would you really like to have a mother kiss you good-night, Queen?”

The Queen nodded wonderingly.

“Then this is what we will do. It is nearly dusk and I must go home. Father will punish me when he finds out what I have done, but I don’t care. Dear Queen, you shall come home with me; I will hide you somewhere, and when it is bedtime you shall snuggle in my little bed, and mother will kiss you in the dark instead of me. Then when they think me asleep, we will steal back here out of the window and I will lock the doors and the gates behind you with Father’s keys. Is it not a lovely plan?”

At first Clotilde was frightened. She had never before thought of running away from the palace, and it seemed very wicked. But she had grown so tired of doing as every one expected her to do, that soon the idea seemed pleasant. Besides, she longed and longed for that real mother-kiss. It was an exciting adventure, and would be some­thing to remember always. Her eyes began to sparkle and she grew as eager as Nichette herself. For she was full of fun, was this poor little Queen who had never played.

“I’ll do it!” she cried. “They will hunt for me, but they dare not be angry when I come back. For am I not the Queen?” She drew herself up proudly, and for the first time Nichette felt awed and impressed. But Clotilde soon became little-girlish again.

“I will go with you, Nichette,” she said, her hand in her little friend’s. “And Mignon shall go also. But we must hurry, or they will come hunting for us both, and then I could never go.”

So, holding Mignon close, the Queen followed Nichette away, through the armor room, down the dark crooked stairway, until they came out upon the Queen’s lawn in front of the palace. And this was the first time that the Queen had ever been out of doors without a grown person or a servant to watch and ward her.

Mother Marie

IX

Mother Marie

“How beautiful it is here!” she cried, looking down at the rose-leaf carpet such as she had never seen. “I never saw it like this before, wild and unfussy. After this I shall come here often to play with you, Nichette.”

“And may I see the fountain play?” asked Nichette wistfully.

“Why, did you never see it?” asked the Queen in surprise. Then Nichette told her all about it; how the Queen had always shut her out on those holidays, when her playthings were swept up and her mud pies broken.

“And you thought I did it, and so you did not love me. Oh, Nichette!” said the Queen re­proachfully. “It was the horrid gardener. But I never told him to do that. I did not know there was a little girl who played here. You shall always come after this, and I shall play here with you. And we will never have it fixed up and spoiled.”