Mr. Plum lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.
There were six little Plums, all girls,
varying in ages from fourteen to seven, and named
Kate, Lucy, Susy, Lizzy, Marjory and Maggie. There
was no mamma, but Mrs. Gibbs, the housekeeper, was
a kind old soul, and papa did everything he could
to make the small daughters good and happy.
One stormy Saturday afternoon the
children were all together in the school-room, and
papa busy at his desk in the library, with the door
open because he liked to hear the pleasant voices and
catch glimpses of the droll plays that went on there.
Kate lay on the sofa reading “The
Daisy Chain” for the fourth time. Susy,
Lucy and Lizzie were having a select tea party in their
own recess, the entrance to which was barricaded with
chairs to keep out the “babies,” as they
called the little ones, who were much offended at
being excluded and sat up in the cushioned window-seat
pensively watching the rain.
“If it had only waited till
to-morrow we should have had time for our journey;
now we can’t go till next Saturday. Flora
is so disappointed she would cry if I had not taught
her to behave,” said Maggie with a sigh, as
she surveyed the doll on her knee in its new summer
suit.
“So is Dora. Just see how
sweet she looks with her hat and cape on and her travelling-bag
all ready. Couldn’t we play travel in the
house? It is such a pity to wait when the children
are in such a hurry to go,” answered Marjory,
settling the tiny bag that held Dora’s nightcap
and gown as well as the morsels of cake that were
to serve for her lunch.
“No,” said Maggie decidedly,
“we can’t do it, because there is no room
for carriages, and boats, and railroads, and hotels,
and accidents. It is a long journey from Minnesota
to Maine, and we couldn’t get it all into one
room I’m sure.”
“I don’t think papa would
mind our coming into the library, if we didn’t
ring the car bells very loud or scream much when the
accidents happen,” said Marjory, who hated to
give up the plan they had been cherishing all the
week.
“What is it, little ones?
Come and tell me what is the matter,” called
Mr. Plum, hearing his name and the magic word “railroad,”
for he was the president of one and had his hands
full just then.
Down jumped the little girls and ran
to perch on either arm of his chair, pouring out their
small tribulations as freely as if he had been the
most sympathizing of mothers.
“We planned to take a long,
long journey round the garden with our dolls to-day,
and play go to Maine and see Aunt Maria. You know
she asked us, and we looked out the way on the map
and got all ready, and now it rains and we are dreadfully
disappointed,” said Maggie, while Marjory sighed
as she looked at the red D. worked on the inch square
travelling-bag.
“As you can’t go, why
not send the dolls to make aunty a visit, and she
will send them back when they get homesick,”
proposed Mr. Plum, smiling, as if a sudden idea had
popped into his head.
“Really?” cried Maggie.
“How could we?” asked Marjory.
“They could go and come by mail,
and tell you all about their adventures when they
got back,” said papa.
Both children were speechless for
a moment, then as the full splendor of this proposition
dawned upon them they clapped their hands, crying
eagerly:
“We will! we will! Let’s do it at
once.”
“What? where? who?” asked
Susy, Lucy and Lizzie, forgetting their tea party
to run and see what was going on.
They were told, and in their turn
exclaimed so loudly that Kate came to join in the
fun.
After a great deal of talking and
laughing, the dolls were prepared for the long journey.
They were common wooden-headed dollies, a hand long,
with stuffed bodies and stout legs ornamented with
very small feet in red and blue boots. Dora was
a blonde and Flora a brunette, otherwise they were
just alike and nearly new. Usually when people
go travelling they put on their hats and cloaks, but
these pilgrims, by papa’s advice, left all encumbrances
behind them, for they were to travel in a peculiar
way, and blue gingham dresses were chosen for the expedition.
“It is possible that they may
never come back. Accidents will happen you know.
Are you prepared for that?” asked Mr. Plum, pausing
with the brown paper spread out before him.
“I am,” answered Maggie
firmly, as she laid Flora on the table, her black
eyes staring as if rather alarmed at this sudden start.
Marjory hesitated a moment, clasping
Dora to her bosom with a face full of maternal anxiety.
But Susy, Lucy and Lizzie cried: “Let her
go, do let her go, and if she is lost papa will give
you a new doll.”
“Good-by, my darling dear.
Have a splendid time, and be sure you come back to
me,” whispered Marjory, with a tender farewell
kiss as she gave up her child.
All stood watching silently while
papa tied the dolls back to back with the ribbon Kate
pulled from her neck, then folded them carefully in
strong brown paper, leaving their heads out that they
might see the world as they went along. Being
carefully fastened up with several turns of cord,
Mr. Plum directed the precious parcel to “Miss
Maria Plum, Portland, Maine. With care.”
Then it was weighed, stamped, and pronounced ready
for the post.
“I shall write and tell aunty
they are coming, because she will want to be prepared
for such distinguished visitors,” said papa,
taking up his pen with a glance at the six excited
little faces round him.
Silence reigned while the letter was
written, and as he sealed it up Mr. Plum said solemnly,
with his hand on the parcel:
“For the last time, shall they go?”
“Yes!” answered the Spartan
mothers with one voice, while the other sisters danced
round them, and Kate patted the curly heads approvingly.
“Going, going, gone!”
answered papa as he whisked on his coat and hat, and
slammed the door behind him.
The children clustered at the window
to see him set out on this momentous errand, and he
often looked back waving his umbrella at them, till
he vanished round the corner, with a reassuring pat
on the pocket out of which dear Do and Flo popped
their heads for a last look at their sweet home.
“Now let us take out poor old
Lucinda and Rose Augusta to play with. I know
their feelings were hurt at our leaving them for the
new dolls,” said Maggie, rummaging in the baby-house,
whither Margery soon followed her to reinstate the
old darlings in the place of the departed new ones.
“Safely off,” reported
Mr. Plum, when he came into tea, “and we may
expect to hear from them in a week or two. Parcels
go more slowly than letters, and this is Aunty’s
busy season, so wait patiently and see what will happen.”
“We will,” said the little
girls; and they did, but week after week went by and
nothing was heard of the wanderers.
We, however, can follow them and learn
much that their anxious mothers never knew.
As soon as Flora and Dora recovered
from the bewilderment occasioned by the confusion
of the post office, they found themselves in one of
the many leathern mail bags rumbling Eastward.
As it was perfectly dark they could not see their
companions, so listened to the whispering and rustling
that went on about them. The newspapers all talked
politics, and some of them used such bad language
that the dolls would have covered their ears, if their
hands had not been tied down. The letters were
better behaved and more interesting, for they told
one another the news they carried, because nothing
is private in America, and even gummed envelopes cannot
keep gossip from leaking out.
“It is very interesting, but
I should enjoy it more if I was not grinding my nose
against the rough side of this leather bag,”
whispered Dora, who lay undermost just then.
“So should I, if a heavy book
was not pinching my toes. I’ve tried to
kick it away, but it won’t stir, and keeps droning
on about reports and tariffs and such dull things,”
answered Flora, with a groan.
“Do you like travelling?”
asked Dora, presently, when the letters and papers
fell asleep, lulled by the motion of the cars.
“Not yet, but I shall when I
can look about me. This bundle near by says the
mails are often sorted in the cars, and in that way
we shall see something of the world, I hope,”
answered Flora, cheering up, for, like her mamma,
she was of an enquiring turn.
The dolls took a nap of some hours,
and were roused by a general tumbling out on a long
shelf, where many other parcels lay, and lively men
sent letters and papers flying here and there as if
a whirlwind was blowing. A long box lay beside
the dolls who stood nearly erect leaning against a
pile of papers. Several holes were cut in the
lid, and out of one of them was thrust a little black
nose, as if trying to get air.
“Dear me! what can be in it?”
said Flora, who was nearest.
“I’m a poor little alligator,
going to a boy in Chicago, if you please, and I want
my mother,” sobbed a voice from the box, and
there was a rap on the lid as of an agitated tail.
“Mercy on us! I hope we
shall not have to travel with the monster,”
whispered Dora, trying to see over her shoulder.
“I’m not afraid.
He can’t be very dreadful, for the box is not
any longer than we are. Natural history is very
useful; I’ve heard mamma say so, and I shall
talk with him while we rest here,” answered Flo,
nodding toward the eye which now took the place of
the nose.
So the little alligator told her something
of his home on the banks of a great river, where he
was just learning to play happily with his brothers
and sisters, when he was caught and sent away to pine
in captivity.
The dolls comforted him as well as
they could, and a pair of baby’s shoes travelling
in an envelope sympathized with him, while a shabby
bundle directed to “Michael Dolan, at Mrs. Judy
Quin’s, next door to Mr. Pat Murphy, Boston,
North street,” told them to “Whisht and
slape quite till they came forninst the place.”
“Such low people!” whispered
Do to Flo, and both stood primly silent till they
were tumbled into another mail bag, and went rattling
on again with a new set of companions.
“I hope that poor baby will
go safely and the boy be good to him,” said
Flora, for the little alligator went with the live
stock in some other way.
“Thank goodness he didn’t
go with us! I shall dream about that black nose
and winking eye, I’m sure. The dangers of
travelling are great, but we are safe and comfortable
now, I think,” and Dora settled down in a cozy
corner of the bag, wondering when they should reach
Chicago.
“I like adventures and hope
we shall have some,” answered Flora, briskly,
little dreaming how soon her wish was to be granted.
A few hours later there come a bump,
a crash, a cry, and then all the mail bags rolled
one over the other with the car down an embankment
into a river.
“Now we are dead!” shrieked
the poor dolls, clinging together as they heard the
splash of water, the shouting of men, the splintering
of wood, and the hiss of steam.
“Don’t be frightened,
ladies, mail bags are always looked after,” said
a large envelope with an official seal and the name
of a Senator on it.
“Any bones broken, dear madam?”
asked a jaunty pink letter, with a scent of musk about
it, evidently a love-letter.
“I think one foot is hurt, and
my clothes are dripping,” sighed Dora, faintly.
“Water won’t hurt calico,”
called out a magazine full of fashion plates, adding
dolefully, as its gay colors began to run, “I
shall be in a nice mess if I ever get out of this.
People will wear odd fashions if they follow me this
time.”
“Hope they will telegraph news
of this accident in time for the evening papers,”
said a dingy sheet called the “Barahoo Thunderbolt,”
as it lay atop of the heap in its yellow wrapper.
“Be calm, my friends, and wait
with fortitude for death or deliverance, as I do.”
With which philosophic remark “The St. Louis
Cosmos” folded the pages which for the first
time since the paper was started, were not dry.
Here the water rose over the topmost
letter and a moist silence prevailed till a sudden
jerk fished up the bag, and before the dolls could
recover their wits they were spread out on the floor
of a mail car to dry, while several busy men sorted
and saved such papers and letters as still held together.
“Now we shall see something,”
said Flora, feeling the warm air blow over her as
they spun along, for a slight accident like this did
not delay the energetic Westerners a moment longer
than absolutely necessary.
“I can’t see you, dear,
but I hope you look better than I do, for the yellow
of my hair has washed into my eyes and the red of my
cheeks is quite gone, I’m sure,” answered
Dora, as her wet dress flopped in the breeze and the
broken foot sticking up showed her that her blue boots
were ruined.
“I don’t care a bit how
I look. It’s great fun now we are safe.
Pop up your head and see the wide prairie flying past.
I do hope that poor baby got away and swam home to
his mother. The upset into the river was quite
to his taste, I fancy,” said Flora, who was much
excited by her adventure and eager for more.
Presently one of the men set the dolls
up in the corner of a window to dry, and there they
stood viewing the fine landscape with one eye while
the other watched the scene of devastation within.
Everything was in great confusion after the accident,
so it is not strange that the dolls were not missed
when they slowly slid lower and lower till a sudden
lurch of the car sent them out of the window to roll
into a green field where cows were feeding and children
picking strawberries.
“This is the end of us!
Here we shall lie and mould forgotten by everybody,”
said Dora, who always took a tragical view of things.
“Not a bit of it! I see
cows eating toward us and they may give us a lift.
I’ve heard of their tossing people up, though
I don’t know just how it’s done.
If they don’t, we are in the path and some of
those children are sure to find us,” answered
Flora cheerfully, though she stood on her head with
a bunch of burrs pricking her nose.
She was right. A bright-eyed
little German girl presently came trotting along the
path with a great basket full of berries on her head
arranged in pretty pottles ready for the market.
Seeing the red cow sniffing at a brown paper parcel
she drove her away, picked it up and peeped in at the
open end.
The sight of two dolls in such a place
made her feel as if fairies had dropped them there
for her. She could not read the direction and
hurried home to show her treasure to her brothers
and sisters of whom there were eight.
“What will become of us now!”
exclaimed Dora, as eager hands slipped them out of
the wrapper and smoothed their damp skirts in a room
that seemed swarming with boys and girls of all sizes.
“Don’t worry, we shall
get on nicely, I’m sure, and learn German of
these young persons. It is a great relief to be
able to stretch one’s limbs and stand up, isn’t
it?” answered Flora, undismayed by anything
that had happened as yet.
“Yes, dear, I love you but I
am tired of being tied to you all day.
I hope we shall live through this noise and get a
little rest, but I give up the idea of ever seeing
Portland,” answered Dora, staring with all her
blue eyes at the display of musical instruments about
the room, and longing to stop her ears, for several
of the children were playing on the violin, flute,
horn or harp. They were street musicians, and
even the baby seemed to be getting ready to take part
in the concert, for he sat on the floor beside an
immense bass horn taller than himself, with his rosy
lips at the mouth piece and his cheeks puffed out in
vain attempts to make a “boom! boom!”
as brother Fritz did.
Flora was delighted, and gave skips
on her red boots in time to the lively tooting of
the boys, while the girls gazed at the lovely dolls
and jabbered away with their yellow braids quivering
with excitement.
The wrapper was laid aside till a
neighbor who read English came in to translate it.
Meantime they enjoyed the new toys immensely, and even
despondent Dora was cheered up by the admiration she
received; while they in their turn were deeply interested
in the pretty dolls’ furniture some of the children
made.
Beds, tables and chairs covered the
long bench, and round it sat the neat-handed little
maidens gluing, tacking and trimming, while they sang
and chatted at their work as busy and happy as a hive
of bees.
All day the boys went about the streets
playing, and in the evening trooped off to the beer
gardens to play again, for they lived in Chicago,
and the dolls had got so far on their way to Aunt Maria,
as they soon discovered.
For nearly two months they lived happily
with Minna, Gretchen and Nanerl, then they set out
on their travels again, and this was the way it happened.
A little girl came to order a set of furniture for
her new baby-house, and seeing two shabby dolls reposing
in a fine bed she asked about them. Her mamma
spoke German so Minna told how they were found, and
showed the old wrapper, saying that they always meant
to send the dolls on their way but grew so fond of
them they kept putting it off.
“I am going as far as New York
very soon and will take them along if you like, for
I think little Miss Maria Plum must have been expecting
her dolls all this time. Shall I?” asked
the mamma, as she read the address and saw the dash
under “With care,” as if the dollies were
of great importance to some one.
“Ja, ja,” answered
Minna, glad to oblige a lady who bought two whole
sets of their best furniture and paid for it at once.
So again the dolls were put in their
brown paper cover and sent away with farewell kisses.
“This now is genteel and just
suits me,” said Dora, as they drove along with
little Clara to the handsome house where she was staying.
“I have a feeling that she is
a spoilt child, and we shall not be as happy with
her as with the dear Poppleheimers. We shall see,”
answered Flora, wisely, for Clara had soon tossed
the dolls into a corner and was fretting because mamma
would not buy her the big horn to blow on.
The party started for New York in
a day or two, and to the delight of Flo and Do they
were left out of the trunks for Clara to play with
on the way, her own waxen Blanche Marie Annabel being
too delicate to be used.
“Oh my patience, this is worse
than tumbling about in a mail-bag,” groaned
Dora, after hours of great suffering, for Clara treated
the poor dolls as if they had no feeling.
She amused herself with knocking their
heads together, shutting them in the window with their
poor legs hanging out, swinging them by one arm, and
drawing lines with a pencil all over their faces till
they looked as if tattooed by savages. Even brave
Flora was worn out and longed for rest, finding her
only comfort in saying, “I told you so,”
when Clara banged them about, or dropped them on the
dusty floor to be trampled on by passing feet.
There they were left, and would have
been swept away if a little dog had not found them
as the passengers were leaving the car and carried
them after his master, trotting soberly along with
the bundle in his mouth, for fortunately Clara had
put them into the paper before she left them, so they
were still together in the trials of the journey.
“Hullo, Jip, what have you got?”
asked the young man as the little dog jumped up on
the carriage seat and laid his load on his master’s
knee, panting and wagging his tail as if he had done
something to be praised for.
“Dolls, I declare! What
can a bachelor do with the poor things? Wonder
who Maria Plum is? Midge will like a look at them
before we send them along;” and into the young
man’s pocket they went, trembling with fear
of the dog, but very grateful for being rescued from
destruction.
Jip kept his eye on them, and gave
an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they
were there as they drove through the bustling streets
of New York to a great house with an inscription over
the door.
“I do hope Midge will be a nicer
girl than Clara. Children ought to be taught
to be kind to dumb dolls as well as dumb animals,”
said Dora, as the young man ran up the steps and hurried
along a wide hall.
“I almost wish we were at home
with our own kind little mothers,” began Flo,
for even her spirits were depressed by bad treatment,
but just then a door opened and she cried out in amazement,
“Bless my heart, this man has more children
than even Mr. Poppleheimer!”
She might well think so, for all down
both sides of the long room stood little white beds
with a small pale face on every pillow. All the
eyes that were open brightened when Jip and his master
came in, and several thin hands were outstretched
to meet them.
“I’ve been good, Doctor,
let me pat him first,” cried one childish voice.
“Did you bring me a flower,
please?” asked another feeble one.
“I know he’s got something
nice for us, I see a bundle in his pocket,”
and a little fellow who sat up among his pillows gave
a joyful cough as he could not shout.
“Two dollies for Midge to play
with. Jip found them, but I think the little
girl they are going to will lend them for a few days.
We shall not need them longer I’m afraid,”
added the young man to a rosy faced nurse who came
along with a bottle in her hand.
“Dear no, the poor child is
very low to-day. But she will love to look at
the babies if she isn’t strong enough to hold
’em,” said the woman, leading the way
to a corner where the palest of all the pale faces
lay smiling on the pillow, and the thinnest of the
thin hands were feebly put up to greet the Doctor.
“So nice!” she whispered
when the dolls were laid beside her, while Jip proudly
beat his tail on the floor to let her know that she
owed the welcome gift to him.
For an hour Flo and Do lay on the
arm of poor Midge who never moved except to touch
them now and then with a tender little finger, or to
kiss them softly, saying, “Dear babies, it is
very nice not to be all alone. Are you comfy,
darlings?” till she fell asleep still smiling.
“Sister, do you think this can
be the Heaven we hear people talk about? It is
so still and white, and may be these children are angels,”
whispered Dora, looking at the sweet face turned toward
her with the long lashes lying on the colorless cheek,
and the arms outstretched like wings.
“No, dear, it is a hospital,
I heard that man say so, and those are sick children
come to be cured. It is a sweet place, I think,
and this child much nicer than that horrid Clara,”
answered Flo, who was quicker to hear, see and understand
what went on than Dora.
“I love to lie here safe and
warm, but there doesn’t seem to be much breath
to rock me,” said Do, who lay nearest the little
bosom that very slowly rose and fell with the feeble
flutter of the heart below.
“Hush, we may disturb her,”
and lively Flo controlled her curiosity, contenting
herself with looking at the other children and listening
to their quiet voices, for pain seemed to have hushed
them all.
For a week the dolls lay in Midge’s
bed, and though their breasts were full of saw-dust
and their heads were only wood, the sweet patience
of the little creature seemed to waken something like
a heart in them, and set them thinking, for dolls
don’t live in vain, I am firmly persuaded.
All day she tended them till the small
hands could no longer hold them, and through the weary
nights she tried to murmur bits of lullabies lest
the dollies would not be able to sleep because of the
crying or the moans some of the poor babies could
not repress. She often sent one or the other
to cheer up some little neighbor, and in this way Do
and Flo became small sisters of charity, welcomed
eagerly, reluctantly returned, and loved by all, although
they never uttered a word and their dingy faces could
not express the emotion that stirred their saw-dust
bosoms.
When Saturday night came they were
laid in their usual place on Midge’s arm.
She was too weak to kiss them now, and nurse laid their
battered cheeks against the lips that whispered faintly,
“Be sure you send ’em to the little girl,
and tell her — tell her — all about
it.” Then she turned her cheek to the pillow
with a little sigh and lay so still the dolls thought
she had gone to sleep.
She had, but the sweet eyes did not
open in the morning, and there was no breath in the
little breast to rock the dolls any more.
“I knew she was an angel, and
now she has flown away,” said Dora softly, as
they watched the white image carried out in the weeping
nurse’s arms, with the early sunshine turning
all the pretty hair to gold.
“I think that is what they call
dying, sister. It is a much lovelier way to end
than as we do in the dust bin or rag-bag. I wonder
if there is a little Heaven anywhere for good dolls?”
answered Flora, with what looked like a tear on her
cheek; but it was only a drop from the violets sent
by the kind Doctor last night.
“I hope so, for I think the
souls of little children might miss us if they loved
us as dear Midge did,” whispered Dora, trying
to kiss the blue flower in her hand, for the child
had shared her last gift with these friends.
“Why didn’t you let her
take them along, poor motherless baby?” asked
the doctor when he saw the dolls lying as she had left
them.
“I promised her they should
go to the girl they were sent to, and please, I’d
like to keep my word to the little darling,”
answered Nurse with a sob.
“You shall,” said the
Doctor, and put them in his breast pocket with the
faded violets, for everybody loved the pauper child
sent to die in a hospital, because Christian charity
makes every man and woman father and mother to these
little ones.
All day the dolls went about in the
busy Doctor’s pocket, and I think the violets
did them good, for the soft perfume clung to them long
afterward like the memory of a lovely life, as short
and sweet as that of the flowers.
In the evening they were folded up
in a fresh paper and re-directed carefully. The
Doctor wrote a little note telling why he had kept
them, and was just about to put on some stamps when
a friend came in who was going to Boston in the morning.
“Anything to take along, Fred?” asked
the newcomer.
“This parcel, if you will.
I have a feeling that I’d rather not have it
knock about in a mail-bag,” and the Doctor told
him why.
It was pleasant to see how carefully
the traveller put away the parcel after that, and
to hear him say that he was going through Boston to
the mountains for his holiday, and would deliver it
in Portland to Miss Plum herself.
“Now there is some chance of
our getting there,” said Flora, as they set
off next day in a new Russia leather bag.
On the way they overheard a long chat
between some New York and Boston ladies which impressed
them very much. Flora liked to hear the fashionable
gossip about clothes and people and art and theatres,
but Dora preferred the learned conversation of the
young Boston ladies, who seemed to know a little of
everything, or think they did.
“I hope Mamma will give me an
entirely new wardrobe when I get home; and we will
have dolls’ weddings and balls, and a play, and
be as fine and fashionable as those ladies down there,”
said Flora, after listening a while.
“You have got your head full
of dressy ideas and high life, sister. I don’t
care for such things, but mean to cultivate my mind
as fast as I can. That girl says she is in college,
and named over more studies than I can count.
I do wish we were to stop and see a little of the refined
society of Boston,” answered Dora, primly.
“Pooh!” said Flo, “don’t
you try to be intellectual, for you are only a wooden-headed
doll. I mean to be a real Westerner, and just
enjoy myself as I please, without caring what other
folks do or think. Boston is no better than the
rest of the world, I guess.”
Groans from every article in the bag
greeted this disrespectful speech, and an avalanche
of Boston papers fell upon the audacious doll.
But Flo was undaunted, and shouted from underneath
the pile: “I don’t care! Minnesota
forever!” till her breath gave out.
Dora was so mortified that she never
said a word till they were let out in a room at the
Parker House. Here she admired everything, and
read all the evening in a volume of Emerson’s
Poems from the bag, for Mr. Mt. Vernon Beacon
was a Boston man, and never went anywhere without a
wise book or two in his pocket.
Flo turned up her nose at all she
saw, and devoted herself to a long chat with the smart
bag which came from New York and was full of gossip.
The next afternoon they really got
to Portland, and as soon as Mr. Beacon had made his
toilet he set out to find little Miss Plum. When
the parlor door opened to admit her he was much embarrassed,
for, advancing with a paternal smile and the dolls
extended to the expected child, he found himself face
to face with a pretty young lady, who looked as if
she thought him a little mad.
A few words explained the errand,
however, and when she read the note Aunt Maria’s
bright eyes were full of tears as she said, hugging
the dilapidated dolls:
“I’ll write the story
of their travels, and send the dear old things back
to the children as soon as possible.”
And so she did with Mr. Beacon’s
help, for he decided to try the air of Portland, and
spent his vacation there. The dolls were re-painted
and re-dressed till they were more beautiful than
ever, and their clothes fine enough to suit even Flo.
They were a good while doing this,
and when all was ready, Aunt Maria took it into her
head to run out to St. Paul and surprise the children.
By a singular coincidence Mr. Beacon had railroad business
in that direction, so they set off together, with
two splendid dolls done up in a gay box.
All that was ever known about that
journey was that these travellers stopped at the hospital
in New York, and went on better friends than before
after hearing from the good Doctor all the pathetic
story of little Midge.
The young Plums had long ago given
up the hope of ever seeing Do and Flo again, for they
started in June and it was early in September when
Aunt Maria appeared before them without the least
warning, accompanied by a pleasant gentleman from
Boston.
Six kisses had hardly resounded from
Aunty’s blooming cheeks when a most attractive
box was produced from the Russia leather bag, and the
wandering dolls restored to the arms of their enraptured
mammas.
A small volume neatly written and
adorned with a few pictures of the most exciting incidents
of the trip also appeared.
“Every one writes or prints
a book in Boston, you know, so we did both,”
said Aunt Maria, laughing, as she handed over the remarkable
history which she had composed and Mr. Beacon illustrated.
It was read with intense interest,
and was as true as most stories are nowadays.
“Nothing more delightful can
happen now!” exclaimed the children, as they
laid by the precious work and enthroned the travelled
dolls in the place of honor on the roof of the baby-house.
But something much more delightful
did happen; for at Thanksgiving time there was a wedding
at the Plums’. Not a doll’s wedding,
as Flo had planned, but a real one, for the gentleman
from Boston actually married Aunt Maria.
There were six bridesmaids, all in
blue, and Flora and Dora, in the loveliest of new
pink gowns, were set aloft among the roses on the
wedding-cake, their proper place as everyone said,
for there never would have been any marriage at all
but for this Doll’s Journey From Minnesota to
Maine.