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Dolls or Clothes-pins?

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 20, 1907

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 25.

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Dolls or Clothes-pins?

By Bertha E. Bush

THE owner of fourteen dolls sat disconsolately in the midst of them. “I don’t know anything to do,” she sighed, piteously.
“Why don’t you play with your dolls?”
“Dolls aren’t interesting.”
“What! Not your beautiful French doll that can talk and walk? Why don’t you dress her up and take her walking?”
“Her clothes are all sewed on, and I hate walking.”
“Then get your dishes and that nice little table and have a dolls’ tea party.”
“I don’t want to. Mother will make me wash the dishes after it.”
“Dear me! Have a dolls’ wedding then.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Well, play anything you want to with your dolls.”
“I can’t think of anything I want to play,” came the disconsolate answer. The truth was that the little girl was half sick and decidedly fretful.
The suggester felt obliged to have recourse to guile.
“Well, if there really is nothing you want to play, I had better have you sew a sheet.”
“O no! I know something to play. I’ll begin right away.”
The owner of the fourteen dolls—otherwise known as Marjorie—hates to sew sheets, and the suggestion of one will immediately cause her to discover another important and necessary occupation. The suggester looked on, much interested to see what that occupation might be.
Marjorie is one of those unfortunate fortunate little girls whose adoring relatives shower gifts upon her on every possible occasion. She had a beautiful doll’s piano, upon whose tinkling keys real tunes could be played, but she hardly ever touched it. She had paints and crayons galore, a work-box elaborately furnished, and a whole shelf of games. Which of them all do you think she took to amuse herself that morning? Not one. It was the family clothes-pin bag. She took bits of cloth from the rag-bag, and spent the whole time very happily in dressing up a family of clothes-pin dolls.
The suggester looked on, amused and a little provoked.
“What is the use of our spending all the money we do to provide this child with these expensive toys?” she cried. “She likes better the homeliest of things that she makes for herself, and I believe every child does.”—Bertha E. Bush, in the Congregationalist.