The Lonesomest Doll (1928)/Chapter 3

by Abbie Farwell Brown

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

them in turn, as if she had been gone a long, long time, instead of just two hours by the old sun-dial, who never told lies as some clocks do. Nichette was much excited.

“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 this—— 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.