The Lonesomest Doll (1928)/Chapter 6
VI
The Treasure Closet
The key to this door was of silver, and it opened into a little closet lined with iron. The door was lined with iron, too, barred and barred across. Inside were rows of metal caskets and stout wooden boxes which looked important, as if they guarded precious things. But Nichette had eyes for only one of these,—she knew just where to look. It was a big box about two feet long, of carved oak in a beautiful pattern, with a golden keyhole in the side.
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!”