CHAPTER XVI
THE PLAYHOUSE
Then they all went down to dinner, the twins holding hands with eachother, round Aunt Rachel’s ample waist. As she had an arm round each oftheir necks, locomotion down the stairways was difficult, but they allaccomplished it somehow, and made a triumphal entry at the dining-roomdoor.
Aunt Penninah was already in her chair, and looked up sharply, as ifexpecting to see a doleful pair of twins.
But the laughing faces proved that, if not enjoying their punishment,the children were, at least, making the best of it, and Aunt Ninesniffed a little, as she asked:
“What have you been doing all morning?”
“Oh, having the beautifullest time!” exclaimed Dolly. “We found an olddoll’s house, that used to be Auntie Rachel’s when she was a littlegirl.”
“And my father played with it, too,” said Dick, proudly.
“Oh, Rachel,” said Miss Abbie, with a disappointed look, “we meant tokeep that for their Christmas!”
“It doesn’t matter,” said her sister, serenely; “they may as well haveit now. Hannah, tell Michael to bring it down to the playroom whilewe’re at dinner.”
Hannah obeyed, and the twins could scarcely eat their dinner foranticipation of the fun to come.
“Your punishment doesn’t seem very hard to bear,” said Aunt Nine,looking quizzically at the children.
“Oh, yes it is, Auntie,” said Dick. “We’d ever so much rather run out ofdoors in this sunshiny day, and save the playhouse for a rainy day.Truly, we feel the punishment very much.”
It somehow seemed to Dick’s queer little brain that it was rude todefraud Aunt Penninah of her rights. She had evidently expected them torepine at being kept indoors, and though they hadn’t exactly done that,she was entitled to know that they really were feeling the punishment.And it was quite true. Both he and Dolly would have gladly postponed theplayhouse fun, to scamper out for a run in the garden. Aunt Nine noddeda sort of approval.
“You’re an honest little chap, Dick,” she said; “I’m beginning to likeyou.”
“Don’t you like Dolly, too?” asked Dick, with the air of one merelyseeking information.
“Yes, I like you both. If you’d be a little more thoughtful, and——”
“Oh, we’re going to learn to think,” said Dolly. “Auntie Rachel is goingto teach us.”
“I wish her joy of her task,” said Aunt Penninah, but her eyes twinkledjust a little mite, and the twins began to think she was really not suchan ogress as she had seemed at first.
After dinner they all went up to the playroom, and found the playhousewell placed, in a corner between two windows.
“Oh,” cried Dolly in rapture, as she saw the boxes full of furniture,and the bundles of carpet.
The carpets smelled of camphor as Aunt Rachel unrolled them, for theyhad been carefully put away from the moths, and proved to be in perfectcondition.
The aunties all looked a bit sober, as the small squares were unfolded,for their thoughts flew back nearly forty years, when Rachel and Abbiehad been little girls, and Penninah Dana had been a beautiful youngwoman.
But no such memories saddened the twins’ hearts, and they capered aboutin glee, shaking out the carpets, and holding them up for inspection.
“This is the parlour one!” cried Dolly, as a light velvety squareappeared.
She tucked it into place, and it exactly fitted the parlour floor.
Two bedroom carpets were there; a library and a dining-room,—and thekitchen already had oilcloth on it.
Then came the furniture, and both twins fairly squealed with delightover the funny little things, as they took them from the boxes and putthem in place in the rooms of the playhouse.
The dining-room furniture was all of iron.
“That stove,” said Miss Rachel, holding a black iron stove of the shapeknown as “cylinder,” “father brought me when I was getting well afterthe measles. ‘You can build a real fire in it,’ he said, ‘it’s a reallittle stove.’”
“And did you?” asked Dick.
“Yes; several times. There’s a tiny tin pipe that goes out through thishole in the wall of the house. See?”
The twins saw, but there was so much to see, little time could be spenton any one thing. The parlour furniture was of satin brocade, of deepred colour, which was unfaded, and quite as good as new.
“I helped make those chairs,” said Aunt Nine. “I cut and basted, whileyour mother sewed them, Rachel.”
“They’re beautifully made,” said Miss Rachel. “Dolly, if you want somemore, you can make them in your sewing-hour.”
“I’ll make you some,” said Aunt Penninah. “If you can find some prettybits of stuff, Abbie, I’ll make a few to-day.”
“Oh, do, Aunt Nine,” cried Dolly. “These chairs are all right, but itwould be so lovely to have some new ones of our very own!”
“I’m going to make some little wooden chairs and tables,” said Dick. “Ican cut them out with my jigsaw, and glue them together.”
“Do,” said Aunt Abbie, “and we’ll make satin cushions for them, and tiethem on with little ribbons.”
The furnishing of the house went on, and it would be hard to say whichwere more interested, the twins or the older people.
When they came up to the bedrooms, they found the tiny sheets andpillowcases yellow with age.
“Will you make us some new ones, Aunt Rachel?” asked Dolly.
“Yes; or Delia can bleach these for you. They’re as good as ever, excepttheir colour.”
Then the aunties discovered that the portières for the parlour werefaded, and the lace curtains had turned irretrievably brown, so off wentAunt Abbie to get some bits of stuff at once, to make new ones.
And very soon the three aunties were busily engaged in cutting andsewing all sorts of pretty things for the house.
The best bedstead was of the sort that requires dimity curtains andvalance to make it complete.
Aunt Penninah offered to fit this bed out entirely, and her deft needleflew in and out of the muslins Aunt Abbie brought, until she had madethe little bed the most charming affair imaginable.
In addition to the curtains, she hemmed tiny sheets; she made a dearblanket, of a morsel of white flannel bound with ribbon; and lovelypillowcases, with hemstitched ends.
Then, to Dolly’s breathless delight, she made a little silk comfortable,with a layer of cotton-wool in it, and tacked at intervals withmicroscopic bows of blue ribbon.
Of course this work of the aunties took all the afternoon, and indeed,it wasn’t finished that day.
But the interest in the house grew more and more absorbing as the dayswent by, and though the children loved out of doors best, they oftendevoted a few hours of the pleasantest days to “Dana Cottage,” as theycalled it. When it was nearly finished, as to furnishing, they began toprepare a family of dolls to occupy it. Aunt Nine offered to present theentire family, and afterward assist in making their clothing.
So one fine afternoon Miss Penninah and the twins drove to town toselect the dolls. It was great fun, and yet it was a responsibility,too. Dick was quite as much interested as Dolly, for somehow, the houseoffered so much boyish work, and play, that it didn’t seem like “playingwith dolls.”
Besides the twins always did the same things, and Dolly would have losther own interest in the playhouse if Dick hadn’t shared it.
So, after much consultation, they chose a father and a mother doll, anaunt doll, two small children dolls, and a baby doll. A nurse and twoother servants were added, and then they declared they had enough.
“Enough? I should think so!” said Aunt Nine, who began to see endlessdoll-dressing ahead of her. But her eyes twinkled; and then she let thetwins select from the shop several bits of dolls’ furniture that werenot in vogue when the playhouse was originally furnished.
Laden with their treasures they all went home, and that very evening theaunt
ies began on the dolls’ wardrobes.
“Is this your idea of disciplining the children, Aunt Nine?” said MissRachel, as they sewed, after Dick and Dolly had gone to bed.
Miss Penninah Dana looked a little confused, but she answeredstraightforwardly:
“I think you were nearer right than I, Rachel. The twins are not what weused to call ‘good children.’ I mean the meek, mild, priggish littlepersons that children were taught to be when I was young. Dick and Dollyare so full of life and spirits that they do wrong things from sheerthoughtlessness and gaiety of heart. But they are never wilfullymischievous, and never deceitful about it afterward. They do need firmguidance, but they do not need to be taught the difference between rightand wrong, for they already know it. They are true Danas.”
When Miss Penninah announced that last fact, she felt that she had giventhe last word of praise to the twins, and indeed, the other two auntsthought so too.
So clannish were they, and so proud of their fine old family, that theygreatly preferred Dick and Dolly to be “true Danas” than to possess manyother admirable traits. And so, the three stitched away, quite agreed,at last, on the management of the children, and hoping they would growup to manhood and womanhood, with the inherited traits of dignity,honour, and refinement that characterised their family.
Meanwhile the “true Danas” upstairs were sleeping soundly, and onlyawoke when the sun peeped in at their windows and winked and blinkedright into their eyes.
And when, later, they danced down to breakfast, there in a row on thesofa sat a smiling and well-dressed family, all ready to take up theirabode in “Dana Cottage.”
Dolly went into ecstasies over the mother doll, who wore a trailinghouse dress of light blue satin trimmed with lace. The aunt, too, wasresplendent in crimson velvet, and the children were in the daintiest ofwhite or light frocks.
The father-doll had been difficult to dress, but though a professionaltailor might have taken exception to the cut, the aunties had made hisneat suit fit him very well indeed.
Dick was interested in the new family, and admired them duly, but he wasalready thinking of how he could build a yard around the house itself,and he confided his plans to Dolly.
“We’ll fence off a space all round the house,” he said. “I’ll make alittle picket fence with splints. It’s just as e-easy! Then we’ll getgreen velvet carpet for the grass.”
“Oh, carpet isn’t a bit like grass,” objected Dolly. “It’s so thick anddusty. Let’s have real dirt,—or sand.”
“I think sand is messy.”
“Yes, so do I. Oh, I tell you what, Dick! Let’s cut green tissue paperinto fine fringe, and put it round where we want grass,—paste it tosomething, you know,—like we made fairies’ wings,—only green.”
“Yes, that’s the ticket!” exclaimed Dick. “Then we’ll make little pathsof,—of brown paper, I guess,—pasted down.”
“Yes; take a big sheet of pasteboard first, and then stick everything onit.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. Then bits of evergreen for trees, and perhapsreal flowers, growing in little bits of pots.”
“Oh, it will be lovely! Dick, you’re splendid to think of it all!”
The twins joined hands and jumped up and down, as was their custom whengreatly pleased with each other. Then the aunties came in, and they allwent to breakfast.
The children told their plan for the yard around the house, and theladies agreed that it would be lovely.
“I’ll help you to make a pond, Dickie,” said Aunt Penninah, “like one Ihad when _I_ was a little girl. That dates farther back than AuntRachel’s childhood.”
“How do you make a pond?” asked Dick, not much interested in comparativedates of past Danas.
“We must get a piece of mirror,—without a frame, you know,—and put itin the middle of your grass plot, and then put pretty stones or shellsround the edge of the mirror, and it looks just like water.”
“And little tin ducks on it,” shouted Dick, “like a real pond! Oh,Auntie, that will be tip-top!”
“And I’ll make you a pond on the other side of your house,” put in AuntAbbie, “of real water. In a big flat pan, you know; and little sprigs offern all round the edge.”
“All right; we’ll have both,” declared Dick. “I don’t know which’ll benicest, they’re both so splendid. And I’ll make a little boat to sail onthe water. I can whittle it out of a stick.”
“And I’ll make a sail for it.” said Aunt Abbie, “and we’ll rig up asail-boat.”
Such interest did the aunts take in the cottage yard, it was almost asif they were children too, and Dick and Dolly became more and moreenraptured with the wonderful things they made.
Aunt Abbie fashioned a little hammock with her crochet needle and somegreen and white cord. When she put fringe along its edges, and suspendedit from two evergreen trees in the “yard,” Dolly thought she had neverseen anything so cunning. Two little dolls were put into it, and thenurse doll was set to swing them until they fell asleep. Michael, whowas greatly pleased with the whole affair, fashioned a tiny arbour justlike their own in their playground outside. It was made of tiny twigs,and when the gardener brought it in, as his offering to the generalgaiety, it was accepted with hilarious thanks. Very small green vineswere twisted about it, and tiny blossoms of forget-me-not orlilies-of-the-valley were entwined. But the little flowerets faded sosoon that Aunt Abbie made some diminutive roses of pink tissue paper,which would stay fresh all summer.
Many plans were made for future additional beauties, and the littleestate grew rapidly to an elaborate country place, when Michael declaredthat he should build a barn for it. This announcement was heralded withdelight, and for many days, Michael spent all his spare time in thetool-house, Dick and Dolly bobbing about him, and helping or hinderingas best they could.
The barn, when done, was a grand affair indeed. Not of very elaboratearchitecture, but provided with stables, carriage house, feed bins, andeven a chicken coop.
Again Aunt Nine took the twins to town on a shopping expedition, andthis time they returned with all the four-legged and two-legged toysnecessary to complete the barn’s use and beauty. Also there werecarriages for the dolls to drive in, and sleighs, too, for in doll landthe lack of snow makes no difference in the sleighing season.
Aunt Penninah’s visit of a week lengthened out to a fortnight, but notuntil the last tiny carriage robe was finished, and the last hat andcape made for the smallest doll, did Aunt Nine make her farewells toDana Dene.
And, then, she went away, promising to return for another visit as soonas possible, and insisting on a promise that the twins should some dayvisit her in her own home.