Wax doll

“ Waxxe-Doll was a very grand-looking personage in most fashionable attire, whilst her husband was not a wax doll at all, but a wooden and cardboard person with very thin, straight legs, and a large body and head which wobbled about when he was touched. ”

“ I thought that wax doll did not come up. Can my eyes deceive me? non verum est! There is a doll there—and what a doll! on crutches, and in poor, homely gear!"
Then the nearsighted father put out his hand toward Peter's little sister. She jumped—she could not help it, and the holy father jumped too; the Christmas wreath actually tumbled off his head.
"It is a miracle!" exclaimed he when he could speak; "the little girl is alive! parra puella viva est. I will pick her and take her to the brethren, and we will pay her the honors she is entitled to." ”

“ Perhaps the prettiest and most interesting part of the garden, is that devoted to wax dolls. There are other beds for the commoner dolls—for the rag dolls, and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of course wax dolls would look much handsomer growing. Wax dolls have to be planted quite early in the season; for [Page 74] they need a good start before the sun is very high. The seeds are the loveliest bits of microscopic dolls imaginable. ”

“ Gives Blan. the wax doll.
She's the best wax, and has three changes of clothing—
For those cheap wooden dolls I've quite a loathing.
Bl. (hastily) . Oh, so have I—they're not to be endured!
Re-enter Brunette with the wooden doll, which she tries to press upon Blanchidine, much to the latter's confusion.
Br. I've brought poor Timburina back, completely cured!
Why, aren't you pleased? Your face is looking so cloudy!
F. (haughtily) . Is she a friend of yours—this little dowdy? ”

“ A magnificently-dressed wax doll often seems to afford no more delight than a shabbily-dressed old one, and the most complete and perfect of expensive toys, be it what it may, lasts no longer than a shilling one in destructive little hands. The truth is, modern children are often surfeited with playthings. ”

“ Yet it was to Decima that I caused a tragedy, and, incidentally, to myself as well. She was the proud possessor of a very beautiful wax doll; a really beautiful and aristocratic person she was. We always said “Grace” before meals (I think everyone did in those days) , and one morning I was nursing the doll. In an excess of religious fervour, I insisted that the wax beauty should say “grace” too. Her body, not being adapted to religious exercises, refused to bend with the reverence I felt necessary ”

“ The annual increase of dolls goes on at an alarming rate. As you say, sir, the yearly rate of mortality must be very high, to be sure, but still it’s nothing to the rate at which they are brought into the world. They can’t make wax dolls in America, sir, so we ship off a great many there. The reason why they can’t produce dolls in America is owing to the climate. The wax won’t set in very hot weather, and it cracks in extreme cold. I knew a party who went out to the United States to start as doll-maker. He took several gross of my eyes with him, but he couldn’t succeed. ”

“ To any one sending us $6 in new subscriptions to the Witness publications we will send one of the above described platform scales.
FOR THE LITTLE GIRLS ONLY.
Every little girl has an intense longing for a beautiful doll. Those little girls who desire a large and handsome wax doll to act as head of their doll family can easily earn one for themselves by canvassing for subscribers to our paper among their friends and relations. ”

“ If one can get a peep behind the window, one may see scores of waxen busts not yet stitched on to their respective bodies, and discern, in half-opened drawers, hundreds of rosy, dimpled limbs; baby hands and feet — which look very funny in their unassociated condition: and one may quickly learn to distinguish the composite doll, whose foundations are laid with paper and whose wax is merely "run," from the solid person, with no pretence about her, who is all wax. On a counter, in a small armchair, sits a demure waxen child, with a book on its knee, a mechanical finger following the printed line ”

“ The eldest boy painted hair, or fitted and glued hair on to the heads of the best dolls. The second boy fitted half legs and arms together, by pegs at the joints. The little girl did nothing but paint rosy cheeks and lips, which she always did very nicely, though sometimes she made them rather too red, and looking as if very hot, or blushing extremely.
[5] Now Mr. Sprat was very ingenious and clever in his business as a doll-maker. He was able to make dolls of various kinds, even of wax, or of a sort of composition ”

“ The pattern originally came from Japan (a nation very ingenious in toys) , and has long been lying in the Museum at the Hague. The German toy-makers, however, are now constructing them upon the same model. Fine wax dolls, with natural hair, are made, we are informed, at Petesdorff, in Silesia. It will be flattering, however, to the national vanity to be informed, that the Londoners alone are capable of making the finest and most expressive dolls. The French, clever as they are, cannot touch us here. ”

“ You’re real jolly, I think,” chattered a Monkey on a Stick, as he climbed up and then climbed down again. “We must have some fun in this world, as well as being guarded by Tin Soldiers.”
“That is very true,” remarked a Lamb on Wheels, as she rolled over toward the White Rocking Horse. “I love jolly times. That’s why I’m always so glad when night [5] comes and we toys may do as we please.”
“We may, if there is no one to watch us,” said the Sawdust Doll, as she got up on her feet, rather stiffly, for, as I have said, she had been lying on her back all day, and you know how tiresome that is. ”

“ I think they’ve come for you,” whispered Jack.
“Maybe it’s for you,” the Doll answered.
[56] “Oh, no, my days are over,” was the Jack’s reply. “Nobody wants to play with a broken toy. I’ll stay here a long time, I suppose. But your adventures are just beginning.”
And that is just what happened. The Sawdust Doll was lifted down off the shelf, and a beautiful dress was put on her. It was made of silk, and was the color of a rose.
“You are as nice a doll as any little girl could wish,” said Martha, the maid, as she tied a blue sash on the Sawdust Doll. ”

“ If I had been there I would have cut a way for you out of the bag with my sword!” he said.
“Thank you,” said the Sawdust Doll. “But, after all, everything came out all right as it was. I am back with Dorothy again, and happy.”
“I wonder what all the excitement is about,” said the White Rocking Horse, as he rocked to and fro.
“Oh, it’s just a man doing some magical tricks to amuse the children,” said the Monkey on a Stick. “I can see him from here. He comes every year at Christmas time to make it jolly for the children.”
“Now tell me some news!” begged the Sawdust Doll. ”

“ And as the sun rose and filled the world with light, the doors of Toy Town opened. The clerks came in to dust the different things and set them to rights, for it was the Christmas season and many people would come to buy.
“I wonder if some one will buy me,” softly murmured the Sawdust Doll.
[26] “Do you want them to?” asked the Candy Rabbit.
“Well, I suppose that is why I was put in Toy Town,” answered the Doll. “I want to do my duty, and make some little girl happy.”
“Yes, that’s what we’re for,” laughed the jolly Calico Clown. “It’s fun to make boys and girls happy. ”

“ It’s a great big rat! Oh! Oh-e-e-e-e-e!” and she squealed like the little Green Pig on the top shelf, only, [17] as he was asleep just then, he didn’t do any squealing himself.
“Gracious! I hope he doesn’t nibble off one of my ears,” said the Candy Rabbit, and he tried to hide behind the Calico Clown, who had managed to get back to his place on the counter.
“Forward, march! Take aim! Charge bayonets,” a voice suddenly called through the dim darkness of the toy store.
“Oh, it’s the Bold Tin Soldier!” cried the Sawdust Doll. “Oh, protect us! Save us from the rat!” she begged. ”

“ There’s the man I sold the Sawdust Doll to!” cried the gardener. “There’s the junk man!”
The junk man got down off his seat and started up the path with something in his hand.
“Did you find——” began Patrick.
“I bring her back!” broke in the rag-buyer. “My little girl, Tinka, found a [105] Sawdust Doll in the rags when she sorted them. I bring her back—the Doll.”
“Well, thank goodness!” cried Patrick. “Dorothy will be glad of this! Wait a minute, junk man!” he called back as he ran into the house. ”

“ I wish I could go to Sonneberg just to see the dolls."
"I wonder what makes the wax stick on," said Gretchen, who came into the room while her father and Bertha were talking.
"After the heads have been moulded into shape, they are dipped into pans of boiling wax," her father told her. "The cheap dolls are dipped only once, but the expensive [15] ones have several baths before they are finished. The more wax that is put on, the handsomer the dolls are.
"Then comes the painting. One girl does nothing but paint the lips. Another one does the cheeks. ”

“ The ’buses stopped, then all tumbled out and made a mad rush for the water. Oh, the beauty of it all! How sweet the air was! Who can breathe that delightful, salty odor and not love it? They played in the sand and [88] gathered shells until eleven o’clock, when the air was warmer, and mamma said they might put on their bathing suits.
“But what will the dollies do?”
Janie’s doll waved her mysterious package, and every other doll waved one also, crying:
“Wait and you will see.” ”

“ Then she caught sight of her doll seated near her on a chair, with its back against a cushion, and its legs stretched out, its eyes staring at her as though it were a human being. It was not her mechanical doll, but a large one with a pasteboard head, curly hair, and eyes of enamel, whose fixed look sometimes frightened her. What with two years’ constant dressing and undressing, the paint had got rubbed off the chin and cheeks, and the limbs, of pink leather stuffed with sawdust, had become limp and wrinkled like old linen. ”

“ One had a hopeless crack in its head, because its mamma got cross and threw it up to the ceiling. Some of them were naked, and most of them were very dirty. Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke of [53] the poor little dead one; and she said she could always tell what kind of heart a little girl had by the way she treated her doll. Those who made the sweetest and tenderest mammas were those who had taken the most loving care of their dollies when they were little girls. ”

“ Corks, clay pipes, bone buttons, raffia, yarn, may be used for doll heads with these bodies.
Vegetable dolls. Carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, squashes may be used, and the features marked with ink or knife.
The temporary possibility of vegetable, nut, and other “stunt” dolls does not add to their popularity. They are of interest chiefly after nine years, when the doll interest is waning.
Paper dolls. Bodies made of stiff paper or pasteboard, with clothes that can be taken off and put on. Faces can be drawn with ink or water colors, or heads from pictures may be pasted on. ”

“ Clip! down come the knives which part it into the right quantities, [Pg 77] and it is swiftly pressed and moulded to the shape of a body, an arm, or a leg. In one factory alone the parts of as many as forty thousand dolls are thus made in one day, and the ugly, greenish shapes set aside to harden. Another day they pass quickly under the brushes in the painters’ hands after which they have the more familiar rosy pink color, and dolly can now be put together except for the head.
Copyright, 1908, by Underwood & Underwood, New York
DOLL-MAKING
Of these dolls the heads are to be of porcelain. ”

“ When the little ones caught [6] sight of them, remembering that they had not heard the wonderful news, they shouted:
“Let’s tell our mammas!” and quickly disappeared.
Janie Bell’s home was the nearest. She fairly flew up the steps and tumbled into the door as she said:
“O mamma, it’s going to begin to-morrow! Won’t it be lovely! A doll came in a gold carriage and she threw this bill, and a boy doll drove the white kittens all covered with ribbons and bells, and it was too pretty.... Do you think my dolls could come alive?” ”

“ Tommy Candy had once irreverently named Miss Wax's parlor "the Wax Works," and the name had stuck, as naughty nicknames are apt to do. It was indeed quite a little museum in itself of the fruit of bygone accomplishments. Wax fruit, wax flowers—chiefly roses—in profusion, all carefully guarded by glass; pictures in worsted work, pictures in hair work, all in home-made frames of pinked leather, of varnished acorns, of painted velvet ”

“ All the while the Sawdust Doll had been away on the junk-shop adventure, about which I have told you, poor Dorothy was almost heart-broken over the loss of her toy.
“Do you think I’ll ever get her back?” she asked over and over again.
“I hope you may get her back,” said Dorothy’s mother. But really Mother had very little hope.
“There are so many junk men, and they all seem to look alike,” she told Dorothy’s [104] father. “I don’t believe Patrick will find the one to whom he sold the bag of rags with the Sawdust Doll in it.” ”

“ She rushed to the window and saw, drawing up in front, two omnibuses, one filled with the various mothers, the other with the little girls and their dollies. But what was this procession which followed?
“Oh, mamma! it’s all the dolls from the doll-house, and each has on a tiny [85] gossamer. How funny they look!” And so they did, each carrying an umbrella and paddling through the water. Mamma, Janie and Dollie followed them, and all jumped in the omnibuses, closed the doors with a bang, and away they went. ”