another one

My grandfather brought home an intriguing rubber doll. It was brown and had cute little toes and fingers and a little rosebud mouth made into an  O where a bottle fit. Its hair was sculpted on black in curls and on the back were the curious words,  Amos and  Andy. That meant nothing to me. 

He showed it to my mother first and asked if it would be all right to give it to me, he had fetched it out of a dust bin at the park..  He said something wondering about whether it would harm me.   She didn't think it would as long as no one else saw it.  So I got this precious chocolate brown dolly that I absolutely adored. 

I lavished care on that dolly.  I fed it from a fake milk bottle that tilted up and the milk disappeared somehow in the nipple part.  I got a tiny bottle, filled it with clean water and fed it, which it wet through the hole in it's generic bottom.   I made it a shoe box house with curtains drawn on. and a rug pasted down.  and improbable furniture cut from scented small cardboard soap boxes and individual cereal boxes.  I pieced it a tiny little quilt top.  A nine patch that I had made from rags in the rag bag.    We threw nothing away, the rag bag was full of goodies.  I made it underwear from the tips and heels of a cast off sock.  It had a bunting I made from a torn piece of snow suit.

All my pent up motherly ambitions went into the cheery face of that nine inch doll.  It went to swing with me.  I had to be scolded to put it down at lunch time.  I tucked it into the pocket of my pinafore, but it hung out too heavy, so I got a ribbon and made it a sling. for under my arm.  That allowed my hands to be free while I went romping over the fields.   I slept with it tucked into it's shoebox bed, up at my pillow.  It never really left my sight except for when I went to school.  I kept it up from my little sister.   She already had a doll.  She didn't need this one.

Things in our house were not to be left out loose.  We had one box for our few toys and it had to be kept under our bed at all times.  That was the rule. I had gotten into my comics and books and left the corner of the box sticking out about 3 inches.  I was in a hurry and had not pushed it all the way back.  My mother came in and saw it. She had said earlier that she would burn my toys if I didn't keep them picked up.  It was a tiny house.  I kept them on my bed or in my box.  There was no other place for them to be except outside on our blanket where we played.  

I was outside reading comics when she called me in.  "Look at that box"  she said. 

"Oops Mama sorry. "  I looked with surprise at the box.  I would have sworn I pushed it in.

"I'm burning it now"  And she took my little box of comics and books and crayons and papers and opened the front of the pot belly stove and fed them to the flames.

I looked at her.  "You burnt my books."  My paper dolls are gone in an instant. I hear the crackle of the flames.

"Are you going to cry?" she looked back at me. a hard long look. 


"No.  I am not going to cry!"  I panted and gasped and choked and sucked in air, but no tears fell. 

"NO?  What do I have to do to get through to you?" She goes over and grabs up my sister's little cheap dimestore doll and shoves it in.

How about now?

"Mama No, That's Sharon's doll!"   Her face blazed in fury and chagrin at her mistake.

"Why did you do that?"  I was bewildered.

She attempts to pull the doll out, but it is damaged beyond repair.  the face had caught fire, the nose had collapsed in on itself.  the hair was gone in a slag of goo.

 She gets my beloved doll from my bed.  And into the stove it goes.

Now I cry. Now I scream.  Now I beg for mercy for my doll.  I am beside myself in grief and horror.   The rubber puts out a terrible smell.   I fly at her with all my weight, looking for a weakness. looking for a way to damage her, to get past her to the stove, to get my doll out.   I claw at her arm and scream and sink to the linoleum defeated.


"Serves you right."  My little sister says, holding onto my mother's skirt.