It's Saturday.

Chapter 7 : Playing Paper Dolls

QUITE OFTEN, after school, Betsy and Tacy went to Betsy’s house and played paper dolls.

Betsy and Tacy liked paper dolls better than real dolls. They wanted real dolls too, of course. The most important thing to see on Christmas morning, poking out of a stocking or sitting under a tree, was a big china doll…with yellow curls and a blue silk dress and bonnet, or with black curls and a pink silk dress and bonnet…it didn’t matter which. But after Christmas they put those dolls away and played with their paper dolls.

They cut the paper dolls from fashion magazines. They could hardly wait for their mothers’ magazines to grow old. Mrs. Benson didn’t have any children, so she saved her fashion magazines for Betsy and Tacy. And when Miss Meade, the sewing woman, came to Betsy’s house, she could be depended upon to leave a magazine or two behind.

The chief trouble Betsy and Tacy had was in finding pictures of men and boys. There had to be father dolls and brother dolls, of course. The tailor shops had men’s fashion sheets. But those fashion sheets were hard to get. Tacy’s brother George worked next door to a tailor shop. He told Mr. Baumgarten, the tailor, that his little sister Tacy liked those fashion sheets. After that Mr. Baumgarten saved all his fashion sheets for Tacy, and Tacy divided them with Betsy.

The dolls were not only cut from magazines; they lived in magazines. Betsy and Tacy each had a doll family living in a magazine. The servant dolls were kept in a pile between the first two pages; a few pages on was the pile of father dolls; then came the mother dolls, and then the sixteen-year-olds, the ten-year-olds, the eight-year-olds, the five-year-olds, and the babies.

Those were the dolls that Betsy and Tacy played with after school.

Betsy and Tacy stopped in at Tacy’s house to get her magazine and eat a cookie. Then they went on to Betsy’s house, and when Betsy had kissed her mother and both of them had hung their wraps in the little closet off the back parlor, Betsy brought out the magazine in which her doll family lived.

“Shall we play here beside the stove, Mamma?” she asked.“Yes, that would be a good place to play,” said Mrs. Ray; and it was.

The fire glowed red through the isinglass windows of the big hard coal heater. It shone on the wild horses’ heads which ran in a procession around the shining nickel trim. Up on the warming ledge the tea kettle was singing. Underneath the stove, on the square metal plate which protected the green flowered carpet, Lady Jane Grey, the cat, was singing too.

She opened one sleepy eye but she kept on purring as Betsy and Tacy opened their magazines.

“What shall we name the five-year-old today?” Tacy asked Betsy.

The five-year-olds were the most important members of the large doll families. Everything pleasant happened to them. They had all the adventures.

The eight-year-olds lived very dull lives; and they were always given very plain names. They were Jane and Martha, usually, or Hannah and Jemima. Sometimes Betsy and Tacy forgot and called them Julia and Katie. But the five-year-olds had beautiful names. They were Lucille and Evelyn, or Madeline and Millicent.

“We’ll be Madeline and Millicent today,” Betsy decided.

They played that it was morning. The servant dolls got up first. The servant dolls wore caps with long streamers and dainty ruffled aprons. They didn’t look at all like the hired girls of Hill Street. But like hired girls they got up bright and early.

The fathers and mothers got up next. Then came the children beginning with the oldest. The five-year-olds came dancing down to breakfast in the fingers of Betsy and Tacy.

“What are you planning to do today, Madeline?” Betsy’s father doll asked his five-year-old.

“I’m going to play with Millicent, Papá.” (Madeline and Millicent pronounced papa, papá.)

“And I’m going to play with Jemima,” said Betsy’s eight-year-old who was named Hannah today.

“No, Hannah!” said her father. “You must stay at home and wash the dishes. But Madeline may go. Wouldn’t you like to take the carriage, Madeline? You and Millicent could go for a nice ride. Here is a dollar in case you want some candy.”

“Oh, thank you, Papá,” said Madeline. She gave him an airy kiss.

Meanwhile Tacy’s dolls were talking in much the same way. Both father dolls were sent quickly down to work; the mothers went shopping; the babies were taken out in their carriages by the pretty servant dolls; and the older children were shut in the magazines. Then Betsy and Tacy each took her five-year-old in hand, and the fun of the game began.

First they went to the candy store under the patent rocker. Madeline’s dollar bought an enormous quantity of gum drops and candy corn. Next they sat down in their carriage which was made of a shoebox. There were two strings attached, and Betsy and Tacy were the horses. Madeline and Millicent took a beautiful ride.

They climbed the back parlor sofa; that was a mountain.

“Let’s have a picnic,” said Madeline. So they did. They picnicked on top of a pillow which had the head of a girl embroidered on it.

They swished through the dangling bamboo curtains which separated the back parlor from the front parlor. And in the front parlor they left their carriage again. They climbed the piano stool; that was a merry-go-round, and of course they had a ride.

After calling on Mrs. Vanderbilt, who lived behind the starched lace curtains at the front parlor window, and Mrs. Astor, who lived under an easel which was draped in purple silk, they slipped by way of the dining room into the back parlor again.

And here they met with their greatest adventure!

The Betsy horse began to rear and snort.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Tacy horse.

“A tiger! A tiger!” cried the Betsy horse. She jumped and kicked.

The Tacy horse began to jump and kick too, looking about her for the tiger. Lady Jane Grey was awake and washing her face.

“She’s getting ready to eat us!” cried the Betsy horse, leaping.

“Help!” cried the Tacy horse, leaping too.

They leaped so high that they overturned the carriage. Out went Madeline and Millicent on the highway of the green flowered carpet.

“We’re running away!” shouted the Betsy horse.

“Whoa! Whoa!” shouted the Tacy horse.

They ran through the rattling bamboo curtains into the front parlor. There they stopped being horses and raced back, out of breath, to be Madeline and Millicent again.

Lady Jane Grey loved to play with paper. She entered obligingly into the game.

“He’s biting me!” shrieked Madeline.

“He’s scratching me!” shrieked Millicent.

The tiger growled and pounced.

Madeline and Millicent were rescued just in time. The father dolls rushed up and seized them and jumped into the coal scuttle. Lady Jane Grey jumped in too and jumped out looking black instead of gray, and Betsy and Tacy scrambled in the coal scuttle trying to fish out the father dolls before they got too black. There were never enough father dolls, in spite of Mr. Baumgarten.

Julia and Katie came in just then from skating. The opening door brought in a rush of winter cold and dark.

“Well, for goodness’ sake!” they cried. “For goodness’ sake!” They cried it so loud that Betsy’s mother came in from the kitchen, where she was getting supper.

“Betsy!” she cried. “Come straight out here and wash! And use soap and a wash cloth and warm water from the kettle! You too, Tacy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Betsy and Tacy.

When they had washed they put their paper dolls back into the magazines. And Katie helped Tacy into her outside wraps and took her by the hand, and they started home.

Right at the door, Tacy turned around to smile at Betsy. “Whoa!” she said, instead of “Good-by!”

“Giddap!” said Betsy, instead of “Come again!”

“Whoa!” “Giddap!” “Whoa!” “Giddap!” they said over and over.

“Whatever are you two talking about?” said Julia and Katie crossly, which was just what Betsy and Tacy had hoped they would say.