Hitty, Her First Hundred Years/Chapter 1

The antique shop is very still now. Theobold and I have it all to ourselves, for the cuckoo clock was sold day before yesterday and Theobold has been so industrious of late there are no more mice to venture out from behind the woodwork. Theobold is the shop cat—the only thing in it that is not for sale, which has made him rather overbearing at times. Not that I wish to be critical of him. We all have our little infirmities and if it had not been for his I might not now be writing my memoirs. Still, infirmities are one thing, and claws are another, as I have reason to know.

Theobold is not exactly a bad cat, but he is far from considerate. Besides, he is prowlishly inclined and he has the most powerful claws and tail I have ever known. Then, just lately he has taken to sleeping in the shop window with his head on the tray of antique jewelry. If Miss Hunter could have seen how narrowly he missed swallowing one of the garnet earrings when he yawned night before last, she would be very uneasy indeed. But Miss Hunter has had Theobold ever since she opened the antique shop and she seems to set great store by him for all his trying ways. Miss Hunter has a good many queer ones of her own and I must say that I felt a little wadgetty, as Phœbe Preble’s mother used to say, at first over her habit of poking and peering and turning everything upside down. One grows used to this in time, though it wasn’t what I was brought up to consider the best manners. But Miss Hunter means well and if she decides you are genuine there ​is nothing she will not do for you. That is why after she found me knocked off my chair and on my nose three different mornings she said she would run no chances with such a valuable old doll but would take me out of the window each night before shutting up shop.

So here I am in the midst of her very untidy desk with my feet on a spattered square of green blotting paper, my back against a pewter inkstand, and a perfect snow bank of bills and papers heaped about me. Nearby, weighting down another pile of scribbled sheets, is an old conch shell. I have seen far handsomer ones in my time; still, it is a reminder. I cannot see the light shine on its curving sides without thinking of the Island in the South Seas and all the adventures that befell us there. Across the store on the mantelpiece is the model of a sailing vessel, square-rigged, in a glass bottle. But its sails are not so well trimmed, and its gilding not so fine as the Diana-Kate’s when we sailed out of Boston Harbor. Perhaps tonight the old Swiss music box will begin to play all of itself, as it does sometimes without the least warning. It is strange to sit here and listen while it tinkles out the “Roses and Mignonette” waltz with the same precise gaiety as in the days when Isabella Van Rensselaer and the rest danced to that tune at Monsieur Pettoe’s select salon for young ladies and gentlemen. That was just across Washington Square, scarcely a block away from where I sit today, but there were no skyscrapers then nor any street of little shops like this.

It may have been the ship in the bottle, or it may have been the music box, though I think it more likely that the quill pen gave me the idea of writing the story of my life. The pen belongs with the pewter inkstand, but quills are as much out of fashion today as whalebones in ladies’ dresses and poke bonnets for little girls. Still, one cannot forget one’s early training, and not for nothing did I watch Clarissa copy all those mottoes into her exercise book with a quill pen. If it is true, as Miss Hunter and the Old Gentleman declare, that I am the most genuine antique in the shop, why should I not prefer quills to these new-fangled fountain pens? ​Nor am I inclined to scratchy steel affairs with sharp points. So I will be true to my quill pen which I now take in hand to begin my memoirs.

As far as I can learn, I must have been made something over a hundred years ago in the State of Maine in the dead of winter. Naturally, I remember nothing of this, but I have heard the story
I begin my memoirs. told so often by one or another of the Preble family that at times it seems I, also, must have looked on as the Old Peddler carved me out of his piece of mountain-ash wood. It was a small piece, which accounts for my being slightly undersized even for a doll, and he treasured it greatly, for he had brought it across the sea from Ireland. A piece of mountain-ash wood is a good thing to keep close at hand, for it brings luck besides having power against ​witchcraft and evil. That was the reason he had carried this about in the bottom of his pack ever since he had started peddling. Mostly he did his best business from May to November when roads were open and the weather not too cold for farmers’ wives and daughters to stand on their doorsteps as he spread out his wares. But that year he tramped farther north than he had ever been before. Snow caught him on a road between the sea and a rough, woody country. The wind blew such a gale it heaped great drifts across the road in no time and he was forced to come knocking at the kitchen door of the Preble House, where he had seen a light.

Mrs. Preble always said she didn’t know how she and Phœbe would have got along without the Old Peddler, for it took all three of them, besides Andy the chore-boy, to keep the fires going and to water and feed the horse, the cow, and the chickens in the barn. Even when the weather cleared, the roads were impassable for many days and all vessels stormbound in Portland Harbor. So the Peddler decided to stay on and help with odd jobs round the place till spring, since Captain Preble was off on his ship for months to come.

At that time, Phœbe Preble was a little girl of seven with gay and friendly ways and fair hair that hung in smooth, round curls on either side of her face. It was for her that I was transformed from a piece of mountain-ash wood only six and a half inches high, not nearly so tall as a bayberry candle, into a doll of parts. My first memories, therefore, are of a square, pleasant room with brown beams and a great fireplace like a square cave, where flames licked enormous logs of wood and an old black kettle hung from an iron crane. The first words I ever heard were Phœbe’s as she called to her mother and Andy: “See, now the doll has a face!” They came over to peer at me as the Old Peddler held me between his thumb and forefinger, turning me this way and that in the firelight so my paint would dry. I can remember Phœbe’s excitement over my features and her mother’s amazement that the old man had been able to give such a small bit of wood a real pose and even a pleasant expression. Surely no one, they all ​agreed, had so much skill with a jackknife. That night I was left to dry on the mantelpiece with the light from the dwindling fire making strange shadows, with mice squeaking and scampering in and out of the walls, and the wind outside blowing through the branches of a great pine tree with the sound that I was to know so well later on.

Phœbe’s mother had decided that I was not to be played with until properly clothed. Phœbe was not a child who took readily to sewing, but her mother was firm, so presently out came needles and thread, thimbles and piece-bag, and I was being measured for my first outfit. It was to be of buff calico strewn with small red flowers, and I thought it very fine indeed. Phœbe’s stitches were not always of the finest. She was apt to grow fidgetty after ten or fifteen minutes of sewing; still, she was so anxious to play with me that she quite surprised us all by her diligence. I do not remember exactly how I came by my name. At first, I was christened Mehitabel, but Phœbe was far too impatient to use so many syllables, and presently I had become Hitty to the whole household. Indeed, it was at Mrs. Preble’s suggestion that these five letters were worked carefully in little red cross-stitch characters upon my chemise.

“There,” said Phœbe’s mother when the last one was done, “now whatever happens to her she can always be sure of her name.”

“But nothing is ever going to happen to her, Mother!” cried the little girl, “because she will always be my doll.”

How strange it seems to remember those words now! How little we thought then of all that was so soon to befall us!

Well, after some weeks I was finished and the last stitch set in my sprigged calico. Unfortunately, this took place on a Saturday and in those days most children were not allowed to play with their toys from sundown until the following evening. It was still February and the sun sank behind the spruce-covered hills across the road far too early to please Phœbe Preble. In vain she begged to play with me just another half hour by the fire. Her mother shut me away in the top drawer of an old pine dresser lest the sight of me should tempt my little mistress too much. Here I remained ​in seclusion beside Mrs. Preble’s best Paisley shawl and Phœbe’s own little sealskin muff and tippet that her father had brought home for her from his last trip to Boston until next morning when the preparations for churchgoing began.

These Sunday expeditions to church were of great importance to the Preble family, as they lived several miles away and it meant a long sleigh ride. Phœbe was dressed and ready long before her mother and Andy. By standing on a footstool she was able to open the dresser drawer and soon she was bending over me. She had come there to get out the furs, but the sight of me was too much for her, though in justice to Phœbe I must say that she tried to put temptation from her.

“No, Hitty,” she said, “this is Sunday and so I must not touch you, not till after sunset tonight.”

She sighed as she thought what a long way off that would be and before either of us realized what was happening she had me in her hands.

“After all,” she told me apologetically, “Mother just said I mustn’t play with you on Sunday and I am only smoothing your dress out.”

But presently it occurred to her that I was just of a size to fit into her muff. In I must go, and once there it was not surprising that the plan should occur to her as it did.

“No one would guess that you were in my muff, Hitty,” she whispered, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that I was not going to spend the rest of the morning in the pine dresser. Just then her mother came bustling in saying that they must start at once or they would be too late for the doxology. I had no idea then what a doxology might be, but the thought of missing it worried her so much that she took out her shawl without noticing my absence from the drawer or how very red Phœbe’s cheeks had grown.

It was warm and cozy in the sealskin muff, though when Phœbe put both hands in it meant rather cramped quarters for me. I could see nothing, of course, except an occasional flicker of blind​ing brightness, which I knew must be sun on snow. Still, I could feel the motion of the horse pulling us over the road. I could hear the snow squeak and crackle under our runners, the whistle of the whip as the Old Peddler cracked it, and the gay tinkle-tankle of our sleigh bells. This sound was not to Mrs. Preble’s liking, for she kept scolding Andy because he had forgotten to take them off the harness. She said it was not keeping the Sabbath day holy to go to church with bells on and she didn’t know what the neighbors would think. But Andy said a bell was a bell and he couldn’t see what difference it made whether it was on a sleigh or in a church steeple.

This remark caused Phœbe’s mother to reprove him severely. She would have said more had the sleigh not drawn up to the steps just then. The idea that I was in church, in a place where dolls are not supposed to be under any circumstances, filled me with excited curiosity. Although still unable to see out of the muff, I managed to hear a good deal that went on. Even now, after all these years, I can still hear the rustle of the people rising about me and their voices singing all together:

It made me feel solemn right down to the soles of my wooden feet.

The sermon and prayers were so long I gave up trying to follow them. As for Phœbe, she first grew fidgetty, then slumped back against her mother to take a nap. It was in this way that my mishap occurred. I suppose the muff was dangling from her hand as she slept. Gradually, her hold must have loosened, for next thing I knew I was falling headfirst out of my snug sealskin hiding-place to the floor. Fortunately, it happened just as the congregation rose for a last blessing, so no one heard me fall. The muff rolled in the opposite direction, to be rescued by Andy, and Phœbe was jerked to her feet to bow her head with the rest.

Frightened as I was, it never occurred to me that I should not be picked up again—not till I saw all the feet walking out of the Preble pew. I heard the sound of sleighs and horses at the doors, ​and still I hoped Phœbe would manage to return for me. But at last I heard doors being locked and shutters banged to, so I abandoned all hope of being saved. I knew Phœbe’s mother must have hurried her out and now she did not dare confess that she had taken me to church. So I gave myself up to considering the sad state in which I found myself on my very first entry into the outside world.

Then there were the bats.

I do not greatly enjoy remembering the days and nights that followed, and to this day I have no idea how many there actually were. I only know that I have never been more miserable, not even when facing fire and shipwreck. The cold was fearful. It seemed as if my legs and arms would crack with it. The wind howled outside, nails snapped and beams creaked, and the old bell rope dangling in the vestibule swung to and fro with a dismal

​sound. Then there were the bats. I had been unprepared for them and there was one that made its home in the corner under the Preble pew only a few inches from where I lay. By day he hung himself in a gray ball, but at night he flew out and went swooping about in a way that terrified me. Sometimes his wings even touched me as he flew low, and I could see the shine of his little black eyes in the dark. His claws looked very sharp to me. I hoped I should have no occasion to feel them. Also, the discomfort of my lot was not helped any by an illustrated Bible which lay on the floor beside me, open at the most painful picture of a man being swallowed by a large fish. At the time, I felt that our two positions were equally unfortunate.

One day I grew hopeful at the sound of a key turning in the lock. It was the sexton making his midweek rounds to see that all was as it should be. Once more I began to be hopeful—but how to catch his attention? There I lay hidden under a pew, hemmed in by a footstool and a Bible, and unable to lift a finger to help myself. I say I was unable to lift a finger. I must confess that the Old Peddler had seen fit to give me only one on either hand, and that a thumb, with all the rest left in one solid piece like a mitten. I must therefore rely on my feet. These were pegged to my legs and I had also been denied the luxury of knees. Still, by exerting all my powers, I could make a clumsy motion from the upper pegs that fastened them to my body. I decided it was the only thing to do, so I raised and lowered them several times as best I could.

Clump! Clump! Clump!

Even I was startled by the noise they made thumping on the boards of the old floor. The sound echoed through the church in a positively terrifying manner. I heard the sexton give a smothered exclamation and drop what must have been his broom with a great clatter. Then he ran off toward the back of the church, bumping into pews as he went. I could hear him muttering in a scared sort of way:

“Maybe a ghost and maybe not, but I’m takin’ no chances!”

Even in my own discomfort I could not but feel a thrill of pride ​that my two wooden feet could produce such an effect upon him.

Fortunately for me, Phœbe Preble was not good at keeping secrets to herself. Before the week was out she had confessed her disobedience in taking me to church and had promised to mend her ways if only I could be restored to her. Accordingly, she was set down to sew an extra long stint on her sampler, while Andy and the Old Peddler drove off to fetch me back.

No pen, not even the finest quill, could describe my joy at being once more in the midst of my family. No fire has ever seemed so bright and leaping as that in the Preble fireplace. How good to feel its warmth upon me and to see it making flickers of brightness on the shining pots and pans and on Phœbe’s fair head, bent over the square of canvas upon which she was working this motto in cross-stitch:

No wonder Phœbe and I knew it by heart, for her mother had decreed that I was not to be played with till the final e had been sewed in satisfactorily. This took many days, and there were tears and knottings of thread and much taking out and putting in of stitches.

I looked on sympathetically from an upper shelf to which I had been banished. This was to be a lesson to the little girl, and after hearing all the things Mrs. Preble told Phœbe about consciences and how careful one must be to listen and do as they said, I began to feel glad that dolls do not have them. I think Phœbe wished that she could lose hers, judging from the sighs I heard her give over the sampler.

****

Spring was very late in coming to Maine that year. It was mid-March before the first thaw set in and for a month after that the road was a river of mud, so it was well-nigh impossible for horses

​and wagons to pass. The pussy willows were weeks behind their usual time. Andy could not make willow whistles till May. Then, suddenly, one day there were buds on the lilac bushes by the Preble door and in the woods across the road yellow and blue violets, snowdrops, and hepaticas. There were Mayflowers, too, if one knew where to find them, and Andy and Phœbe did. Often since then I have seen them in florists’ windows, done up in stiff little bunches, so different from the trailing sprays of pink and white bloom we gathered in the Preble woods under last year’s leaves and fir cones.

Once the roads were passable again, the Old Peddler set off with his pack and a big bag of food Mrs. Preble had cooked for him. Phœbe took me in her arms as she and Andy walked with him to the three-cornered island of grass where three roads met. There they said good-bye and watched him disappear down the one that led to Portland. He walked with a limp and his pack was so heavy it made him bend to one side, the way trees do if they grow in windy places. When he had reached the turn in the road, he stopped and waved to us. Andy and Phœbe waved back. They kept on doing it long after he was out of sight.

We should have felt very lonely without him if Phœbe’s father had not turned up shortly after. He strode up the path between the lilac bushes without any warning, having driven over in a gig from Portland with so many boxes, bales, and sea chests that the front hall overflowed with them. Such treasures as they held, too—silks and Paisley shawls, carved ivories and corals, stuffed birds and knickknacks from every port he had touched at. I often wonder what Miss Hunter would say if she could see them.

Captain Preble was a big man, six feet four in his socks, as his wife always explained with pride, and he had the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen. When he laughed, they almost shut up tight and lots of little lines spread out at the corners like rays from the sun in old pictures. He laughed a great deal, too, especially at things Phœbe said. Whenever he did so it seemed as if the sound began at the toes of his enormous sea boots and went rumbling up and up till it came bursting out of his mouth in great ho-ho’s.

​Almost the first words that Phœbe said to her father, when he had kissed her and swung her up over his head two or three times to see how big she had grown, were:—“This is my new doll, Hitty.” Then he must hear all about the Old Peddler and the ash wood and how I had spent part of a week under their pew in church. At that Captain Preble laughed so hard the buttons on his coat heaved up and down like little ships at sea, in spite of the way Phœbe’s mother shook her head at him.

“It isn’t a laughing matter, Dan’l,” she told him, “I declare I don’t know where the good is of my trying to raise that child properly if you have her as spoiled as a popinjay inside a week.”

I remember her very words, because I have never been able to discover what sort of bird a popinjay might be. One does not hear them mentioned nowadays, so I suppose the race must have died out years ago.