Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
He saw a leg of Betsy, the lost rag-doll, protruding, like the clue to a Lilliputian murder mystery, from its untimely grave in a corner of the fence. He dragged forth the maltreated infant, tucked it under his arm, and went on his way crooning a road song of his brethren that no doll that has been brought up to the sheltered life should hear. Well for Betsy that she had no ears.
Strange indeed was the appearance of the tall rag-doll, the armature of which was a dead body, moving so stiffly and awkwardly with a sort of horrible parody of life, under the hands that were stripping it, while the bandages rose in heaps around it. Sometimes the bandages held in place pieces of stuff like fringed serviettes intended to fill hollows or to support the shape.
A month or two ago I saw a four-year-old girl a friend of mine from a neighbour's cottage solemnly walking down a by-lane alone, carrying a rag-doll half as big as herself. I stopped, and admired; but, in spite of her pride, she took a very matter-of-fact view of her toy. "It's head keeps comin' off," was all that she could be persuaded to say.
He followed James to the door. He paused there as the flunky drew open the great mahogany portal for him to pass into the vestibule. Beyond the wrought-iron gates in the dark highway Black Riley and his two pals casually strolled, fingering under their coats the inevitably fatal weapons that were to make the reward of the rag-doll theirs.
She took a large, dressed doll out of its wrappings. "Look at that!" "What a beauty!" cried the Colonel. "Can talk, too." Madge pressed the wondrous puppet's shirred silk chest. "Ma-ma," it cried. "Ma-ma." "Never had nothin' but a rag-doll, myself," the girl went on, delighted by their approval of this automatic wonder. "'Tain't for me. It's for a little girl as lives up in th' mountings."
But a second glance took in his passport, his card of admission, his surety of welcome the lost rag-doll of the daughter of the house dangling under his arm. Fuzzy was admitted into a great hall, dim with the glow from unseen lights. The hireling went away and returned with a maid and the Child. The doll was restored to the mourning one.
The rag-doll lay a yard away from her on the poop deck, unnursed; even the wretched box and its whereabouts she seemed to have quite forgotten. "Daddy!" suddenly cried Dick, who had clambered up, and was looking over the after-rail. "What?" "Fish!" Lestrange rose to his feet, came aft and looked over the rail.
The excellent woman in response to my indignant gesticulations fluttered a handkerchief, nodding and smiling in the kindest way imaginable. The boys, only half-dressed, were jumping about the poop in great glee, displaying their gaudy braces; and Lena in a short scarlet petticoat, with peaked elbows and thin bare arms, nursed the rag-doll with devotion.
As for the children, no one understands them except old maids, hunchbacks, and shepherd dogs. Now comes the facts in the case of the Rag-Doll, the Tatterdemalion, and the Twenty-fifth of December. On the tenth of that month the Child of the Millionaire lost her rag-doll.
The Scotch pup had ravished the rag-doll from the nursery, dragged it to a corner of the lawn, dug a hole, and buried it after the manner of careless undertakers. There you have the mystery solved, and no checks to write for the hypodermical wizard or fi'-pun notes to toss to the sergeant. Then let's get down to the heart of the thing, tiresome readers the Christmas heart of the thing.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking