That Old-Time Child, Roberta | Page 4

Jane Grey, she went to church for to pray; She went to the stile
and there rested awhile; She went to the door and there rested a little
more; She went up the aisle and there rested awhile; She looked up; she
looked down; She saw a corpse lie on the ground; She said to the
sexton, must I look so When I die? Boo, boo!
Now when they came to the last part it was always Polly who stretched
open her eyes till they looked like an owl's great round eyes, and
jumped at Roberta and Dilsy and hollered "Boo, boo!" Although they
knew it was coming they were awfully scared, and would break loose

and run, screaming like mad things, into the sitting-room, really
believing the orientals were after them. They had made believe it so
many times, and Polly had said so many times, "I'll cross my heart, Lil
Missus, 'twuz dem drefful men dat sed 'boo-oo'; I seed thar lips muven;
you don' ketch me in thar no mo'," they had come to really believe it.
They had heard the story of the children who played wolf, and a wolf
did sure enough come and devour them. As many times as they had
played Lady Jane Grey they were always worse scared the last time
than ever before. The sitting-room was a cozy place when they got
there, panting for breath after their fright in the parlor.
In one of the deep window recesses Roberta had set up her entire doll
family to housekeeping. She was very fond of her dolls. The mother
instinct in her was developed very early. She had wax dolls and china
dolls and rag dolls. Mrs. Marsden painted features on the rag dolls, and
they looked very natural. There was Miss Prim and Miss Slim, Mrs.
Jolly and Mrs. Folly, Miss Snappy and Miss Happy, named from their
different expressions. Roberta had the quaintest way of talking to her
dolls. She had caught some of Aunt Betsy's old-time ideas:
"Straighter, my dears, straighter. One's spine should never touch the
back of a chair," and, "Don't rest your elbows on the table while you
are eating; my great-grandmother used to keep cushions stuffed with
pins to slip under the children's elbows," etc.
Her favorite dolls were the figures cut out of the fashion plates of
Godey's Lady's Book. She was an artist with her fingers, if there was a
pair of scissors in them. So she took sheets of different colored
tissue-paper, cut dresses, and fitted them nicely on her dolls. Each doll
had a variety.
I believe she thought her dolls looked cosier at the dinner-table than
anywhere else, and she kept them sitting there a great deal. Sometimes
Polly, who seemed born to make trouble, would roll her eyes at the
dolls and say, "You iz de greedes' things. Whar iz you gwiner to put
it?"
Then, of course, Roberta would feel obliged to take some notice of

their sitting at the table so long: "Come, get down now, dears. Little
ladies should not appear greedy."
Roberta was very much like some mothers of real children, who will
wink at what their little ones do at one time, and, if a neighbor drops in
at another, who is not of the same way of thinking, scold the poor
children for doing those very things they had winked at before. But
Roberta did not have it in her heart to scold anybody much, not even
that impish Polly, who would go around after she had provoked her
little mistress beyond endurance, sniffling and singing in a dolorous
tone,
Whar she goes en how she fars, Nobody knows en nobody kyars.
and invariably wind up by getting the very playthings she wanted from
Roberta as a peace offering.
I must not forget to tell you about Roberta's Sunday School for little
negro children. If the child didn't always keep perfect order and make
the headway she would have liked, it wasn't because she didn't try. Her
whole heart was in the work. She really was very intelligent, and Aunt
Betsy said, "If there was such a thing as anybody being born in this
world a Christian, she believed Roberta was." I think she must have had
the germ of object teaching--that is the fad now--in her nature, she
could paint such vivid mental pictures to convey an idea. Once she was
telling Polly about God's punishment of sinners, and Polly said,
"Lawdy, Lil Missus, I feel dem blazes creepen' all over me dis minit."
She had a great deal to contend with, almost as much as Mrs. Marsden
had, in getting the older negroes to come in to prayers. Nine times out
of ten, when she rang the bell for them Sunday morning, Squire