What a Doll

People are often fascinated by the question, "What are your earliest memories?"

Husband says he can remember almost nothing until first grade. I've had a lot of people tell me that.

I have some memories at age two - three, and maybe that's unusual.

One of them, probably all of them, come from an unusual or somewhat traumatic event.

Our neighbor two doors down was one of Daddy's best friends. They'd been raised together (in fact they were both living in the houses they were raised in).

He wasn't married, nor did he have children, so he became my slave.

Since he had no one to take care of or to shower with gifts, I was the little girl that he knew he would never have.

Mother says I was probably two, pushing three when he bought a doll for me.

I remember this doll vividly. I think I probably had it until our house burned when I was seventeen.

She was a cloth doll, with ridiculously long legs. Her arms and legs ended in soft round "mitten" shapes, and she had a bonnet sewed onto her head. She was dark blue, and her mittens and bonnet flap were plaid. She came with a little removable apron that was the same plaid.

Her face was the soft, pliable plastic that some dolls used to have and she had a little fringe of blonde bangs. Her face was sweet, with large round eyes, painted on eye lashes, and a rosebud mouth.

But there was something very different about this doll.

Oh, I had a small Betsy Wetsy doll that if Mother let me, (which she did not do very often because of the mess), I could stick a bottle of water in its mouth and she peed it right out. My cousin had a baby doll that if you turned her upside down she made a sound that sort of sounded like "Mama". Kinda.

But this doll? She was touted as the first talking doll.

If you felt of her back, you could feel a hard, round object, and on the outside of her body was a crank. And when you turned the crank, she sang, "Rock a Bye Baby."

Which terrified me. I hated that doll. Neighbor's face was crestfallen, Parent's were embarrassed, but there ya go.

I remedied the situation.

Adults kept trying to convince me to "just hold her".

Nope.

But when they gave up and began to converse amongst themselves, I got the doll and went behind the couch and tore that sucker up.

I loved her dearly after she was  mute.

The adults were rather upset, but oh, well.

You can't please all the people all the time.

After all, it was my doll, right?