ears ago, my daughter Meagan, then eight, and I were settling in for a long visit with “GG,” as the family calls her, when she noticed that Meagan was carrying her favorite doll.
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“I, too, had a special doll when I was a little girl,” she told a wide-eyed Meagan. “I got it one Christmas when I was about your age. I lived in an old farmhouse in Maine, with Mom, Dad and my four sisters, and the very first gift I opened that Christmas was the most beautiful doll you’d ever want to see.
“She had an exquisite, hand-painted porcelain1 face, and her long brown hair was pulled back with a big pink bow. Her eyes were blue as blue could be, and they opened and closed. I remember she had a body of kidskin2, and her arms and legs bent at the joints.”
GG’s voice dropped low, taking on an almost reverent3 tone. “My doll was dressed in a dainty4 pink gown, trimmed5 with fine lace. But what I especially remember was her petticoat6. It was fine iste7, trimmed with rows and rows of delicate lace. And the tiny buttons on her boots were real. Getting such a fine doll was like a miracle for a little farm girl like me -- my parents must have had to sacrifice so much to afford it. But how happy I was that morning！”
GG’s eyes filled and her voice shook with emotion as she recalled that Christmas of long ago. “I played with my doll all morning long. She was such a beautiful doll ... And then it happened. My mother called us to the dining room for Christmas dinner and I laid my new doll down, ever so gently, on the hall able. But as I went to join the family at the table, I heard a loud crash.
”.reverof enog saw ehS .enod eb t’ndluoc ti tuB .niaga rehtegot yllod roop ym tup ot gniyrt rehtom ym ees llits nac I .seceip nezod a otni dehsams ecaf reh ,roolf eht no llod lufituaeb ym yal ereht ,moor gninid eht morf ni nar I nehW .ti no llup dna pu hcaer ot retsis ybab ym rof hguone tsuj elbat eht morf nwod gnuh dah taocittep ecal reH .saw ti dnA .ti wenk tsuj I .llod suoicerp ym saw ti wenk I -- dnuor nrut ot dah yldrah I“
.emit tsol a rof tub ,retsis tsol a dna llod tsol a rof ylno ton ,wenk I ,sraet -- revo dellips seye reh ni sraet eht woN .8ainomuenp fo mitciv a ,nagaeM dlot ehs ,enog osla saw retsis ybab s’GG retal sraey wef A
noos on saw nagaeM ,tisiv eht fo tser eht rof 9deudbuS
