Read Ebook: The Good Crow's Happy Shop by Beard Patten
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Ebook has 494 lines and 35475 words, and 10 pages
When she woke, it was growing dusk. Aunt Phoebe was at the door of the little blue room calling, "Up, Jimsi! What a fine nap you've had. It's almost tea-time!" She lit a candle and helped Jimsi unpack her trunk a bit and dress. Then, hand in hand they went down to the hall where Daddy was consulting his watch. "I must be off," he declared.
Well, for a few moments after he had gone, Jimsi thought she was going to cry--but she didn't! Oh, no! Of course she didn't! She knew that she was going to miss Daddy fearfully and Mother and Henry and Katherine too but Jimsi was a plucky girl. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Can't I help you get tea on the table, Aunt Phoebe?" she asked.
So Jimsi tried to help. She set the table with the pretty blue plates. She found where knives and forks were in the sideboard. She searched out the tumblers and by and by all was done.
"Shall we ask the crow in to tea?" demanded Aunt Phoebe, coming in from the kitchen with a dish steaming and good to sniff.
"Can we!" exclaimed Jimsi.
Aunt Phoebe smiled. "We might play it," she suggested. "Lay another plate, just for fun. I'll get the crow!"
Jimsi was mystified. Oh, dear! How jolly! How splendidly jolly! What was Aunt Phoebe up to now?
And then while she was still wondering and laughing softly, into the room stepped Aunt Phoebe and she had--she had a big black crow in her hand! He was a stuffed crow and very black and splendid. He was perched on a twig that was on a standard. Quite solemnly but with her eyes merry with a twinkle, Aunt Phoebe set the crow down in the chair that was to be his and introduced him.
"This is Jimsi, my play-niece," said she, "Jimsi, this is my play-crow, Caw Caw."
"I'm very happy to know you, Caw Caw," said Jimsi, entering with spirit into the play. "You've always been a friend of mine but I never expected to see you really and truly. I thought you were just pretend, you know--something like Cinderella's lovely fairy godmother. And yet I always liked to play you were true. I'm glad now that I can play you're true!"
The crow said nothing, of course. But Aunt Phoebe explained that he didn't talk much, so the two of them ate supper and talked together, making conversation for the crow the way one plays dolls.
"Will you tell me about The Happy Shop, Mr. Crow?" inquired Jimsi politely of the funny stuffed crow. She could hardly keep her face straight but she hid a smile in her table napkin.
When tea was over, Aunt Phoebe said that they would go to see The Happy Shop, even though it was dark there now. She lit a dainty pink candle and with the Good Crow Caw Caw, they went into the hall.
Jimsi put the little mail-box back on the shelf beside the crow. She peered about in the candle-light to see more of The Happy Shop, but it was really too dark to see what else was there and she knew she would have to wait till morning. She followed Aunt Phoebe into the study to look at the Magic Book.
"All hidden in this book, Jimsi, are ever so many things. That's why I called it the Magic Book. You can't see half that is here. I don't begin to know how many things are in these papers. We'll have to ask Caw Caw to help us. You see, he knows much and he can tell you in his play letters, maybe. We call your sunny little room there The Happy Shop because you are going to learn how to make some of the things that are to be found in the Magic Book every day. In The Happy Shop is a work-table and some paste and a pair of scissors. To-morrow, the Good Crow will leave a letter in the mail-box, I think, and tell you what you can do to make your own fun all by yourself for play. What do you like best to play at home, Jimsi?"
"Dolls," promptly sang out Jimsi. "I love to play dolls. But it isn't much fun to play dolls all alone and I left mine at home. I was afraid that my best doll would get hurt in packing and I didn't want to break her--beside that, I thought you'd probably have The Happy Shop play to keep me busy."
"Yes, you're right, Jimsi! And it will keep you busy too!" smiled Aunt Phoebe. "Do you know, it was just luck that made me run across the Magic Book. You see I had the little room where you are repapered in blue. I'm so glad I did! And the paper hanger brought this sample book with him when he came. When I saw it and after I chose the blue paper in your room, I asked if I could buy it. He shook his head. 'It's just a sample book,' he said, 'We have ever so many of them. The dealers give them to us and we throw them away after we have no more use for them. The patterns are new every year and the fresh sample books come in in January. This happens to be a book of last year and if you want it, you are more than welcome to it, if it is of any use to you.'"
"Why, think of it!" Jimsi beamed, squeezing Aunt Phoebe's hand. "Did you tell him?"
"Oh, I told him that I'd like to have the book very much and that I thought there were ever so many children who would like his old sample books of wall paper," returned Aunt Phoebe. "He just gives them away. Paper-hangers, it seems, always throw them out or sell them to the junkmen and they never give them to children because, Jimsi dear, the children don't know anything at all about them. Nobody but the Good Crow and I know about Magic that is in old sample books of wall paper! But, Jimsi, it's time for bed and you know we both made Mother a promise. Kiss me good-night, dear. Here's the candle. I'll come up for a hug later as Mother does."
THE sun woke Jimsi in the morning. It was peeping into the little blue room from between the evergreen trees outside. For a moment, Jimsi wondered where she was and then she remembered, of course! She hopped into her red woolly wrapper and slipped on the slippers that had Peter Rabbit's picture on their toes. The door was open into Aunt Phoebe's room and in she ran to say good-morning. "I just can't wait to see The Happy Shop, Auntie," she chirped. "Please, might I go and look at it right away now!
"Well--yes," Aunt Phoebe deliberated, "only come right back after you've peeked into the mail-box. I dare say the crow has left something there."
So off sped Jimsi in the little red shoes that had Peter Rabbit's picture on them, through the study where pages of white paper on the big desk showed that Aunt Phoebe had worked writing a story late last night. Jimsi opened the glass door that led into The Happy Shop. It opened with a wee brass doorknob and the doors swung open into the study. Beyond there was a kind of enclosed porch--only it was not a porch. It was more like a conservatory or a room with glass sides and top. There were blue curtains that could be drawn to keep out the sunlight and windows that opened wide to let in the fresh air. Plants bloomed all about on shelves. Right beside the shelf where Aunt Phoebe had put the crow last night there was a beautiful green vine that had blue-petaled buds and star-shaped flowers. Could anybody imagine a more lovely place in which to play than this Happy Shop!
Jimsi sighed happily. It was all so perfect! How she wished Mother could see it! Wouldn't Henry and Katherine like to play there! Then Jimsi remembered that she had promised not to stay long and she reached for the Crow Mail-Box. Surely! there was a tiny envelope in the box! What fun!
Upstairs, seated on the bed in the little blue room with Aunt Phoebe hovering about to watch her read it, Jimsi chuckled over the Good Crow Caw Caw's letter.
"DEAR JIMSI:
To-day I've gone off to a crow convention, so I leave this letter to tell you something you will find in the Magic Book to-day. You'll find paper doll dresses! You'll have to hunt for them, but you'll find them--whole wardrobes of them: blue, pink, green, red, yellow, flowered, striped. Look for them.
In the drawer of the big table there are pencils and some sheets of cardboard.
My friend Jim Crow is calling, so I must close this letter now.
I send you a crow kiss--a peck of love.
P.S.
You'll find paper dolls enough for days and days of play, if you look in the big fashion papers that are in the magazine rack beside the couch in The Happy Shop. Cut the stylish ladies out. Mount them on the cardboard with your paste. I must fly!
Jimsi could hardly wait to finish breakfast and then, afterwards, she and Aunt Phoebe took a brisk walk to market and back. All of it delayed the crow play but all the time Jimsi was talking about it. "Oh, I never knew there were such splendid papers to make paper doll clothes anywhere, Aunt Phoebe! I didn't think of it at all last night when you showed me the Magic Book! It will be the most jolly kind of fun! Think of the dresses that the flowered papers will make!"
"Yes," smiled Aunt Phoebe, "and jackets and cloaks and hats and muffs and scarfs and kimonos--oh, my! I can't begin to name all the clothes you can make."
"Are there little girl dolls in the fashion magazines? There are, aren't there?"
Aunt Phoebe nodded.
"Maybe there are babies and little boys and men in the colored picture pages of the fashion books too!"
"I'm going to be very busy," Aunt Phoebe warned. "You'll hear the typewriter click-click-click. The crow has put all kinds of little things in the drawer of the table, I think. You won't have to disturb me, Jimsi. I'm ever so particular about not being spoken to when I'm busy, Jimsi. But you'll be busy yourself. When I finish, I want to see all the splendid paper dolls you have made and you must show me every one of their dresses and hats!"
"Well, I've finished," declared Aunt Phoebe. "I'll help. Suppose I make some hats!"
So Aunt Phoebe made the hats. She made them by cutting big and little ovals out of the wall paper. Cutting a strip horizontally across the center, one could slip the doll's head up through this and put the hat right on. Aunt Phoebe trimmed the hats she made with wall paper flowers or bows cut from paper or by drawing on them with crayon. There were big and little hats--some plain walking hats and others evidently meant for dressy occasions.
While Aunt Phoebe was helping with the hats, Jimsi cut a cloak for Miss Pretty. It must have been an opera cloak for it was loose and flowing and made of something quite silky. It was an exceptional success. Jimsi surveyed it happily. It was splendid. Such a cloak ought to cost at least--but how much do cloaks cost? It must be nice to be a paper doll and be able to dress so well in "just paper"!
Oh, yes, Jimsi made Mrs. Sweet a tailor suit all of plain brown wall paper and both of the dolls had separate skirts for shirt waists, kimonos, dressing-jackets and muffs.
Aunt Phoebe and Jimsi were so very, very busy that they were both ever so surprised when suddenly the little white-aproned maid who worked by the day for Aunt Phoebe appeared at the door of The Happy Shop. "Lunch is served," said she. And there was nothing but to leave the play and run as fast as possible to wash the paste off hands and give one's hair a smart pat with a hurried hair-brush.
But Aunt Phoebe decided that Jimsi must run out-doors in the garden after lunch and then come in and take a nap. After that, of course, she could do anything she wished in The Happy Shop. Aunt Phoebe thought it might be pleasant to write Mother a letter. So the afternoon passed with the out-doors and the nap and the letter. Jimsi found the little girl dolls in the fashion papers and had them all ready to cut and paste next day, but by that time had flown by so fast that the evening had come and with it there were new interests to draw her away from paper dolls. There was the crow who came back mysteriously and whom Jimsi discovered sitting up high on one of Aunt Phoebe's bookshelves; there was the going for stamps to mail the letter home. It was quite chilly and the stars in the night sky were bright like diamonds when the two came back and opened the front door at Aunt Phoebe's. Jimsi hadn't been lonely at all--why the whole day had passed and she had been almost all the time alone. Only the time before lunch and just before dinner at night, had Aunt Phoebe been with her; yet Jimsi had been happy. The secret, Aunt Phoebe said, was that she had been busy with happy play and work. "That, as everybody knows, is the one way to keep glad--but there's another, Jimsi. Maybe the crow'll tell you what that is some day."
"DEAREST LITTLE GIRL:
When I came to perch on my shelf last night, I saw the lovely dolls you made and the wonderfully beautiful dresses and hats and cloaks and muffs and evening wraps and things. When you have finished the family, I'll tell you something nice: make a doll house for them. I can tell you how to make furniture to fit your dolls. You'll find ever so many things for the furnishing of a doll house right in your Magic Book.
P. S.
You were good to take that nap without pouting. I wish Mother had seen you start right on the dot. I like children who keep their promises. Look for a letter to-morrow."
Of course, the Good Crow couldn't draw very well but he did wonderfully considering that he had to write and draw with a claw instead of a hand, Jimsi thought. The idea of the crow's drawing made her laugh. "Aunt Phoebe," she giggled, "that crow of yours is ever so funny! Imagine a crow's drawing pictures! But I'm going to make the furniture and start right away!"
She cut the bed's legs about an inch and a quarter long and parallel with the length of the oblong piece of cardboard. Then, she bent the legs down and the rest of the ends upward to make baseboards. That made a paper bed.
But, somehow, when the bed was placed on its legs it sank under the weight of the paper dolls, so Jimsi made another bed out of cardboard and pasted the wall paper bed over it. That did splendidly!
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