Racketty-Packetty House | Page 2

that of course their early Victorian frocks and capes and
bonnets grew in time to be too shabby for words. You see, when Queen
Victoria was a little girl, dolls wore queer frocks and long pantalets and
boy dolls wore funny frilled trousers and coats which it would almost
make you laugh to look at.
But the Racketty-Packetty House family had known better days. I and
my Fairies had known them when they were quite new and had been a
birthday present just as Tidy Castle was when Cynthia turned eight
years old, and there was as much fuss about them when their house
arrived as Cynthia made when she saw Tidy Castle.

Cynthia's Grandmamma had danced about and clapped her hands with
delight, and she had scrambled down upon her knees and taken the
dolls out one by one and thought their clothes beautiful. And she had
given each one of them a grand name.
"This one shall be Amelia," she said. "And this one is Charlotte, and
this is Victoria Leopoldina, and this one Aurelia Matilda, and this one
Leontine, and this one Clotilda, and these boys shall be Augustus and
Rowland and Vincent and Charles Edward Stuart."
For a long time they led a very gay and fashionable life. They had
parties and balls and were presented at Court and went to Royal
Christenings and Weddings and were married themselves and had
families and scarlet fever and whooping cough and funerals and every
luxury. But that was long, long ago, and now all was changed. Their
house had grown shabbier and shabbier, and their clothes had grown
simply awful; and Aurelia Matilda and Victoria Leopoldina had been
broken to bits and thrown into the dust-bin, and Leontine--who had
really been the beauty of the family--had been dragged out on the
hearth rug one night and had had nearly all her paint licked off and a
leg chewed up by a Newfoundland puppy, so that she was a sight to
behold. As for the boys; Rowland and Vincent had quite disappeared,
and Charlotte and Amelia always believed they had run away to seek
their fortunes, because things were in such a state at home. So the only
ones who were left were Clotilda and Amelia and Charlotte and poor
Leontine and Augustus and Charles Edward Stuart. Even they had their
names changed.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture ridiklis.jpg]
After Leontine had had her paint licked off so that her head had white
bald spots on it and she had scarcely any features, a boy cousin of
Cynthia's had put a bright red spot on each cheek and painted her a
turned up nose and round saucer blue eyes and a comical mouth. He
and Cynthia had called her, "Ridiklis" instead of Leontine, and she had
been called that ever since. All the dolls were jointed Dutch dolls, so it
was easy to paint any kind of features on them and stick out their arms
and legs in any way you liked, and Leontine did look funny after
Cynthia's cousin had finished. She certainly was not a beauty but her
turned up nose and her round eyes and funny mouth always seemed to
be laughing so she really was the most good-natured looking creature

you ever saw.
Charlotte and Amelia, Cynthia had called Meg and Peg, and Clotilda
she called Kilmanskeg, and Augustus she called Gustibus, and Charles
Edward Stuart was nothing but Peter Piper. So that was the end of their
grand names.
The truth was, they went through all sorts of things, and if they had not
been such a jolly lot of dolls they might have had fits and appendicitis
and died of grief. But not a bit of it. If you will believe it, they got fun
out of everything. They used to just scream with laughter over the new
names, and they laughed so much over them that they got quite fond of
them. When Meg's pink silk flounces were torn she pinned them up and
didn't mind in the least, and when Peg's lace mantilla was played with
by a kitten and brought back to her in rags and tags, she just put a few
stitches in it and put it on again; and when Peter Piper lost almost the
whole leg of one of his trousers he just laughed and said it made it
easier for him to kick about and turn somersaults and he wished the
other leg would tear off too.
You never saw a family have such fun. They could make up stories and
pretend things and invent games out of nothing. And my Fairies were
so fond of them that I couldn't keep them away from the dolls' house.
They would go and have fun with Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg