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| YOU needn’t be trying to comfort me—I tell you my dolly is dead! | |
| There ’s no use in saying she isn’t, with a crack like that in her head. | |
| It ’s just like you said it wouldn’t hurt much to have my tooth out, that day; | |
| And then, when the man ’most pulled my head off, you hadn’t a word to say. | |
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| And I guess you must think I ’m a baby, when you say you can mend it with glue: | 5 |
| As if I didn’t know better than that! Why, just suppose it was you? | |
| You might make her look all mended—but what do I care for looks? | |
| Why, glue ’s for chairs and tables, and toys and the backs of books! | |
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| My dolly! my own little daughter! Oh, but it ’s the awfullest crack! | |
| It just makes me sick to think of the sound when her poor head went whack | 10 |
| Against that horrible brass thing that holds up the little shelf. | |
| Now, Nursey, what makes you remind me? I know that I did it myself! | |
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| I think you must be crazy—you ’ll get her another head! | |
| What good would forty heads do her? I tell you my dolly is dead! | |
| And to think I hadn’t quite finished her elegant new spring hat! | 15 |
| And I took a sweet ribbon of hers last night to tie on that horrid cat! | |
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| When my mamma gave me that ribbon—I was playing out in the yard— | |
| She said to me, most expressly, “Here ’s a ribbon for Hildegarde.” | |
| And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it; | |
| But I said to myself, “Oh, never mind, I don’t believe she knew it!” | 20 |
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| But I know that she knew it now, and I just believe, I do, | |
| That her poor little heart was broken, and so her head broke too. | |
| Oh, my baby! my little baby! I wish my head had been hit! | |
| For I ’ve hit it over and over, and it hasn’t cracked a bit. | |
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| But since the darling is dead, she ’ll want to be buried, of course: | 25 |
| We will take my little wagon, Nurse, and you shall be the horse; | |
| And I ’ll walk behind and cry, and we ’ll put her in this, you see— | |
| This dear little box—and we ’ll bury her there out under the maple-tree. | |
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| And papa will make me a tombstone, like the one he made for my bird; | |
| And he ’ll put what I tell him on it—yes, every single word! | 30 |
| I shall say: “Here lies Hildegarde, a beautiful doll, who is dead; | |
| She died of a broken heart, and a dreadful crack in her head.” | |
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