Mary Jane stood on the curbstone and stared into the
middle of the street. Her face was white with
fright and the tears which had not as yet come were
close to her big blue eyes. Her little fists were
clinched and even her perky plaid hair ribbon seemed
to show amazement.
And wasn’t it enough to make any little girl
stare? Her big, beautiful doll, the one that
came at Christmas time, lay crushed and broken in the
middle of the street! Its glossy brown hair matted
in the dust; its dainty pink dress torn and dirty
and its great brown eyes crushed to powder!
For a full minute Mary Jane stared at the wreck that
had been her doll. Then she turned and ran screaming
toward the house.
Mrs. Merrill heard her and met her at the front steps.
“Mary Jane! Dear child!” she cried,
“what is the matter? Tell mother
what has happened!”
“My doll! My beautifulest doll!”
sobbed Mary Jane, “my Marie Georgianna is all
run over!”
“Surely not, surely not, Mary Jane,” said
her mother as she picked up the little girl and sat
down, with her on her lap, on the porch steps, “dolls
don’t get run over.”
“My doll did,” said Mary Jane positively,
“see?”
Mrs. Merrill looked out into the street and there,
sure enough, was the wreck of the doll.
“Tell me how it happened, dear,” said
Mrs. Merrill and she gathered her little girl tighter
in her arms as she spoke for she knew that if a doll
had been run over, Mary Jane herself had not missed
an accident by so very much for the doll and the little
girl were always close together.
Mary Jane wiped her eyes on her mother’s handkerchief,
snugged cozily in the comfortable arms and told her
story.
“I was going over to play with Junior like you
said I could,” she began (Junior was the little
neighbor boy who lived across the street in the big
white house), “and just as I got into the middle
of the street I heard a big, big noisy ‘toot-t-t-t-t’
way down by Fifth Street—and you know,
mother” (and here Mary Jane sat up straight)
“that you always told me if an automobile was
as far away as Fifth Street it was all right—so
I went on across. But this automobile didn’t
just come; it hurried fast, oh, so very fast and by
the time I was half way across the road it was so close
I just turned around and ran back to the curbstone
and I was in such a hurry I guess I must have dropped
my Marie Georgianna!”
“And the automobile ran over her, poor dolly,”
finished mother, with a thrill of fear as she realized
Mary Jane’s narrow escape. Then she wiped
off the teary blue eyes and smilingly said, “Listen,
Mary Jane, and I’ll tell you a secret.”
“A secret about a doll?” asked Mary Jane
eagerly.
“A secret about a doll,” replied mother.
“Marie Georgianna has a twin.”
“Not a really truly twin?” demanded Mary
Jane and she sat up straight and opened her eyes wide.
“A really, truly, for surely enough twin?”
