The Doll With the Yellow Dress

      When I was young, I didn't have a lot of toys, but I did have two special dolls. The first was made of rubber, soft and smooth. There were two special holes in this doll. One, in its mouth, was a point at which it could drink from its own bottle. The second, on the other end if you get my meaning, allowed it to wet diapers. This was high-tech for dolls in my childhood years.

Aunt Jay

     This doll could easily be dressed because her one purple outfit was very large, unlike the Barbie outfits that kids struggle with so much. Getting the dress on was so easy that keeping the dress on was the problem. It needed to be tied around the middle with an old shoelace for security. From my point of view, the doll and her dress were perfect.

     My Aunt Jay didn't see the doll the same way. She noticed what the doll didn't have. While the lack of hair didn't matter to me, Aunt Jay saw it as a flaw. The doll's large dress was also seen as a problem. Aunt Jay said that the real problem was that the doll had only one arm. The lack of an arm was, I supposed, why that doll ended up in a trashcan where my father was able to rescue it and allow it to become my doll. How could that be bad?

     The Christmas when I was six, Aunt Jay decided that she would solve my doll problem. She came to the house with a large, wrapped box. Inside the box there was a doll so beautiful that I couldn't even see other people in the room once I opened the package. The doll had curly, dark brown hair, a yellow hat and dress with blue ribbons and white lace, and even underpants with lace! There were shoes and socks and the smell of new cloth. What a doll!

Elaine in her father's lap

     This doll could also drink and wet and, listen to this, when she was placed on her back, her eyes closed and when she was picked up, she said, "Mama"
I couldn't get over it.

     My mother scolded Aunt Jay for giving me such a doll saying that I would mess up her hair and lose the socks and shoes (all true) but my aunt said that she had no daughters and my mother should, quite simply, "Hush up." I was shocked at such an argument but knew that with that last command, the doll would stay with me.

     It was wrong to keep it since there were no gifts to give my cousins. Still, every second that I looked at it, my little hands tightened their grip. It was just too much to believe that I would have a new, still in the box, never used by another child doll, just for me.      

     Barefoot with hair awry but full of memories of Aunt Jay, it is in our cedar chest now with its one-armed sister and Rick's old Davy Crocket hat.