The Dolly on the Stove

When I was about four years old, I had a huge stuffed cloth doll that I carried around with me. I don't remember her name or even really what she looked like, now. I recall only that the doll's leg had stripes and the hair was yellow.

She was mine and I loved on her and played with her frequently.

What I do remember is that one day the neighbor's dog attacked my dolly and tore up her leg. Apparently the dog mistook the doll for a chew toy. My mother took the doll and sat her on the kitchen counter, saying she would fix her later. Then she left the room.

In my mind's eye I have a vision of watching in fascination as my little brother, who would have been about one and probably not long in walking, began pushing a chair over to the stove. With great effort, he managed to climb up on the chair. His goal was to retrieve the doll, which he could not reach.

Somehow he turned on the oven eye, and the doll's leg was near the oven eye . . . and I'm sure you can see where this is going.

The doll's leg flamed up, and I screamed for my mother, who ran into the kitchen and threw the doll into the sink and extinguished the blaze.

My brother was chastised for turning on the oven and told not to ever go near the thing again (maybe this is why he is now a wonderful chef, as we've always had a tendency to do the very thing we shouldn't, he and I), while I sobbed about my now-dead dolly.

I doubt the dolly was repairable after all of that, the poor dear. To be first eaten on by a dog and then set aflame does not bode well for a long life. Even if my mother did fix the doll, I doubt I ever  played with her again. As far as I was concerned, that dolly was dead.

After that, as you may imagine, I did not play too much with stuffed dolls.