The Doll Shop Downstairs by Yona Zeldis McDonough

Author:Yona Zeldis McDonough [McDonough, Yona Zeldis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-06-22T21:00:00+00:00

6

DOLL FACTORY

For the next few days, the doll shop is busy, busy, busy. It turns out that Papa knows a lot about making dolls’ heads. All his years of fixing dolls have given him a good idea of how to do it. He started out back in Russia, in his uncle’s shop, where he repaired plates, vases, and platters made of bisque, porcelain, and china. Occasionally someone would bring in a bisque or china doll with a cracked head. Papa would try to fix that, too. He became interested in how the bisque dolls were made by pouring raw materials like clay and water into molds and then firing the molds in a hot oven. When he started his own shop, he decided to mend just dolls. And now, all his experience has helped him figure out how to make a doll, even one that isn’t bisque.

Papa begins to experiment. He sculpts faces from a clay he mixes from flour, water, and a little olive oil. Then he wets a sheet of buckram and drapes it over the clay form, leaving an opening at the back so he can slip the molded buckram off when it has dried.

“But the dolly will have a space at the back of her head,” says Trudie, clearly bothered by the idea.

“We’ll cover it with hair,” Papa says.

The first doll Papa makes doesn’t turn out too well—her face has a strange, flattened look.

“Like someone punched her in the nose,” says Trudie, and she’s right. So Papa tries again. And again. The fourth time, he finally makes one we all like: even without her painted features, we can see that she has full, round cheeks, a pert chin, and a nicely curved forehead.

Mama works on the pattern for the bodies, and we help with the sewing. We all know how to sew, even Trudie, though her thimble is too big and she has to wrap her finger with a bit of cloth to keep it from slipping off. We try different kinds of stuffing: tissue paper and straw by themselves are too crinkly, sawdust is too stiff. Finally we settle on a mix of all three: tissue paper at the center, then some straw, and finally the sawdust. After the stuffing process is done, there is more cutting as well as more sewing, pasting, and painting. Using the felt Papa bought and snippets from Mama’s scrap bag, we make the nurse doll’s outfit: a long, red and white striped dress; white apron; and a navy-blue cape. Best of all is the little white cap Mama makes from a piece of an old cloth napkin that she folds and starches. Trudie and I sort through Mama’s button jar for the smallest buttons we can find. We use a shiny brass button for the cape and three pearly white ones for the dress.

Mama paints the face, and Papa attaches the yarn that is the doll’s hair. He glues the long brown strands, and when they have dried, he twists them into a neat bun.

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