OROTHEA'S little shop was at the very edge of the residence district, on the boundary line, as it were, of business. At first she had sold only needles and pins and thread and collar bones and embroidery silks and ruching and ink and paper and post-cards. Then one Christmas she had added a few toys, and since then her small place had been known quite prominently as the Toy Shop.
For Dorothea was a genius at discovering toys that the youngsters wanted. She was so much of a child herself, in spite of the silver threads which shone faintly through her fair hair, and in spite of the tiny wrinkles which encroached on the pink-and-white of her complexion.
The needles and pins and ink and collar bones were side issues now, for the little shop overflowed with lead soldiers and woolly sheep and furry cats and things that had to be wound up, and things that barked when you pulled a string, or mewed when you tipped them upside down, or ran on wheels when you put them on the floor. And all the cases were crowded with dolls that talked and dolls that walked, and dolls that went to sleep, and dolls that simply smiled and did nothing. And there were little china dishes heaped with such natural-looking food that you really couldn't believe that the spinach and the eggs and the puddings and the pies and the sausages and the salads weren't ready to eat on the spot! There were little iron cook-stoves, and houses with all the furniture in them to the very last footstool, and with bathtubs and electric lights; and there were railroads that led up to the most wonderful tin mountains, with tin trains that stopped at tin stations, and with tin signals and bridges.
And every one of these wonderful toys was "made in Germany."
Dorothea, coming in one dull September morning, surveyed her stock for the first time without a smile on her face.
In her hand she held a newspaper. She had read it on the trolley, and what she read had sickened her. For the paper told of the things which Germany was doing on the other side of the water, and which had nothing to do with dolls or tin tracks or lead soldiers. But they had to do with real soldiers and with big guns and with death and destruction. For Germany, it seemed, was at war with all the world, and Germany was to blame.
At least, it looked that way to Dorothea. It had always seemed to her before that the toys had welcomed her. To people without imagination, toys are inanimate things, but to Dorothea they were as alive as the people who bought them. She never sold a pussy-cat without hoping that it would get a good home; she never parted with a wistful bisque baby without some anxiety as to the kind of mother it was to acquire. And as for her white elephants, she always saw them go with a heavy heart, fearing that their almost pathetic mildness might place them at the mercy of some boyish tyrant.
There was only one white elephant left and there would be no others. Making toys was one of the arts of peace, and Germany was at war!
Dorothea pulled up the shades of the big window. Every morning she set forth in that window the toys which were to act as a lure for the public eye. Even in these early fall days there were those who, passing through on their way from north-shore resorts, patronized the little place which was noted for its uniqueness.
It was quite the usual thing for Dorothea to give her white elephant the place of honor in the window. But this morning she would have none of him. The lead soldiers seemed to offer themselves obtrusively. The Prussian troops positively swaggered as Dorothea turned a stern eye upon them. For a moment she surveyed them, then she shut the cover of the box tightly, hiding the spectacle of their triumphant insolence.
She put some books in the window, and a row of Kewpie post-cards. These, with a few boxes of letter-paper and some half-dozen tubes of library paste, made a strictly American and neutral display. The books were published in Boston, the paper and paste were Middle West, and the Kewpies were irreproachably United States.
It was while she was giving the last touches to this somewhat sombre display
that a man opened the door and entered. He was a small man with an upstanding halo of gray hair. But he was not old. Like Dorothea, his hair was older than his face, and his face was older than his heart. He limped a little, and in his hand he, too, carried a newspaper,
"Dear lady," he said, "good morning."
Dorothea turned and faced him. "It is not good morning, Herr von Puttkamer, it is bad morning. What do you think of your country now?"
"It is my country."
"And you still defend it?"
"It needs no defense."
"Not for this last awful thing?"