In the winter of 1956 there was a little girl who longed for a baby doll; not just any baby doll, but a special one she had seen in the window of the local Morgan and Lindsey 5 and dime. This little girl fell in love with this baby doll who had a bald head and a pretty blue gown on. She had big blue eyes and lips as red as cherries. The doll seemed to follow the little girl with her eyes begging her to take her home. The little girl cried to her mother "Can I have the baby doll please?" "No, said her mother, we don't have the money and you know we can't get it." The little girl brushed the tears from her face and took one last long look at the baby doll perched in the window. All the way home the little girl thought about the doll, how she would love it and hold it and take care of it forever. She was sad that someone else might get the doll and she would never have her. She thought about how she could sleep all cuddled up with the doll and she would be it's mother. She would take such good care of her and love her forever.



The days passed and the little girl often thought of the doll she would never have, how by now someone had probably taken her home to be their little baby doll. About a week or so later the little girl found herself in town with her Great Aunt Wee and thought this might be an excellent change to try and talk her into buying it for her. She drug her Aunt Wee to the Five and Dime and excitedly rushed to the big window where the little doll lived. "Oh no!" She was gone. The little girl's heart was broken, she knew it, she knew someone would get her because she was so beautiful and sweet. Aunt Wee bent down and said, " What did you want to show me sweetie?" "Nothing" said the little girl, her eyes filling with tears. Aunt Wee took her down to Shipley's Donut shop and bought her a donut and milk and that helped a little. But there was still that empty spot in her heart. She had even started calling the baby "Bitsy" in her mind and she seemed so real to her.



When the little girl got home she was in a very foul mood and heart broken. Her stomach hurt and she just felt sick. She was like that all afternoon and her mother decided that the donut had been to rich for her stomach. The little girl laid down on her bed she shared with her sister and started to cry. She cried herself to sleep. When she woke up she felt even worse, she thought she was going to be sick and her head hurt. Her mother took her temperature and found out she has 102 fever. She gave her medicine and watched her through the night. The next day the little girl was even sicker, so sick she had to be taken to the doctor. The doctor examined her and said she had Scarlet Fever. The little girl wasn't sure what that was but it didn't sound like fun. More medicine, some shots that hurt and then home to be put to bed for rest. She slept off and on all that day and into the night, coughing, wheezing, feverish and just feeling really sick.



Around 2 in the morning her mother came into her room and saw she was awake, she said "Would you like me to hold you and rock you like when you were little?" The little girl was glad to be in her mother's arms and have her rock her. It was soothing to hear her mothers voice singing low and the lights of the Christmas tree glowing in the dark. Suddenly the mother stood up, placed the child in the chair and said "stay right here". The little girl didn't know what was going on only that she was tired and sleepy. In a few minutes her mother came back into the room holding something behind her back. The little girl vaguely wondered what it was; when suddenly she brought her arms out from behind her and there she was " BITSY". The little girl leapt from the rocking chair and grabbed the doll holding her in a death grip. Her mother bent down and said, "I know you are sick and how bad you wanted that baby so I decided to give it to you tonight just for awhile then we have to put it back under the tree till Christmas". The little girl hugged her mother so tight and never had she loved her more, never had she seemed like a real mommy and never would the little girl forget that night. She got back in her momma's lap and rocked Bitsy to sleep along with herself. The next morning she was back in her bed and Bitsy was no where to be seen, she was afraid it had been a dream. But when she went into the kitchen and saw the wink from her mother's eye she knew it had happened. And she would love and keep that baby doll for the next 10 years until she was so tattered and torn that she put her away.



I know all this for I was that little girl and Bitsy was my baby doll and my mother is the one who rocked me that night and gave me the most pleasant Christmas memory I ever knew.