The Playhouse

Aunt Fannie gave us cards with these little verses on them:
Monday, I wash my dollies' clothes,
And Tuesday, smoothly press them.
Wednesday, I mend their little hose,
And Thursday, neatly dress them.
Friday, I play they're very ill,
Saturday, something or other.
Sunday, I say, "Lie still,
I'm going to church with mother."

The big oak tree out by the wheat house has humpy roots that stick out of the ground and low branches. There's a bedroom between two big roots with a bed of pine needles for our dolls. There are four rooms, but if you are not thinking, you might walk right through the walls.
We made a lunch of brown-bread cutlets, white stone potatoes and a salad of dandelion leaves. For dessert we had milk and a cake of with a brown layer from the garden, a yellow layer from the path and iced with white sand. You might guess that the brown bread cutlets and milk were what people getting up plays call practical, which means "really and truly.'
We didn't have much mending to do, so Mama said we could do sweeping on Wednesday and tidy things.
The Friday game is one of the best. We have two dolls that are often sick, they wear night-dresses. They may need cold-water cloths, or a hot water compress, or a mullein poultice. There is always medicine to give and meals to serve on a tray.
'Saturday something or other' is usually cooking and sometimes mother makes us some little extra biscuits at breakfast to have at our tea-time.
If we have to play in the house, Mama lets us use the washstand for a little house for our dolls. Daddy gave us each a cigar box to use for a valise for our dolls. A doll with a cigar box for a trunk will never have moths in her clothes, he said.
Being the eldest, I have to help Mama, but she tells me to play with Blanche and Ethel sometimes. We take Mack out to play, too, and pull him around in the wagon Daddy got for him. Daddy says he'll never learn to walk if we don't let his feet touch the ground now and then.