The Dolls

Night after night forever the dolls lay stiff by the children’s dreams. On the goose-feathers of the rich, on the straw of the poor, on the gypsy ground— wherever the children slept, dolls have been found in the subsoil of the small loves stirred again by the Finders After Everything. Down lay the children by their hanks and twists. Night after night grew over imagination. The fuzzies shed, the bright buttons fell out of the heads, arms ripped, and down through goose-feathers, straw; and the gypsy ground the dolls sank, and some—the fuzziest and most loved changed back to string and dust, and the dust moved dream-puffs round the Finders’ boots as they dug, sieved, brushed, and came on a little clay dog, and a little stone man, and a little bone girl, that had kept their eyes wide open forever, while all the children slept.