Chapter Synopsis

Memoirs of a London Doll
November 24, 2008

Chapter 2: My First Mama

Our doll has been delivered to the doll shop, and she’s very excited to be there, as there is so much to see. The crowds walking by outside the store window are all very exciting and colorful to her. She so wanted to stay in the store window but, unfortunately, was relegated to a dark box for a long time with some other dolls. Eventually, she was placed on a high shelf where all she could see was the ceiling of the shop. However, there were things to learn just by listening. She thought about her life at the Sprats and what she had learned of the outside world from listening to the Sprats talk. Of course, she thought people lived in the world only to buy dolls. However she was soon to learn of other things in the world by listening to the shopkeeper’s daughter, Emmy, read aloud to her elder sister. She read of many things, including children, affectionate mammas, aunts and kind old nurses, birds, flowers, pretty stories in verse, and animal stories. However, she never heard any stories about dolls, which was very disappointing and surprising seeing that they were in a doll shop. For the most part, our doll was contented, and soon she was placed in a sitting position where she could look down on the shop below.

One day while Emily was reading a story about Napoleon, a boy by the name of Thomas Plummy came into the shop offering to barter a Twelfth cake. He wanted a doll for his sister. His grandfather was a well known baker and one of the customers to whom Thomas was to deliver the fancy cake was away, so he took this opportunity to try and obtain a doll for his sister. The shop owner told him he could choose a doll from a particular case but Thomas did not like any of the dolls. When he saw our doll and said that was the one he wanted, the shop owner said no, she was too expensive. However, he got the doll down and gave her to Thomas to look at. In the meantime, the shopkeeper tasted a tiny piece of the Twelfth cake and said he would give Thomas the doll for the cake and two shillings. After all, she was made by the celebrated Sprat, the only maker of this kind of jointed doll. Thomas was not about to be taken in. He argued back that the Twelfth cake was made by his grandfather, one of the first makers in all Bishopsgate Street. It was very heavy, and loaded with plums, currents, butter, sugar, orange and lemon peel, and brandy and caraway comfits. It was decorated with white sugar and covering the entire surface were all kinds of people, animals, buildings, a church steeple, and other wonderful concoctions all made from colored sugar. The shopkeeper gave in to Thomas’s argument. Thomas also bartered some Abernethy cookies for the shopkeeper’s brown paper cocked hat but did it so quickly, the shopkeeper barely knew it.

Thomas ran laughing out of the shop with our doll and the paper hat. He gave the doll to his sister who hugged her tight and they ran home, with Thomas laughing all the way.

DISCUSSION:

This was an interesting little chapter. Lots going on with our doll leaving the Sprat shop to go out into the world. She has that same anticipation and excitement that Hitty had when she was about to see and experience new things. I think Andrew may be right when he suggested that Rachel Field probably read "London Doll" and gleaned a few important ideas which she improved upon for her writing of "Hitty". It will be interesting to compare things as we go through the book.

There's also that period of being in that dark box with other dolls for what seemed like years and then escaping the box but only to be laid on a shelf looking up at the ceiling. Hitty certainly spent a lot of time doing that very kind of waiting.

Thomas Plummy was a spunky little character. He wrapped that shopkeeper right around his finger and by the time he ran out of the shop, he had everything he wanted, the doll for his sister and the paper hat for himself. And he had a great time doing it.

The Twelfth-night history below is quite interesting. This was not a tradition we celebrated growing up. I would like to see and taste one of those fancy cakes sometime. I am going to be watching this holiday season to see if there are any cooking shows on these cakes. I also wondered if fruit cake is sort of a take off on the Twelfth-night cake, although a fruit cake doesn’t have the frosting and fancy sugar items, so it probably isn’t related at all.
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This chapter brought back memories of my second son haggling at a garage sale to get his sister a Barbie dream house.
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It's sweet that she is so innocent of the world--thinking it was created as a forum in which to sell dolls, LOL. I guess that speaks to many of us--if we don't experience new things, we remain set in our ways, maybe not even knowing there are other ways!

Did you catch the line about being 'sent to New South Wales' to bake brown bread'? I was thinking that must have been inferring Thomas would be arrested and sentenced to go to Australia. It took me a minute to catch that reference.
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Having read a whole series of books on Australia I caught that reference. The Twelfth Night cakes sound delicious and beautiful, too.
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Speaking of getting set in our ways, there are so many things out there to see and to try, yet most of us tend to stick to our own familiar world. I am always amazed when I finally try something I have never done before or have been too afraid to do, and then I do it, and there's such a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment and wonder that I actually did it. I think it keeps a person young at heart to experience new things, people, places, etc. - so here's to going to Paris when I turn 85 or, at the very least, the North Country Retreat in New York in 2009!!!

The doll shop owner probably thought Thomas would someday wind up in New South Wales because he had such a way with words that he was able to wheedle that expensive doll right out from under the doll shop owner practically before the owner even realized what was happening, plus Thomas managed to get the brown paper hat also. Granted, the owner got a Twelfth-cake, but I'd say Thomas got the better of the deal.
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Was wondering about 12th Night cake...

In France (and Spain and other countries) gifts are exchanged on January 6th, the epiphany, rather than on Christmas Day. The traditional French dessert for 12th Night is Kings' Cake (Galette des Rois).

Here is some very brief info on the history of this tradition: http://www.askoxford.com/languages/culturevulture/france/galette/

If you read that, you surely noticed the bit about a feve (literally a bean, pronounced fev) being baked into the cake. Nowadays, the feves are small ceramic toys and figures. (Can you imagine Americans doing this? We'd be obsessed with the "choking hazard", even though every child eating the cake would be expecting and seeking the feve).

Anyway, I am finally coming to the point: Many feves are Hitty-sized things. The Becassine dishes you've seen in photos from Esther, Kimberly and me are feves (mine are in the "Bonkers About Becassine" picturetrail album). They also do tiny figures of Becassine (some are in the same album) --- as well as virtually every other character popular in France, from Harry Potter to Alice and friends to every Disney character ever. They make perfect little objects for Hitty to display in her curio cabinet.
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We used to buy our Kings' Cake at a wonderful little patisserie in Pacific Grove, CA. What heaven and not a thing like the description in the book! I have the many "beans" tucked away in my mother's jewelry box for sweet remembrance. Not one child ever choked; finding the "bean" meant far more polite dining and dainty chewing as each mouthful was lingered over.

Hadn't thought about tracking down "beans" for Hitty. King Cake here waaaay down South is a whole different animal for an entirely different holiday (well, not entirely)...very confusing...seems like there should be access to a Twelfth Night cake in NO. Perhaps Susan in Louisiana can speak to this?

A Twelfth-Night History:

If Christmas seems to have an insane amount of activity rolled into one holiday, it's because Twelfth Night has disappeared from calendars, with many of its traditions -- plays, parties, cake, wassailing and presents -- now rolled into Christmas.

Twelfth Night is the evening of the 5th of January. It's the day on which Christmas decorations come down, and in many parts of the UK, the day to wassail your apple trees (you tromp out to the orchards in the mud, drink a toast of apple cider to the trees, and pour cider over their roots).

Just as Christmas inherited the traditions of Twelfth Night, Twelfth Night, in turn, had acquired all the fun and role-reversals of the Roman Saturnalia (which was roughly the 17th of December). The Romans had a tradition of placing a bean inside a cake at Saturnalia, and whoever found it became the master of ceremonies. This tradition was carried directly over into Twelfth Night,

In Britain, the Twelfth Night Cake was like what we now call Christmas Cake. There would be a dried bean and a dried pea in it. The man who found the bean would be the King; the woman who found the pea, Queen. If a woman found the bean, she got to choose the King. If a man found the pea, he got to choose the Queen. They then got to make people at the party do funny things. Servants were included and got pieces of the cake, too. If they got to be Kings or Queens, even their masters had to obey them. By the early 1800s, Twelfth Night Cake was frosted with fancy trimmings and decorated with small figurines made of sugar paste. It died out as a Twelfth Night tradition by the end of the 1800s; being made instead for Christmas and called Christmas Cake.

In Italy and New Orleans, Twelfth Night is still considered the start of Carnival Season. The Italians make foccaia bread instead, hiding in it 4 beans: 3 white ones for the magi, and 1 black one. Whoever finds the black one is the master of ceremonies and can choose his Queen.

Another Description of Twelfth Night:
Twelfth Night is a holiday in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany, concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas, and is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking".
The celebration of Epiphany, the adoration of the Magi, is marked in some cultures by the exchange of gifts, and Twelfth Night, as the eve or vigil of Epiphany, takes on a similar significance to Christmas Eve.
In some traditions it is taken to mean the evening of the Twelfth Day itself, the sixth of January. This apparent difference has arisen probably because in modern times people are less aware of the old custom of treating sunset as the beginning of the following day, and perceive Twelfth Night to mean the night of the Twelfth Day.
In Tudor England, the Twelfth Night marked the end of a winter festival that started on All Hallows Eve — now more commonly known as Halloween. The Lord of Misrule symbolizes the world turning upside down. On this day the King and all those who were high would become the peasants and vice versa. At the beginning of the twelfth night festival a cake which contained a bean was eaten. The person who found the bean would run the feast. Midnight signaled the end of his rule and the world would return to normal. The common theme was that the normal order of things was reversed. This Lord of Misrule tradition can be traced back to pre-Christian European festivals such as the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia.[neutrality disputed]
The Winter Solstice (December 21st) historically marked the first day of many winter festivals. The 12 nights following and including the solstice represent the 12 zodiac signs of the year - and the 12th Night (New Years Day) is a culmination and celebration of the winter festivals.

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