



Produced by Nicole Apostola




RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE
As told by Queen Crosspatch

By
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Author of "Little Lord Fauntleroy"

With illustrations by Harrison Cady

[Transcribers note: see frontispiece.jpg, dance.jpg and fairy.jpg]



Now this is the story about the doll family I liked and the doll
family I didn't. When you read it you are to remember something I
am going to tell you. This is it: If you think dolls never do
anything you don't see them do, you are very much mistaken. When
people are not looking at them they can do anything they choose.
They can dance and sing and play on the piano and have all sorts of
fun. But they can only move about and talk when people turn their
backs and are not looking. If any one looks, they just stop.
Fairies know this and of course Fairies visit in all the dolls'
houses where the dolls are agreeable. They will not associate,
though, with dolls who are not nice. They never call or leave their
cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad tempered.
They are very particular. If you are conceited or ill-tempered
yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as you live.

Queen Crosspatch.



RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE

Racketty-Packetty House was in a corner of Cynthia's nursery. And
it was not in the best corner either. It was in the corner behind
the door, and that was not at all a fashionable neighborhood.
Racketty-Packetty House had been pushed there to be out of the way
when Tidy Castle was brought in, on Cynthia's birthday. As soon as
she saw Tidy Castle Cynthia did not care for Racketty-Packetty
House and indeed was quite ashamed of it. She thought the corner
behind the door quite good enough for such a shabby old dolls'
house, when there was the beautiful big new one built like a castle
and furnished with the most elegant chairs and tables and carpets
and curtains and ornaments and pictures and beds and baths and
lamps and book-cases, and with a knocker on the front door, and a
stable with a pony cart in it at the back. The minute she saw it
she called out:

"Oh! what a beautiful doll castle! What shall we do with that
untidy old Racketty-Packetty House now? It is too shabby and
old-fashioned to stand near it."

In fact, that was the way in which the old dolls' house got its
name. It had always been called, "The Dolls' House," before, but
after that it was pushed into the unfashionable neighborhood behind
the door and ever afterwards--when it was spoken of at all--it was
just called Racketty-Packetty House, and nothing else.

[Transcriber's Note: See picture tidyshire_castle.jpg]

Of course Tidy Castle was grand, and Tidy Castle was new and had
all the modern improvements in it, and Racketty-Packetty House was
as old-fashioned as it could be. It had belonged to Cynthia's
Grandmamma and had been made in the days when Queen Victoria was a
little girl, and when there were no electric lights even in
Princesses' dolls' houses. Cynthia's Grandmamma had kept it very
neat because she had been a good housekeeper even when she was
seven years old. But Cynthia was not a good housekeeper and she did
not re-cover the furniture when it got dingy, or re-paper the
walls, or mend the carpets and bedclothes, and she never thought of
such a thing as making new clothes for the doll family, so that of
course their early Victorian frocks and capes and bonnets grew in
time to be too shabby for words. You see, when Queen Victoria was a
little girl, dolls wore queer frocks and long pantalets and boy
dolls wore funny frilled trousers and coats which it would almost
make you laugh to look at.

But the Racketty-Packetty House family had known better days. I and
my Fairies had known them when they were quite new and had been a
birthday present just as Tidy Castle was when Cynthia turned eight
years old, and there was as much fuss about them when their house
arrived as Cynthia made when she saw Tidy Castle.

Cynthia's Grandmamma had danced about and clapped her hands with
delight, and she had scrambled down upon her knees and taken the
dolls out one by one and thought their clothes beautiful. And she
had given each one of them a grand name.

"This one shall be Amelia," she said. "And this one is Charlotte,
and this is Victoria Leopoldina, and this one Aurelia Matilda, and
this one Leontine, and this one Clotilda, and these boys shall be
Augustus and Rowland and Vincent and Charles Edward Stuart."

For a long time they led a very gay and fashionable life. They had
parties and balls and were presented at Court and went to Royal
Christenings and Weddings and were married themselves and had
families and scarlet fever and whooping cough and funerals and
every luxury. But that was long, long ago, and now all was changed.
Their house had grown shabbier and shabbier, and their clothes had
grown simply awful; and Aurelia Matilda and Victoria Leopoldina had
been broken to bits and thrown into the dust-bin, and Leontine--who
had really been the beauty of the family--had been dragged out on
the hearth rug one night and had had nearly all her paint licked
off and a leg chewed up by a Newfoundland puppy, so that she was a
sight to behold. As for the boys; Rowland and Vincent had quite
disappeared, and Charlotte and Amelia always believed they had run
away to seek their fortunes, because things were in such a state at
home. So the only ones who were left were Clotilda and Amelia and
Charlotte and poor Leontine and Augustus and Charles Edward Stuart.
Even they had their names changed.

[Transcriber's Note: See picture ridiklis.jpg]

After Leontine had had her paint licked off so that her head had
white bald spots on it and she had scarcely any features, a boy
cousin of Cynthia's had put a bright red spot on each cheek and
painted her a turned up nose and round saucer blue eyes and a
comical mouth. He and Cynthia had called her, "Ridiklis" instead of
Leontine, and she had been called that ever since. All the dolls
were jointed Dutch dolls, so it was easy to paint any kind of
features on them and stick out their arms and legs in any way you
liked, and Leontine did look funny after Cynthia's cousin had
finished. She certainly was not a beauty but her turned up nose and
her round eyes and funny mouth always seemed to be laughing so she
really was the most good-natured looking creature you ever saw.

Charlotte and Amelia, Cynthia had called Meg and Peg, and Clotilda
she called Kilmanskeg, and Augustus she called Gustibus, and
Charles Edward Stuart was nothing but Peter Piper. So that was the
end of their grand names.

The truth was, they went through all sorts of things, and if they
had not been such a jolly lot of dolls they might have had fits and
appendicitis and died of grief. But not a bit of it. If you will
believe it, they got fun out of everything. They used to just
scream with laughter over the new names, and they laughed so much
over them that they got quite fond of them. When Meg's pink silk
flounces were torn she pinned them up and didn't mind in the least,
and when Peg's lace mantilla was played with by a kitten and
brought back to her in rags and tags, she just put a few stitches
in it and put it on again; and when Peter Piper lost almost the
whole leg of one of his trousers he just laughed and said it made
it easier for him to kick about and turn somersaults and he wished
the other leg would tear off too.

You never saw a family have such fun. They could make up stories
and pretend things and invent games out of nothing. And my Fairies
were so fond of them that I couldn't keep them away from the dolls'
house. They would go and have fun with Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg
and Gustibus and Peter Piper, even when I had work for them to do
in Fairyland. But there, I was so fond of that shabby disrespectable
family myself that I never would scold much about them, and I often
went to see them. That is how I know so much about them. They were
so fond of each other and so good-natured and always in such
spirits that everybody who knew them was fond of them. And it was
really only Cynthia who didn't know them and thought them only a
lot of old disreputable looking Dutch dolls--and Dutch dolls were
quite out of fashion. The truth was that Cynthia was not a
particularly nice little girl, and did not care much for anything
unless it was quite new. But the kitten who had torn the lace
mantilla got to know the family and simply loved them all, and the
Newfoundland puppy was so sorry about Leontine's paint and her left
leg, that he could never do enough to make up. He wanted to marry
Leontine as soon as he grew old enough to wear a collar, but
Leontine said she would never desert her family; because now that
she wasn't the beauty any more she became the useful one, and did
all the kitchen work, and sat up and made poultices and beef tea
when any of the rest were ill. And the Newfoundland puppy saw she
was right, for the whole family simply adored Ridiklis and could
not possibly have done without her. Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg
could have married any minute if they had liked. There were two
cock sparrows and a gentleman mouse, who proposed to them over and
over again. They all three said they did not want fashionable wives
but cheerful dispositions and a happy, home. But Meg and Peg were
like Ridiklis and could not bear to leave their families--besides
not wanting to live in nests, and hatch eggs--and Kilmanskeg said
she would die of a broken heart if she could not be with Ridiklis,
and Ridiklis did not like cheese and crumbs and mousy things, so
they could never live together in a mouse hole. But neither the
gentleman mouse nor the sparrows were offended because the news was
broken to them so sweetly and they went on visiting just as before.
Everything was as shabby and disrespectable and as gay and happy as
it could be until Tidy Castle was brought into the nursery and then
the whole family had rather a fright.

[Transcriber's Note: See picture mouse.jpg]

It happened in this way:

When the dolls' house was lifted by the nurse and carried into the
corner behind the door, of course it was rather an exciting and
shaky thing for Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter
Piper (Ridiklis was out shopping). The furniture tumbled about and
everybody had to hold on to anything they could catch hold of. As
it was, Kilmanskeg slid under a table and Peter Piper sat down in
the coal-box; but notwithstanding all this, they did not lose their
tempers and when the nurse sat their house down on the floor with a
bump, they all got up and began to laugh. Then they ran and peeped
out of the windows and then they ran back and laughed again.

[Transcriber's Note: See picture fashionable_wives.jpg]

"Well," said Peter Piper, "we have been called Meg and Peg and
Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper instead of our grand names,
and now we live in a place called Racketty-Packetty House. Who
cares! Let's join hands and have a dance."

And they joined hands and danced round and round and kicked up
their heels, and their rags and tatters flew about and they laughed
until they fell down; one on top of the other.

It was just at this minute that Ridiklis came back. The nurse had
found her under a chair and stuck her in through a window. She sat
on the drawing-room sofa which had holes in its covering and the
stuffing coming out, and her one whole leg stuck out straight in
front of her, and her bonnet and shawl were on one side and her
basket was on her left arm full of things she had got cheap at
market. She was out of breath and rather pale through being lifted
up and swished through the air so suddenly, but her saucer eyes and
her funny mouth looked as cheerful as ever.

"Good gracious, if you knew what I have just heard!" she said. They
all scrambled up and called out together.

"Hello! What is it?"

"The nurse said the most awful thing," she answered them. "When
Cynthia asked what she should do with this old Racketty-Packetty
House, she said, 'Oh! I'll put it behind the door for the present
and then it shall be carried down-stairs and burned. It's too
disgraceful to be kept in any decent nursery.'"

"Oh!" cried out Peter Piper.

"Oh!" said Gustibus.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" said Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg. "Will they burn our
dear old shabby house? Do you think they will?" And actually tears
began to run down their cheeks.

Peter Piper sat down on the floor all at once with his hands
stuffed in his pockets.

"I don't care how shabby it is," he said. "It's a jolly nice old
place and it's the only house we've ever had."

"I never want to have any other," said Meg.

Gustibus leaned against the wall with his hands stuffed in his
pockets.

"I wouldn't move if I was made King of England," he said.
"Buckingham Palace wouldn't be half as nice."

"We've had such fun here," said Peg. And Kilmanskeg shook her head
from side to side and wiped her eyes on her ragged pocket-handkerchief.
There is no knowing what would have happened to them if Peter Piper
hadn't cheered up as he always did.

"I say," he said, "do you hear that noise?" They all listened and
heard a rumbling. Peter Piper ran to the window and looked out and
then ran back grinning.

"It's the nurse rolling up the arm-chair before the house to hide
it, so that it won't disgrace the castle. Hooray! Hooray! If they
don't see us they will forget all about us and we shall not be
burned up at all. Our nice old Racketty-Packetty House will be left
alone and we can enjoy ourselves more than ever--because we sha'n't
be bothered with Cynthia--Hello! let's all join hands and have a
dance."

So they all joined hands and danced round in a ring again and they
were so relieved that they laughed and laughed until they all
tumbled down in a heap just as they had done before, and rolled
about giggling and squealing. It certainly seemed as if they were
quite safe for some time at least. The big easy chair hid them and
both the nurse and Cynthia seemed to forget that there was such a
thing as a Racketty-Packetty House in the neighborhood. Cynthia was
so delighted with Tidy Castle that she played with nothing else for
days and days. And instead of being jealous of their grand
neighbors the Racketty-Packetty House people began to get all sorts
of fun out of watching them from their own windows. Several of
their windows were broken and some had rags and paper stuffed into
the broken panes, but Meg and Peg and Peter Piper would go and peep
out of one, and Gustibus and Kilmanskeg would peep out of another,
and Ridiklis could scarcely get her dishes washed and her potatoes
pared because she could see the Castle kitchen from her scullery
window. It was _so_ exciting!

[Transcriber's Note: See picture ridiklis_cooking.jpg]

The Castle dolls were grand beyond words, and they were all lords
and ladies. These were their names. There was Lady Gwendolen Vere
de Vere. She was haughty and had dark eyes and hair and carried her
head thrown back and her nose in the air. There was Lady Muriel
Vere de Vere, and she was cold and lovely and indifferent and
looked down the bridge of her delicate nose. And there was Lady
Doris, who had fluffy golden hair and laughed mockingly at
everybody. And there was Lord Hubert and Lord Rupert and Lord
Francis, who were all handsome enough to make you feel as if you
could faint. And there was their mother, the Duchess of Tidyshire;
and of course there were all sorts of maids and footmen and cooks
and scullery maids and even gardeners.

"We never thought of living to see such grand society," said Peter
Piper to his brother and sisters. "It's quite a kind of blessing."

"It's almost like being grand ourselves, just to be able to watch
them," said Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg, squeezing together and
flattening their noses against the attic windows.

They could see bits of the sumptuous white and gold drawing-room
with the Duchess sitting reading near the fire, her golden glasses
upon her nose, and Lady Gwendolen playing haughtily upon the harp,
and Lady Muriel coldly listening to her. Lady Doris was having her
golden hair dressed by her maid in her bed-room and Lord Hubert was
reading the newspaper with a high-bred air, while Lord Francis was
writing letters to noblemen of his acquaintance, and Lord Rupert
was--in an aristocratic manner--glancing over his love letters from
ladies of title.

[Transcriber's Note: See picture duchess.jpg]

Kilmanskeg and Peter Piper just pinched each other with glee and
squealed with delight.

"Isn't it fun," said Peter Piper. "I say; aren't they awful swells!
But Lord Francis can't kick about in his trousers as I can in mine,
and neither can the others. I'll like to see them try to do this,"--
and he turned three summersaults in the middle of the