The Elves & The Toymakers

The dressmaker sat her little guest down in the big chair in front of the kitchen range while she picked up the steaming metal jug of hot chocolate that she kept warming over the fire. She poured some into her finest china cup and, sitting herself down on the small stool beside the child, she held the drink out to Eva. The little girl reached out both her hands from within her protective cloak, as she had been taught to when offered something precious, but there was something held protectively in one hand, which meant she could not take the cup. She grimaced in her quandary, and the dressmaker looked down at the other precious thing the girl held.

"May I see?" she asked.

Slowly, Eva uncurled her fingers to reveal an exquisitely carved wooden head. It was unpainted, but the features had been cut into a beautiful, smiling face.

"She's my dolly. Daddy doesn't know I have her," the girl confessed in a rushed whisper, biting her lip and her eyes damp.

"I shall not tell," the dressmaker promised, brushing her fingers lightly with Eva's. "Shall I look after her for you while you drink your chocolate?"

Little Eva thought about the offer for a moment, then, with a small smile, she dropped the pretty head into the dressmaker's hold.

"Thank you," she spoke earnestly as she took the cup in both her hands and then took a sip.

It warmed the dressmaker's heart when her little guest then smiled. It was only a short gesture, for the child's thoughts quickly returned to her loss, but it was enough that she began to talk.

"I miss my mama," she whispered again, glancing guiltily at the door to the shop.

"Your daddy is busy with my husband, he cannot hear us," the dressmaker reassured as she cradled the doll's head carefully against her bodice.

"She was going to make me a dolly with a red dress and red cloak, painted black hair and real boots," the little girl confessed, a tear running down her cheek, "but she can't now, but I can't cry, because it makes Daddy cry as well, and I don't want him to be unhappy anymore. I shall smile and laugh at my party tomorrow and pretend I don't want my dolly."

The dressmaker wiped the tear away with her thumb and stroked Eva's curls off her cheek and, her heart filling with love, an idea came to her.

"You are a very kind and brave girl," she told her little guest, "and the elves sometimes reward people like you. Let us take this head and put it behind the milk churn, which is where the elves hide, and then by dawn tomorrow, we shall see what we shall see."

Eva smiled with such hope that the dressmaker's heart leapt for joy. And so, together, they put the doll's head behind the milk churn, wrapping it safely in a piece of cheesecloth. Then the little girl finished her chocolate and they returned to the shop. Eva skipped back to her father, who now had his boots wrapped in brown paper for the journey home, and hugged him tightly. Surprised by the change in his daughter, the man picked her up and held him in his big arms. He grinned over her crown and bid his friends good evening.

The dressmaker closed the door after him, waving to little Eva before pulling down all the blinds, and then, her heart thumping, she spun round to her husband, clapping her hands together excitedly as she told him, "Husband, get out your finest tools, we have a doll to make."

And so, between them, husband and wife set about making the best doll they knew how to. The cobbler took the scraps left from making shoes and boots, and began to fashion a body. He took leather pieces and cut them to size. Then, making holes in the shaped patches as carefully as he would have done for his finest shoes, he sewed them together with good, strong thread. He stuffed the small body with sawdust and then picked up delicate pieces of wood and his whittling knife.