Free The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden

in a wooden pot. It was the kind of Christmas tree you have on Christmas cakes; it was just right for the Plantaganets.
    ‘Would you like to give one of the Plantaganets this for Christmas?’ asked the children’s mother, coming into the room. ‘I must have had it at a party long ago.’
She showed them a parasol made of white paper printed with a pattern of purple and scarlet feathers. It could be put up and down, and had once fitted into a cracker.
    ‘Oh! For Birdie,’ cried Emily at once.
    ‘How odd,’ thought Tottie. ‘How lovely and how odd.’
    ‘And for Apple, a marble. Wouldn’t a marble make a ball for Apple?’
    ‘More and more odd,’ thought Tottie, ‘and still more lovely.’
    ‘Darner might have a new plate,’ said Charlotte, looking in the toy cupboard. ‘This big tiddlywinks would do. The rest are all lost. It’s a purple one. That would suit
him nicely.’
    ‘More and more odd,’ thought Tottie again, ‘and more and more lovely.’
    For Mr Plantaganet they hung a buttonhole on the tree. It was made of woollen flowers. ‘I don’t much like that,’ thought Tottie.
    Mr Plantaganet did not much like it either. ‘Is my Christmas spoilt?’ he whispered to Tottie.
    ‘No. No, ’ said Tottie. ‘But I wish I could make it better.’
    ‘I wish that too,’ said Mr Plantaganet. He suspected it was spoilt.
    At that moment the postman’s knock sounded from the front door. Emily and Charlotte ran to open it. He had brought two parcels, a light thin one, the shape of a flat cardboard box, and a
small one, the shape of a child’s shoe-box. It was very heavy.
    Emily opened the flat light one first.
    ‘What is it?’ asked Charlotte. ‘What is it? Oh!’ she cried as Emily set up a cardboard counter painted with netting. ‘Oh! It’s a post office. A toy post
office.’
    ‘Oh!’ cried Tottie, and she caught Mr Plantaganet’s eye.
    ‘Look at the stamps,’ said Emily, ‘and the stamper.’
    ‘Let me look at the stamps,’ cried Mr Plantaganet.
    ‘Let me look at the stamper,’ cried Apple.
    The toy post office was complete. It even had two letter boxes labelled PACKETS AND NEWSPAPERS and LETTERS. It had stamps and certificates and postal orders and telegraph forms and letter paper
and postcards and stamped envelopes. It had a red tin telephone and a purple inkpad for the stamper.
    ‘But what shall we do with it exactly?’ asked Charlotte.
    ‘We can tell you,’ wished Tottie and Mr Plantaganet together, and Emily, as if she had felt them wishing, looked at them. Then she looked only at Mr Plantaganet. ‘I
know,’ said Emily slowly. ‘I know, Charlotte. It shall be Mr Plantaganet’s office. He shall go there to business every day.’
    ‘As a postman?’ asked Charlotte.
    ‘As a postmaster,’ said Emily.
    ‘A postmaster!’ said Mr Plantaganet, and his waistcoat seemed to swell and grow bigger. ‘Did you hear, Tottie? I am a postmaster. Did you hear, Birdie dear? Now I have
nothing left to wish for. Did you hear, Apple? Oh, how happy I am. Did you hear –’ He was about to say, ‘Did you hear, Darner?’ when he remembered that Darner was a dog and
could not be expected to recognize the difference between Mr Plantaganet, Postmaster, and plain Mr Plantaganet. He stopped. His attention was caught by Darner.
    Darner was looking at the other parcel. All his wool stood on end. ‘Prrickckckck,’ said Darner at the parcel. ‘Prrick. Prrick. Prrick! Prrick! Prrrrrrickckckck!’

Chapter 15
    At the moment Darner barked at the parcel the Plantaganet family were all in the post office that Emily had set up on the table. Apple was playing with the scales, Birdie was
tinkling the telephone; it had a bell and Birdie liked the sound of it. She wondered if a musical box sounded like that. Tottie had told her about musical boxes and she often longed to hear one.
Tottie was looking at the postcards. Mr Plantaganet was trying not to wish that they would all go away and leave him