she did not much hold with psychiatrists, would have agreed. Up to a point, anyway. Whatever the reason, they make me happy, she might have said if this psychiatric viewpoint had been brought to her attention. And I believe that happiness is the exact opposite of sadness, bitterness, and hatred: happiness should remain unexamined as long as possible.
In the early Haven years she and Ralph shared a study upstairs. The house was big enough so each could have had one to him- or herself, but they liked to be together in the evenings. The big study had been two rooms before Ralph had knocked out the wall between, creating a space even bigger than the living room downstairs. Ralph had his coin and matchbook collections, a wall of bookshelves (all of Ralph's books were nonfiction, most military history), and an old rolltop desk which Ruth had refinished herself.
For Ruth he made what both came to call 'the schoolroom.'
About two years before the headaches began, Ralph saw that Ruth was fast running out of space for her dolls (now there was even a row of them atop her own desk, and they sometimes fell off when she typed). They sat on the stool in the corner, they dangled their small legs nonchalantly from the window-ledges, and still visitors usually had to hold three or four on their laps when they took a chair. She had a lot of visitors, too: Ruth was also a notary public, and there was always someone dropping by to have her notarize a bill of sale or frank a promissory note.
So for Christmas that year, Ralph had constructed a dozen small pewlike benches for her dolls. Ruth was delighted. They reminded her of the one-room schoolhouse she had attended at Crosman Corner. She arranged them in neat rows and set the dolls upon them. Ever after, that part of Ruth's study was called the schoolroom.
The following Christmas - his last, although at that point he felt fine. the brain tumor that would kill him no more than a microscopic dot in his head - Ralph gave her another four benches, three new dolls, and a blackboard in scale with the benches. It was all that was needed to complete the amiable schoolroom illusion.
Written on the blackboard were the words
'Dear Teacher, I love you truly - A SECRET ADMIRER.'
Adults were charmed by Ruth's schoolroom. Most children were equally charmed, and Ruth was always happy to see the kids - boys as well as girls - play with the dolls, although some were quite valuable and many of the old ones delicate. Some parents became extremely nervous when they realized their children were playing with a doll from pre-Communist China or one that had belonged to the daughter of Chief Justice John Marshall. Ruth was a kind woman; if she sensed that a child's enjoyment of her dolls was making a parent really uncomfortable, she would take out a Barbie and Ken she kept for such occasions. The children played with these, but listlessly, as if they realized the really good dolls had for some reason been put off-limits. If, however, Ruth sensed a parent was saying no because they felt it was somehow impolite for their kids to play with the grownup lady's toys, she would make it clear that she really didn't mind.
'Ain't you afraid some kid'll break a bunch of them?' Mabel Noyes asked her once. Mabel's Junque-A-Torium was well supplied with signs such as LOVELY TO LOOK AT, DELIGHTFUL TO HOLD, BUT IF YOU BREAK IT, THEN IT'S SOLD. Mabel knew that the doll which had belonged to Justice Marshall's little girl was worth at least six hundred dollars - she had shown a picture of it to a dealer in rare dolls in Boston and he had told her four hundred, so Mabel guessed six as a fair price. Then there was a doll that had belonged to Anna Roosevelt ... a genuine Haitian voodoo doll ... God knew what else, sitting cheek to cheek and thigh to thigh with such common old things as Raggedy Ann and Andy.
'Not a bit,' Ruth responded. She found Mabel's attitude as puzzling as Mabel found hers. 'If God means one of these dolls to be broken, He may break it Himself, or He may send a child to do it. But so far, no child has ever broken one. Oh, a few heads have rolled, and Joe Pell did something to the pull-ring in Mrs Beasley's