And then there were none....
A popular form of children's rhyme begins: "Ten little (babies, Indians, Niggers, Japs)..." and recounts the disasters that befall the ten, one by one, until none are left. A variation is the story which recounts the disasters that befall all the dolls in a little girl's collection, one by one. Presumably the dolls, like the ethnic figures of the traditional rhyme, represent a figure with whom one can identify just enough to make their various problems funny.
The dolls'-disaster theme allows the author to explore multicultural doll families, a favorite theme of artists in the early years of the 20th century. A variation is the prose My Toys by Hilde Roskruge. A more extended literary treatment of the theme is the book Binkie and the Bell Dolls, in which a puppy who has accidentally brought disaster on a series of dolls retrieves them one by one as he becomes older and wiser.
The two verses here belong to the early years of the 20th century, and devote a page or two and a verse or two to each doll's sad fate:
1. H. Brooke Levering, Polly's Dollies
(no date; Stecher Lithographic Co.)Her next doll was a Japanese
With funny almond eyes.
Her brother thought this doll would like
To sail up in the skies.He tied her to a small balloon
One fourth day of July.
She never came to earth again;
She's still up in the sky.
2. The Poor Dear Dollies
May Byron, illus. Rosa Petherick, 1909 (scans based on a modern reprint; original illustration may have read "The Jap Doll")The Japanese Doll
Then for a while I was very happy,
Playing about with dear Hiraki
But--though I cannot think how she could--
She did get lost in a primrose wood.
