From the time I was a little girl dolls have fascinated me.  They do all little girls, more or less.  My fascination with them has never ebbed and over the years I have amassed a collection of dolls.  When we lived for a too-brief year in Tokyo I was able to acquire old Japanese dolls and I treasure them.  It's been years since I acquired another doll.  I don't actively search them out.  But we did see one that elicited my interest, being held for auction at the Salvation Army thrift store near where we live.

My husband started with the silent auction, writing down his initial bid for it; someone else had preceded us with a bid for $5, and my husband put down $20.  I don't really, at the age of 75, want to collect any more of anything, but this face reminded me of someone that I surely knew once, long ago, and cannot quite place?  My husband contends that it's an 'everyone' face and that's what makes it seem familiar.

When we arrived at the store at 6:00 p.m. there were regular shoppers there browsing among the goods for sale.  Those interested in the auction picked their numbers and waited.  When the auction began, though my husband urged me to look around, I felt compelled to watch.  While standing there as the auction proceeded, a young man approached me with the tiniest pair of slippers in his hand, asking me something.  I asked him to repeat his question, louder.  Did the colour represent slippers for a girl or a boy, he asked.  What's the difference, I responded, they're sweet and comfortable looking, suitable for a boy or a girl.  He looked puzzled and definitely dissatisfied with my response.  I relented and said that dark brown likely is more colour-suited to a boy and that satisfied him.

When the bidding turned to the doll I wanted, it seemed that there was no one present prepared to outbid the last bid my husband had put in.  He had returned to check the silent bids a few days earlier and someone had outbid him by $2, so he increased his bid to $40.  Returning again the day of the bid he found it increased to $42, all by the same person.  Joyce, evidently, wanted the doll as much as I did, and I wondered whether it might be better if I simply stopped.  But I thought of that fascinating face and agreed with my husband that we would return to the store in time for the actual auction.

The last bid my husband put in at $75 was not contested.  It's an appalling sum of money for a doll, some would say, but on the other hand, the money that exchanged hands between us and the Salvation Army is guaranteed to be of use to someone.

Perhaps even the man who swept into the store as we were leaving.  He had a bald pate and long silvery hair hanging down to his shoulders.  He wore a large smile of contentment with himself, along with a strapless summer frock printed with bright flowers.  He was bare-armed and -legged and exceedingly hairy.  He was grossly overweight and physically unimpressive.  But the bosom of the dress he wore was more than adequately filled out.