The Project Gutenberg EBook of Racketty-Packetty House, by Frances H. Burnett

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Title: Racketty-Packetty House

Author: Frances H. Burnett

Release Date: August 11, 2004 [EBook #8574]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE ***

Produced by Nicole Apostola

RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE
As told by Queen Crosspatch

By
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Author of "Little Lord Fauntleroy"

With illustrations by Harrison Cady

[Transcribers note: see frontispiece.jpg, dance.jpg and fairy.jpg]

Now this is the story about the doll family I liked and the doll
family I didn't. When you read it you are to remember something I
am going to tell you. This is it: If you think dolls never do
anything you don't see them do, you are very much mistaken. When
people are not looking at them they can do anything they choose.
They can dance and sing and play on the piano and have all sorts of
fun. But they can only move about and talk when people turn their
backs and are not looking. If any one looks, they just stop.
Fairies know this and of course Fairies visit in all the dolls'
houses where the dolls are agreeable. They will not associate,
though, with dolls who are not nice. They never call or leave their
cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad tempered.
They are very particular. If you are conceited or ill-tempered
yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as you live.

Queen Crosspatch.

RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE

Racketty-Packetty House was in a corner of Cynthia's nursery. And
it was not in the best corner either. It was in the corner behind
the door, and that was not at all a fashionable neighborhood.
Racketty-Packetty House had been pushed there to be out of the way
when Tidy Castle was brought in, on Cynthia's birthday. As soon as
she saw Tidy Castle Cynthia did not care for Racketty-Packetty
House and indeed was quite ashamed of it. She thought the corner
behind the door quite good enough for such a shabby old dolls'
house, when there was the beautiful big new one built like a castle
and furnished with the most elegant chairs and tables and carpets
and curtains