An Encounter with a Wolf

Hi, everyone! My name is Veronika.

You probably know that already. I'm the oldest member of The Doll's Storybook family, and I have an important job. My job is to find stories to tell, and to share them with you. I'm doing that tonight.

Maybe it isn't your bedtime, but it is mine, and I always read a story at bedtime. Maybe you would like to listen.

This is a very old story called, "An Encounter With a Wolf." It's written in another language, so I'll just tell you what it says.

Here goes.

Once upon a time there were three little dolls named Gertrude, Bertram and Millicent.

They were on their way with some other dolls and toys to get new clothes and then to be given to children who did not have any toys to play with. They had been donated by kind human people all over town.

Someone––a human person––had put them into a big box with some other dolls.

That person put the box of dolls and toys into the back of a pickup truck, and then drove off to take them to town. On the way to town, the truck went over a big bump, and the three dolls fell out.

For a moment they just lay there on the grass at the side of the road.

Then they sat up and looked at each other.

"What will we do now?" asked Gertrude.

"It's a long walk to town," Bertram said.

"We should look for shelter," Millicent suggested. "We will be OK if we work together."

The three dolls stood up and walked into the woods.
"Are there wolves in the forest?" Gertrude asked.

"Maybe they will try to chew us up!" cried Bertram.
"I think being rained on is a greater danger," said Millicent. "We need to find a way to protect ourselves from rain."
The dolls looked around as they walked. They found lots of dead grass where someone had cut it and left it.

Then they found pine needles where someone had raked them into a pile next to the trail through the woods.

"Maybe we could make a house out of the dead grass and the pine needles," Gertrude suggested.
"I'm afraid that would let in the rain," Millicent said.

"If it could let in the rain," Bertram suggested, "it could let in a wolf! I'll bet a wolf could even blow it down!" Then he thought for a moment. "I think we should build ourselves a house made from sticks. I can just see it in my mind! It would be great!"

"I'm pretty sure that will let in rain, too," Millicent pointed out. "I think we should build it out of stones, and we should hire a contractor." She imagined herself checking out house plans. "It should have a nice kitchen, and a bedroom with three little beds," she said.

The three dolls could see the stone cottage in their minds. It looked as if it might be safe from rain and wolves.
"It should have a place to sit outdoors," Bertram said.
"And a rocking chair!" Gertrude added.

"All we need," Millicent said with a sigh, "is a phone to call a contractor (KON-trak-ter) and money to pay for the contractor's work." Then she added, "A contractor is a person who gets workers to build a house for you."
"If we had a phone," Gertrude pointed out, "We could call the man with the truck and have him come back and get us."

Millicent had to agree that Gertrude had a point. "Well," she said, "I guess all we can do is try to build something that will get us through the night."
"Right," agreed Gertrude. "Tomorrow we can try to figure out what to do next."
"If we aren't chewed up by wolves during the night," Bertram added.

The dolls found a rock wall. They found some big sticks and put them against the wall. Then they added an old piece of cardboard they found. They put it over the sticks to keep out the rain if it came. Then they found some branches that had fallen from the trees in a storm. 

They put the branches over the cardboard, so it wouldn't blow away. They worked together to make sure it wouldn't fall down if they bumped up against it or if it rained.

They huddled together in their little shelter. It was very quiet...for a while. It was getting very late in the day, and soon the sun would be going down.

"What's that?" Gertrude said suddenly. The dolls listened. They heard a snuffling sound.

"Maybe it's a wolf!" Bertram cried.
Then they heard a whine. Millicent climbed out of the shelter. "It's a puppy!" she said.

The other dolls looked.
"A wolf puppy!" Bertram exclaimed.
The puppy whined again. "He wants to come into the shelter, too," Millicent said. She put out her hand with the palm down so the puppy could sniff it, the way you should do before you pet a dog you don't know. (She would have asked the puppy's owner first, but this puppy was all alone.)

The puppy sniffed Millicent's hand. "He's friendly," she said, "and he's a just a toy wolf puppy. He wants to come in, because it's getting dark."

"How do you know that's what he wants?" Gertrude asked.
"We had a puppy in my last home," Millicent explained. "You can learn to understand what they are trying to say, if you pay attention."
The three dolls moved over to make room for the toy wolf puppy. Soon they were all comfortable. They went to sleep, which wasn't easy, because their eyes don't close, and they didn't have sleep masks. Night came. It got dark.

In the morning, the daylight was just waking up the dolls, when they heard the sound of footsteps on the trail. They all lay still and waited.

"How did you get here?" asked a loud voice. It was a human man out for a hike. "A child must have been out in the woods playing with these dolls and toy wolf," the hiker said to himself, "but how strange to leave them here. Someone must be missing them." 

When the hiker picked up one of the dolls, he noticed a tag on the doll's wrist. "Donated by Sara Jones," he read. "Sara Jones is my neighbor," he said.

When he looked at the other dolls, he saw they each had a tag with a different name. "These names are my neighbors, too. The dolls must have been for the toy collection in town," he said. "I can drop them off on my way to work." Then he shook his head and wondered how three donated dolls could have ended up so far from the road and in a snug little shelter with a toy wolf puppy. "It's a mystery," he said out loud, as he put all four of them into his backpack.

The dolls would have winked at each other inside the backpack if they could have closed their eyes.
It had been scary, but they did not get rained on. They did not get chewed up by wolves. They also did not get to build that charming stone cottage, but they knew you can't have everything, and they were on their way to children who needed them. That made them very happy. It was something they could do together, too, even if they all went to live with different children. They would know that each of their friends was somewhere in the world making a child happy.

The end!

Usually these stories end with, "and they all lived happily ever after," but we don't need that for this story, do we? We know these dolls found wonderful homes, and so did the wolf puppy.

I'm getting sleepy now. Good night, dear readers. We will all sleep well, because we know we are all safe from rain and being chewed up by wolves, and we know that there are lots of dolls in the world, all working together to make children like you happy, and that makes the dolls happy, too.

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy/Millicent: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Mariah/Gertrude: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy/Bertram: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London

This story was inspired by "The Three Little Pigs." You can read about the history of the story and its variations here.

Stone cottage photo by Maria Butyrina on Unsplash.

Millicent's partial stone cottage house plans courtesy of Renovation Headquarters.

Apologies to Gottfried Keller for the use of his "Züricher Novellen" as a prop. Keller, the Swiss writer, is one of our favorite writers and a writing role model. Keller wanted to be an artist, but he was better at seeing the pictures in his mind than putting them down on paper or canvas. What he couldn't do by painting he was able to do in writing. His writing provides the reader vivid pictures in the imagination, which we can only attempt to emulate by taking photos, an option he didn't have during most of his lifetime in the 19th Century.

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Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
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