Mrs.Royeton’s Button-Eyed Lambs

 

Mrs.Royeton’sButton-EyedLambs

    THERE lived in Oakland, California, a young widow named Charlotte Royeton, who, having four children to support, turned to a federal government agency and was given a job as playground instructor, providing she could entertain a lot of youngsters sufficiently to keep them coming back. Just how could she fill these requirements? The children were from poor families, mixed races. They cared little for reading, they couldn’t play in the court all the time, and sewing was “out.” Desperately the widow scoured the five-and-ten, mentally discarding jigsaw puzzles, dominoes, and dish towels for embroidering. Then she spied the little pig outlined on cambric to be cut out and stuffed! She pounced on him and took him to market—that is, she sat up nearly all night putting him together. The next morning, behold! Piggie had the niftiest black cutaway jacket edged in yellow, a curlicue tail, and a rakish black hat slanted over one pink ear. Mrs. Royeton’s children voted him “a knockout” and when her charges saw him they seconded the motion and were eager to make one like him. The woman had no money but she said, “Look, children, I don’t know how we’ll do it but we’re going to make those pigs.” She purchased four yards of material and as much kapok as her thin purse would allow. She got seventeen pigs out of the goods but ran out of kapok. So she had the children bring discarded stockings which were cut up and used to stuff the rest of them. She added other animals, purchasing some patterns and designing others, until there were fifty varieties. The children, more and more delighted, brought every available scrap from home. Two Chinese girls brought two uncalled-for sheets from their father’s laundry and after taking what material they needed gave the rest to the others. The old striped trousers of Antoinette’s father yielded some amazing elephants, while Kitty McCarthy’s green chinchilla reefer became woolly dogs with green bead eyes. Over two hundred animals were made that summer by a class that had increased from fifteen to fifty to the wonderment of the playground director. But here’s where the fairy tale comes in. The widow sat up nights designing animals for the next day’s session and that’s how the lamb came into existence. He was white muslin with black hoofs and his flat, black button eyes made him the most innocent looking lamb that ever followed Mary. Unknown to his originator he was chosen for a National Exhibit of Handicraft held in Washington, D. C., where he blinked at the toy buyer of Saks and Company’s Fifth Avenue store, New York. It was love at first sight. The buyer demanded that lamb and more like him. In due course, Mrs. Royeton was flabbergasted to receive a letter asking for a dozen lambs and placing a large future order. Daughter Eloise and the three boys fixed up a basement workshop for their mother who glowingly declared: “I feel like a flower about to burst into bloom.” She hopes soon to be able to stay home and look after her family while earning a living. And even if she doesn’t sell a million lambs and make a million dollars there is every indication that she will make a thousand.