From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I am home again. I had a lovely time in the hospital. I had a nice nurse called Miss Comagy. She was so very clever. She took a piece of paper and cut carefully like a pattern and when she was finished there was a whole line of children holding each other’s hands. She let me color them in with crayons and I turned them into boys and girls. Mrs. Adler, who owns the hospital, it really isn’t like a hospital more like a pretty house. Well! She made wonderful ice cream of different flavors that tasted so good, and I could eat as much as I wanted because it cooled my throat.
The operation wasn’t so bad. Dr. Otto stood right next to me and he was dressed in funny white clothes. I didn’t see Dr. Selton at all, but I didn’t want to because I hate him. They put me on a table and held something next to my face, and some very sweet nurse told me to think of sheep in a meadow, and to see if I could count to ten and imagine the ten sheep jumping over a fence. I can’t remember how many I counted. I guess I fell off to sleep, and when I woke up there were a lot of people standing around me telling me what a brave girl I was. After that, every day I got presents. Flowers, books, paper dolls. Only Dr. Otto forgot to send me a present, so I asked him why, and Grandmother said that I had no manners, but he laughed and said I was right to remind him that it was naughty of him to forget and he asked me what I wanted. I said, “A book,” and the next day he brought me a beautiful book called “Black Beauty.” I have not read it yet but I know that it is about a horse.
It is amazing how similar some of Hilda’s childhood experiences were. Black Beauty was hugely popular when I was a child and is still published today, almost 150 years after it was first published in 1877. Making paper dolls never goes out of fashion.