Once upon a time, in a sunny playground, there was a girl named Daisy. I would tell you Daisy’s story in the first person because it is so much fun to put myself in her bright red shoes. Now Daisy was a very cheerful girl, but there was one thing that made her different from everyone else; it was her polka dot overalls.
These were not small dots, but great big round ones as big as buttons, and the funny part of it was, they were all colors of the rainbow, red, blue, green, yellow, and all the colors that grown people think of as “fancy colors,” each a different color from what you often see, and they were so bright that if Daisy turned very quickly around and around you would think there was a merry-go-round coming right at you.
Daisy was full of fun and never looked dull or cross, but how could you tell under those polka dots? And the boys and girls always stood round her and laughed at her, but none of them would come and play with her. Daisy felt lonely many and many a time.
One playtime as Daisy was sitting lonely on a bench under the shade of a tree, wishing that she and the other children could be the best of friends and all play together, she saw a little girl coming on tiptoe through the gate. This little girl was dressed in beautiful blue overalls covered all over with great big red polka dots.
Daisy sat up quite straight and looked around, and jumped up and clapped her hands. “How lovely! What a pretty name! I shall call her Dotty, though it’s a funny sort of name.”
But the little new girl did not stand still talking, but came right straight up to Daisy and held out her hand, and said, “What is your name?”
That wasn’t much of a question to ask, was it? But then you see Daisy was full of fun, as I said before, so she did not mind it, but said, “I’ve been thinking of changing mine, but I don’t believe it will do for me to have your name, for your name is Dotty, and you have a dress like mine, and they say that girls can never be of the same name.”
“Won’t you try?” asked Dotty.
“Yes,” said Daisy. “I’ll try, this once.” So Daisy washed her face and the back of her hands bright, bright pink, to match her lovely polka dotted overalls. And Dotty washed her’s and the backs of her hands bright, bright blue, to match Daisy’s lovely polka dotted overalls.
Now, unlike a great many grown people who are the whiter they are the dirtier they look after they have done washing, they both looked much nicer after they had blacked their boots, and they both were so joyful at being dressed alike that they hurried off hand in hand to see all the children at the playground, to ask them to share their joy.
At first all the other children laughed at them and a great many said rude things, but they did not mind that when they had each other, till one little girl came up to them and said, “If we all change our clothes and make them look like yours, may we all come and play together?” “Oh, yes,” said Daisy and Dotty both at once, “that will be the best of fun!”
So they all ran home as fast as ever they could, and brought old flannel petticoats or any old clothes they could find, and put them on and got a brush and made them look as bright as paint, with bright ketchup and bright blueberry juice they managed to find.
And when they all met on the playground there was not a single grown person that would have thought it anything but a ladies’ logic class. There were red and blue, and blue and red neighbors sitting side by side under trees, and there were black neighbors and white neighbors on swings, very near the signs that tell one it is “dangerous to stop tall grass.”
Now the bright sunshine made everything look lovelier than paint does, and at last the grown people began to take notice, and told one another it was a “picnic,” only they did not know what the refreshments were.
So Daisy and Dotty ran off to find out, and when they came back they told all the children that everybody who brought their own lunch should share lunch with everybody else.
So they sat down in couples to their picnics, and the little girls all served Daisy and Dotty, and the little boys all served each other, and every single little person was as happy as happy could be. But there must be an end to everything, even to a picnic, and now they began to think it was time to go home.
So they all ran home in couples singing a pretty little song, and on the last line of each verse a great many used to wait for their partners, and one or two of them made a falling sword.
Now I don’t suppose you ever heard of kids coming home making falling swords as children in a ladies’ logic class, did you? Yet that is exactly how they went home that day with Daisy and Dotty who containing that friends flourish when we accept each other’s uniqueness.