Winnifred lived in a small, cozy room on the ground floor of the big doll house. This was largely out of convenience, since stairs had a tendency to leave her huffing and puffing by the time she finished climbing them. The entrance to Winnifred’s residence was a door bearing a gold plaque above it which read ‘Mrs. Sanders.” This was the title by which other dolls in the house typically addressed Winnifred out of respect, since she was a bit older than the dollhouse’s other inhabitants.
One late morning Winnifred was sitting in a (necessarily!) large armchair in front of her fireplace, humming blandly to herself and trying to think of something. She wanted to do something useful with her day, but since her head was filled with fluff, it usually took quite a bit of pondering and deliberating for her to produce anything remotely resembling an idea. “Think, think, think . . .” she murmured softly, gently tapping the side of her head with her pointer finger. Suddenly, her reverie was interrupted by the chiming of her cuckoo clock, and her face brightened as her attention shifted to the intruding noise. “Oh! Ten chimes—that means that it’s time for . . . something . . . oh bother, I’ve forgotten again,” the doll pouted.