The Misadventures of Dollie

The Misadventures of Dollie, or

Poor Little Gypsy Girl

With 0 Apologies To D.W Griffith

Fuck You

Dollie

Mamma Illona

Pappa Elek

The Four White Women:

Bridget

Sarah

Millie

Connie

The Mailman, Mr. Garner

The Officer

The Deputy

The Volunteers

The Barge Captain

Waterford New York, 1908:

A small group of Roma have set up a camp in a cleared patch of woods.
There are maybe 6 or 7 covered wagons, scattered barrels and chests and bedrolls that have been recently unloaded from the carts.
Most of the wagons were pulled by mules or donkeys which are now loudly braying while grazing, with 1 or 2 horses being unhitched from the biggest carts.
Most of the animals are being groomed or fed by tall skinny men, while their wives have begun to do the laundry.


A handful of children are playing in the clearing, weaving deftly through the adults' work with minimal disturbance.
Two older teen boys are wrestling while a few of the younger, pubescent boys stand around them watching timidly.
Several other children are simply playing catch with an old, rough cloth ball, floppy and without bounce.
A couple younger kids are drawing in the soil, completely unconcerned with the state of their clothes and dirty little faces.


One of these girls, about 6, adorable, with long black hair pulled into 2 braids, her frock smeared in reddish mud, finishes a picture of a daisy that she had drawn with the handle of an old badminton racket.
This is our heroine Dollie.
Dollie's masterpiece finished, she gets bored and runs off a little ways into the woods, bouncing a rock on the racket.


In town, 4 wealthy white women are sitting pretty on a porch outside a large white colonial style house, drinking lemonade and gossiping.
The mailman approaches, friendly to the point of boldness, winking and flirting with the bored wives as he delivers their parcels and letters.
The wives know he's harmless and enjoy the attention.
It's a small town and people have got to find ways to entertain themselves.


"You all hear some gypsies came to town? Little camp of 'em about a mile down the road!"


"Oh! How exciting. We ought to go see them! Real life gypsies. So mysterious."


"So exotic! Perhaps we can get our fortunes read!"


"Oh! How wicked. We must."


The mailman's voice takes a more serious tone.


"I ain't sayin' you shouldn't do that. But I ain't sayin' you should. Gypsies are a tricky lot. It could be dangerous and you mayhaps better to wait and go visit our new guests with your husbands. Don't wanna get caught unawares, a bunch of pretty women like you lot. They's liable to see your jewelry, these lovely bracelets and earrings, and for you to never see 'em again. They's notorious. Gone by the 'morrow without so much as a footprint or broken twig."


Nonetheless, the women cannot be dissuaded from going to see the gypsies.
If anything, the danger galvanizes them, and they know that if they wait for their husbands' permissions, there is significant risk the menfolk say no, or worse, that the nomads would be gone before they get to see them.
Finally the mailman acquiesces on the condition he chaperon the ladies.


Back at the Roma camp, a wiry woman wearing a baggy shirt and trousers and a red bandanna to pull her hair back has finished hanging the last of the laundry.
She walks over to her husband, a similarly skinny man wearing overalls and a floppy hat, who's brushing a donkey and chatting into its twitching ears.


"My dear, have you seen Dollie?"
"Ain't she with the kids?"
"She ain't; that's why I asked."
"Well damn it. She's prolly in the woods then. Don't you be worried about it, Dollie's a good girl. She don't wander too far."
"I ain't worried. I just wanna let her know dinner's ready. I'll go yell for her. Stew's been simmerin' for a couple hours now."


Dollie's mother walks towards the woods with a small lantern, calling out for her daughter.

Dollie has wandered just out of sight of the camp.
Skipping along, balancing the rock on the racket, paying her surroundings little mind, she suddenly finds herself tumbling down a steep embankment.
At the bottom, dazed but thankfully not seriously harmed, Dollie surveys the damage.
It consists of a hopelessly broken badminton racket, a small cherry red scrape on her elbow, and a rip in her frock, which she knows carries the harshest consequences from her mamma for having to darn it again so soon.
But, as a 6 year old girl, Dollie has a quite unflappable sense of spirit, and almost as soon as she's stood again, she picks up the dangerously splintered wooden racket and waves it around wildly, enjoying the whistle of its now mangled strings.
With her prize recovered, she turns to scramble back up the embankment.


At the top she finds Mamma, along with 4 pretty white women and an ugly mustachioed man.
Mamma looks very tense.
The women are talking to her, familiar and overly friendly, but she is quiet and reserved.


"Mamma!"
"Oh thank goodness Dollie, there you are!"
"Who are these people?"
"Never mind them my pearl. Go back to Pappa and have some supper."


"Oh! What a darling little puppet!"
One of the women squeals and grabs Dollie by the cheeks, pinching them red.
Dollie screams and smacks the woman's hand away from her face.


"Oh! Brat! You have no manners!"
"This poor filthy creature. Clearly this gypsy gang is no place for her. Imagine how lovely she'd be if she had a proper upbringing."
"Truly, even with her black hair and swarthy skin. You could be a respectable young girl if we saved you from these horrid people."


The woman who said this has her face too close to Dollie's and her breath stinks like sour sugar.


"She does look a bit like a mulatto but otherwise she's quite pretty. Imagine if she got proper schooling. Imagine if she got proper dress."


The mailman is clearly out of his depth and stands back cautiously, not sure whether to intervene but aware of the potential for this situation to escalate into violence.
One of the women grabs Dollie by the arm.


"Oh! Please Miss! Let us buy her from you. She's clearly all skin and bones! Unsafe and unwell under your care! This life of poverty and misery is no place for a girl like this, surely you can see that!"


"Elek! Help me!" Mamma screams, punching the woman in the face automatically, unconsciously.


The white woman is knocked off her feet and crumples on the ground, her nose pouring blood.
The mailman rushes forward and restrains Mamma brusquely to prevent her from further beating the prone woman.
Elek comes running along with a small mob of other men who heard the commotion.
In a panic the other 3 women pick up Dollie and run off with her struggling and screaming in their arms.
Pappa begins to beat the mailman until he lets go of Illona.
The other Roma men are holding various tools as makeshift weapons to keep the women at bay.
They're terrified, despite the brazen theft of a child, knowing that as Gypsies their presence in this town puts them at a disadvantage.
It may already be too late for Illona and Elek and their daughter.
Violence against whites is a cardinal sin.
Bloodying the face of a pretty, wealthy white woman usually gets you hanged.
You're lucky if you get a day in court first.


They don't chase the women fleeing with Dollie, but they don't stop Pappa as he gets up off the mailman and begins to run after them.


The 3 vwomen have already made it to the small main road leading into town.
They are hysterical, screaming and wailing as they run.
A small crowd gathers in horror, including a police officer, already armed with a shotgun.


"The gypsies have killed Bridget! They have murdered our poor dear Bridget! And Mr. Garner too!"
"We went to visit, to be friendly, to welcome our new neighbors! We wanted to be good Christians!"
"We went in good faith and good conscience, and yet when we arrived they were behaving absolutely monstrously. We saw them being absolutely horrid to this poor, dirty little gypsy girl, and when we tried to save her, they fell upon Bridget and Mr. Garner like animals and savagely beat them dead! I'm afraid they will overrun the town!"


Elek bursts from the woods, screaming "give me back my daughter!"
The officer levels his shotgun.
Pappa freezes, pleading silently with his eyes.
Dollie meets his gaze; both are crying.


"Wait! Don't kill the devil!"


Bridget and the mailman stumble out of the woods, a little bruised and dirty and breathless, but essentially fine.
The officer quizzically looks at the 3 women and lowers his shotgun.
Truthfully, he doesn't want the gypsies around, but even less does he want to deal with a riot or a lynch mob.
He doesn't have the stomach for that level of violence in his sleepy town.


"There was a misunderstanding. That's all. Just make them leave. Don't hurt anyone. You can see we're fine.


The women, the crowd, Dollie and Pappa are all frozen with expectation.
The officer sighs.


"Fine. You lot have until the morning to get your dirty asses out of my town, and there will be no more trouble. I don't want to be mopping up gypsy blood anyway."


He gestures at Elek to run along.


Elek doesn't move.


"Come on Dollie. Let us go."

The oldest of the 3 women protectively pushes Dollie behind her back, and the officer tuts.


"Uh uh. The girl is better off with us. She's young enough that her soul might still be saved. Count yourself lucky she didn't have to watch her daddy die today. Your Dollie is gonna be a safe, happy, fat, educated, proper Christian. You'll come to realize this is best for her."


Pappa is dumbstruck, but the officer's gun is pointed at his chest again, so he is forced to leave his daughter with the whites and return to camp.


The youngest of the women, Millie, is the schoolteacher, and has the best manner with children, so after a brief emergency town meeting, the mayor decides to grant temporary custody of Dollie to her.


"We'll put her on the barge to Albany tomorrow. There's a big orphanage run by the Reformed church there. They've got more resources than our little town. They can get her put into a school. Just keep her warm and safe and fed tonight and she'll be safely gone tomorrow."


Millie puts Dollie in a spare room with a bed and some porridge and locks the door.
This is not done easily and she enlists help from her husband to restrain the struggling girl.
Dollie does not eat the food or get into the bed.
She screams the entire night, howling her parents names repeatedly until the sun begins to rise.
Millie and her husband do not get any sleep.


Neither do Elek nor Illona.
In fact, the whole Roma camp is awake and tensely sitting around a fire.
They have already packed up and can leave in a moment's notice, such is the nomadic life.


"We're lucky you didn't start a war." one old man says.
"By all rights they could've killed the lot of us."


Elek and Illona are in tears, begging any of the others to help them.


"Think of your own children. Would you simply abandon them?"
"No, of course not. We are thinking of our children. That is why we must leave. You two can do what you need to to bring her back, and we'll welcome you when you safely return, but there's not much that can be done."


"They don't actually want this dirty little gypsy girl. I'm certain they're planning to send her to an orphanage in the city, probably within a week. Waterford is barely a town. They have no infrastructure, and certainly those women who kidnapped her don't want the responsibility of a child thrust upon them. Especially a non-white child."


"I'm young. I'm still not married; I have no children. I can help you."


"As can I."


Ultimately, 3 men and a woman agree to help Illona and Elek recover their daughter.


The old man, the de facto leader of the group, sighs. "We're heading north in the morning, around 5AM, away from Albany. We're going to stay to side roads and draw as little attention as possible. The six of you can attempt your rescue, and you'll know where to find us after. Please, be careful. And if this doesn't work, god-willing we'll make our way to Albany and buy her back from whatever orphanage they put her in by the end of the year. We haven't given up."


It is about 1.30AM when the camp finally goes to sleep, except for Mamma and Pappa.
Around 4.30AM they and their posse sneak up to the edge of Waterford and wait, just out of sight of the main road.
They have no idea where Dollie is being kept, but they know she'll have to pass by this spot to get to the river barge, or to get to the major road south if they go by land to Albany.
Their intuition that Dollie would be shipped out is correct, as around 6AM, while the men of the town go to make sure the gypsy camp is cleared, a miserable, exhausted looking white woman walks down the street with her husband and the officer and Dollie, still screaming, being carried over the officer's shoulder like a sack.


Their hearts break as they hear their daughter cry, but they wait, knowing that nothing can be done until she's away from the town.
The officer is armed, and has 1 other armed deputy with him.
They must suspect the gypsies will try something.


Waterford is right on the Hudson so they arrive at the barge in no time.


"Thank you for your hospitality, Millie. We all appreciate your kind and generous heart." the Officer sighs as he boards and hands off Dollie to his deputy.


"I won't miss the demon." Millie hisses. "It's too late for her; she's already too gypsy to be tamed. Be careful, she might bite you. Rotten little teeth liable to give you gangrene."


The deputy flinches at this remark.
The officer sighs again as the barge captain pushes off and the little boat chugs away from the dock.


The Hudson is slow today and the boat stays close to the shore.
This is good for Dollie's parents, as there will be another stop or 2 before Albany, and other than the officer and his deputy, the barge is mostly empty and will likely remain so.
Unfortunately their guns are the biggest complication.


"There's six of us. Do we risk rushing them at the next stop? Do we try to sneakily swim aboard? Do we just throw ourselves on their mercy and beg for her back?" the youngest volunteer asks Elek.


"Rushing them will almost certainly get us shot, or at best, imprisoned." Elek says. "And that's a steamboat, so swimming is almost certainly out of the question. The officer doesn't seem too keen on this whole situation, so maybe we can beg him, but if that fails then there's no other hope."


Illona perks up. "We can try both. I'm a strong swimmer and that's a small barge. It should be pretty easy to climb up onto the deck while it's docked at the next stop. I can do that while you go talk to the officer, and if he lets you take her, good, and if not, I can more stealthily spirit her away while you have him distracted."


From the shore they can see the boat pretty clearly while making sure to remain out of sight themselves.
They could see that the officer stood on the deck scanning the shore from the railing, while the deputy sat apprehensively at the back of the barge with the uncooperative Dollie by some empty barrels.
Otherwise the boat was nearly empty.


As the ferry pulled into the stop, 5 Roma stood boldly on the dock, holding a motley variety of tools and knives.
The officer tensely pointed his shotgun in their general direction.
"We don't want violence!" Elek yelled.
"Then why did you bring weapons?"
"Because we're prepared to fight if we must."
"I've got a gun."
"And so does your deputy. That's two of us shot before we swarm you and beat you to death. And that's if you don't miss. How's your shot, officer? How's your deputy's shot? We're not afraid to die, officer. Are you? You stole our girl. We're getting her back"


The skeleton crew of the barge take cover, not having been informed that violence was impending.
The officer wavers for only a second.
His face hardens.


He screams, "No! You mongrels won't strong-arm me! We won't kowtow to animals!"


He fires.
Elek is on the ground groaning, dark blood staining his shirt at the hip.
Time moves in slow-motion as the other Roma begin to charge the boat.
The officer, wild-eyed and panicking, pumps his shotgun futilely while screaming with a hoarse roar for his deputy to "keep them from the girl at all costs."
He doesn't have time to reload before he's on the ground being beaten to a pulp by a barrage of old tools.
The crew continue to cower, utterly frozen.
The deputy, deranged with panic, picks up Dollie and pries the lid off one of the large wooden barrels.
He violently stuffs the girl inside and pushes the lid back down on her head, then unceremoniously sits on it.


It's at this moment, hastened by the gunshots, with the brawl her cue, that Illona emerges dripping from the back rail of the barge, climbing swiftly up onto the deck.
She catches the deputy off guard and wrestles his shotgun away from him, discharging it into the wooden deck recklessly and throwing it into the water.
Dollie is kicking at the lid of the barrel, trying to get out, screaming "Mamma!"
Before Mamma can react, the crazed deputy throws his weight shoulder-first into the barrel, sending it hurtling over the railing and into the water.


"No!" she lets out a guttural wail and dives back into the Hudson after Dollie.
Thankfully the current is not moving too fast, and the barrel has only drifted about 30 feet from the barge.
Mamma swims to the bouncing, shifting barrel and to her horror realizes the lid is currently submerged.
She holds her breath and swims down, frantically kicking and clawing at the lid.
The wood is slick with water and hard to grip.
Illona is enraged and wrestling with the cask like a frenzied bear, dipping in and out of the water with her legs wrapped around and her arms straining against the oak, panting desperately every time her face emerges from the river for a second.
Finally she hears a faint "Mamma, help me..." and with a last gust of energy, rips the lid off the barrel.
Water pours in and drenches the bruised, terrified girl, but Mamma already has her arms around Dollie and kicks off the barrel towards the shore, swimming relentlessly despite her exhaustion.


Meanwhile, Elek has regained consciousness.
He is in immense pain and bleeding, but the high gauge birdshot has relatively superficially dug itself into his hip.
He can barely stand and his breath is weak, but a surge of adrenaline pushes him to his feet and he staggers onto the boat.


"Stop. Don't kill him. We can't afford to be hunted as murderers. We're already bandits to bystanders."


The other Roma stop beating the officer, unconscious and bloodied but still breathing weakly, and rush to Elek's side.


"I'm fine. I'll be fine. Gonna be hard to walk, but I'll manage. Where's Illona? Where's Dollie? I didn't see what happened."


"I'm not sure..." begins the other woman, but is cut off by the distant shouting of Illona from the shore.
"We're here! We're safe."


Elek moans gratefully and painfully turns around to limp off the boat, held up by the youngest man.


"Wait!"


It's the timid captain of the barge.
The other Roma tensely reach for their weapons.


"Nevermind. Go. The lot of you. Make yourselves scarce. When the police come I'll tell them the truth, that these men kidnapped a gypsy girl and initiated the violence. I can promise it won't help much, but it might give enough pause to keep you from being active fugitives. You probably shouldn't stay in New York, however. Not for a while."


Needing no further invitation, they leave the barge behind and gather on the shore where the soaking Illona holds her daughter in a vice grip.
Other than being thoroughly drenched and a little bruised, Dollie is completely fine.
Through shivers and chattering teeth she cries out "Pappa!"
Elek falls upon his wife and daughter with endless kisses, interrupted only briefly by winces of pain.


"We need to go now, get as far away as quickly as possible. Can you keep moving, Elek?" says the oldest volunteer tersely.
"I think so. I have to. We're gypsies. We always keep moving. When isn't it hard? When isn't it painful? This little scar is nothing new. We'll keep moving regardless."


Illona lifts Dollie into her arms and caresses her, with Elek holding heavily onto her arm as he limps away from the shore.
The other Roma move in protectively around the bruised family.
All together, they quickly and cautiously walk into the woods.