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“Pink if you have. It’s Anna’s favorite.”

“We have all colors. What of the eyes?”

“Blue.”

“Hair?”

“Blonde.”

I wrote it all down.

“Your father’s dolls were so charming,” Mrs. Sundberg said, watching me scribble. “My Katarina still has hers, and she’ll be twenty next year.”

I heard the hidden contempt in her compliment, poorly concealed beneath that honey-dripping sweetness in her tone. My dolls were equally charming because I had been Father’s apprentice, but Mrs. Sundberg’s disdain wasn’t really aimed at my skill but rather the parts beneath my clothes which she ought not concern herself with. That and my insistence on running Father’s shop without a husband to tell me what to do. Whether it was envy or some sort of true concern, I never could tell.

We agreed on a price and a date, and I bid Mrs. Sundberg a pleasant afternoon, taking a deep breath, letting the vexation go as the door shut behind her. I shouldn’t let it bother me anymore.

Helena rolled her eyes when I returned to the workshop. “Another one eager for you to walk down the aisle in a gown. They never can keep their meddling mouths shut, can they?”

“Mrs. Sundberg’s always like that.”

Helena stuck the needle into the white cotton. “It’s like an obsession with these old bats. They want all of us to suffer some drunken fool because they have to.”

I walked to the crate in the corner, rubbing my hands together. The store was without an oven, and it had been cold in there, but now I needed my fingers lithe. Might as well get going on Anna’s doll, have her out of the way so I could begin the Christmas production in earnest. I made my careful selection—a block for her face, one for her body, two for each arm, two for each leg. I found some in the right sizes—spruce this time because that was the cheapest. Mrs. Sundberg was stingy, although I could hardly blame her for that with five children and more than twice as many grandchildren. It came to quite a lot of presents each year.

I had just brought the wood to my worktable when the bell rang again. This time it was Mr. Wahlgren with an order for a ship for his nephew. I had just put my gouge to the block that was to become the doll’s head when the bell rang a third time. Mrs. Quist asking for one of those fat pigs with the curly tails.

Back in the workshop, I sat down at my bench, releasing what felt like the seventh sigh since getting up this morning. They were queuing in my chest today, it seemed. Selander’s Toys was as popular as it had ever been when my father had been alive, and I should be grateful for that. And I was. It meant I was carrying on his legacy and that had always been my dream. It was only that I preferred my workbench a hundred-fold over the ledger and the chitchat, but I couldn’t leave the storefront to Helena because she already had plenty to do with the household and the dolls’ clothes.

No doubt reading the frustration on my face as plainly as the page in a book, Helena said, “Hire someone for the shop. You can afford it.”

“Help isn’t cheap.”

“No, but we can do it. If we offer the guest room as part of the wage, we won’t have to pay as much. It’ll give you the chance to make more toys. We won’t need to turn people away like we did last year because our shelves were empty. Our profit will be the greater for it.”

Helena knew the shop finances as well as I did because she helped me with adding the numbers. I was decent at arithmetic, but it never hurt to have a second pair of eyes on it.

“I don’t know,” I said because Father had always done his own sales.

Helena pulled the needle back out of the fabric, although from the way she pushed her lips together, I knew she had more to say. Her next argument fell from her mouth a moment later. “If you ask me,” she said, “it’s a waste of your talent, Selma, standing out there and chatting with half of Norstad when your skill’s talking to wood.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. She made some excellent points, she did. And perhaps we could try it? Just for the holiday season, of course. See what sort of income three people could earn.

“All right,” I said. “You get your way. I’ll look for help, but you’ll have to cook for three then.”

She shrugged. “It’s just another couple of turnips and an extra slice of ham. Easy.”

“Easy when you hardly cook in the first place.” Most nights we ended up eating next door. Karin, my uncle’s housekeeper, made a considerably better stew than Helena.

She tutted and waggled her fingers toward the door. “Go do it then. Put a sign in the window.”

I stood and, with some grumbling about me surely still being the boss, I went back out to the store. Below the counter, I found a box that had held cans of paint. I tore it up so I had a flat piece. Dipping the pen in ink, I wrote, Help wanted. Woman to serve customers. Wages include room and board. Inquire within. I blew carefully at the words until I judged the ink to be dry, and by the shop’s window, I leaned the sign against the glass in the lower corner. There. Noticeable by anyone who walked by.

The rain had stopped again, and the wet cobbles glistened dully in the dwindling afternoon light. My uncle and Alma were coming up the street, both of them carrying a box in their arms. A railway porter ambled behind carrying a third box. Their trip had been a fruitful one.

I knocked on the glass to draw their attention. My uncle gave me a nod in lieu of a wave while Alma’s eyes widened when she saw my sign. She raised her eyebrows at me behind her father’s back, and I didn’t blame her. She knew me as a stubborn creature of habit.

I spent a few moments adjusting the display in the window, adding a black stallion from a shelf to a group of horses, then switching the train and the galleon. Probably I would never sell the miniature warship because the price was high and Norstad now a town for the rich, but with all its little carvings and intricate rigging, it was one of my proudest achievements, and it served to show off my skill to any passersby.