The place of honor at the foot of the tree had, for the last fifty years or so, belonged to Sadie Mackenzie, doll-maker extraordinaire, and alleged great granddaughter of the one who planted the tree. She had inherited the spot from her grandmother, all the better to enchant pretty young girls with her incomparable creations. It was said that Sadie’s dolls held places of honor in the nurseries and playrooms of royal palaces throughout the world. They were things of exquisite beauty, alarmingly life-like both to the eye and to the touch. How she made them was a closely guarded secret, passed down through the women in her family for generations.

It should come as no surprise, then, that on opening day of the festival, it was in front of Sadie’s booth that Clarissa Henson, age six, decided to throw the first of the many tantrums that would be thrown in front of Sadie’s booth by eager little girls over the coming week.