Big Guy does not play with dolls. They’re too girly-girl.

He instead plays with bears – but not babyish ones like the once-beloved Bear who got kicked to the curb after Big Guy’s kindergarten classmates laughed at him. He plays with manly man bears who wear camouflage or Army dress uniforms or flight  suits.

Once in a while, though, the manly man bears get a little rowdy, rollicking on the family room couch until the one doll allowed to inhabit the house gets hurt. When that happened the other day, Big Guy chivalrously came to her rescue. In doing so, he accidentally showed a glimpse of the good heart he too often hides beneath the bluff and bluster.

It came the afternoon of the 100th Day of School “event,” as Big Guy unloaded his treasures from his backpack. There were ribbons and a Fruit Loop necklace and a bag of 100 candies. There also was a $100 bill sticker on his shirt.

In the excitement of showing his haul to the battalion of bears, Ann got pushed to the floor.

Ann had been a source of controversy in the house this fall. In the old house she reclined on a dark, dusty corner of my dresser, where the relic from my childhood was easily overlooked. After we moved, though, Boots wanted her to join the family-room menagerie. Big Guy at first balked – “we don’t need any dollies here” – but agreed to drop the protest after hearing about how she’d been with me since I was 7.

That doesn’t mean he liked her. “Tolerated” would be more like it.

And now she was lying on the floor, legs splayed into two-thirds of a triangle. I reached to pick her up, but Big Guy’s hand got there first.

“Oh, Annie, what happened to you!” he asked in his best tone of sympathetic concern. “Did those bears knock  you down? Poor girl!”

He then lifted her gently into his embrace. Yes, Big Guy cuddled a doll. Please don’t tell anyone – I’d hate to ruin his reputation.

“Here, you can have my sticker,” he said, removing the $100 bill from his shirt and positioning it on Ann’s pinafore.

“Babes, you don’t have to do that,” I said. “I know you like your sticker.”

“I want Annie to have it. It will make her fell better,” he insisted.

Moments later, he shared his bag of candy with Boots.

The kid’s gonna be all right.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

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