There's been no one here since Christmas but the children in the town
They know I give them licorice while they take a look around
The young girls like the dresses women don't wear anymore
The little boys like soldier dolls dressed from the Civil War

And the red-haired girl with freckles, pigtails
And chocolate on her face
Wants to know why all the girl dolls' eyes and noses are the same
So I scratched my beard and smiled and lit my pipe
And then replied, "It's the dollmaker's secret..."

Once there was a little girl in a world of long ago
Who wore her mother's clothes up in her attic in the cold
And played with all her baby dolls in the mirror that she had
And I see her face in antique photographs beside my dad

Now, I've always been a loner--I've never had a wife
And these dolls have been my family and have been all my life
My eyes and nose look just like hers, the dolls' all look like mine
It's the dollmaker's secret

I've got to wash these windows, I've got to sweep these floors
For winter goes away and springtime comes to life once more
And another generation comes to see what I have got
Not knowing I love evermore the dolls they never bought
It's the dollmakerls secret...lt's the dollmaker's secret.

© 1985 by Chuck Hall