Editor’s note: The Dart is a weekly feature in which a reporter and a photographer throw a dart at a map and find a story where it lands.

VIDALIA — Pat Bivings has received many treasured items from her family in the last two decades including her cat, Mason, and a pink pickup truck, but now the Vidalia resident is looking to return the favor.

Bivings, 89, has started itemizing a collection of hundreds of dolls she’s purchased over the years or been given by her two daughters, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

The collection spans from dolls dating back to the 1800s to a Boss Hogg doll from the popular television show “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

When The Dart landed on the corner of Oak Street and Concordia Avenue Wednesday, Bivings had already started the process — in her head at least — of who would be getting which doll.

Leaving the dolls to her relatives, Bivings said, is just her way of making sure they stay in the family.

“My grandchildren began giving me dolls a long time ago, and it just sort of took off from there — at least I think that’s how it all started,” Bivings said, laughing. “So now I want to give them back to my family to keep after I’m gone.”

Bivings moved to Vidalia in 1954 from Nacogdoches, Texas, after her husband, Robert, got a job as a tool pusher on an oilrig.

The two knew little about Vidalia, but soon found it was a perfect place to call home.

“I can’t imagine living anywhere else now,” Bivings said. “This is home.”

After her husband died, Bivings received her first family present from her granddaughter, Melissa Randall, who had traveled from California with a four-legged friend on board the plane.

Randall only intended to leave the cat with her grandmother for one year, and Bivings agreed to look after Mason, even though she doesn’t see herself as a “cat person.”

Eight years later, Mason remains in Vidalia and has become an ideal companion for Bivings, despite a few quirky mannerisms the cat brought to her house.

“I call him ‘dog’ because that’s the only thing he responds to,” Bivings said, as she called out to Mason. “He’s a strange cat sometimes.”

Mason has a tendency to stay huddled around Bivings’ feet, she said, which is actually one of the things she enjoys about her furry companion.

“He’s a foot cat and usually gets mad if I even pick him up to move him off my feet,” Bivings said. “I like that about him, because you don’t see many cats that won’t jump up on your lap.”

Even when Bivings considered sending Mason back to California a few years ago, the price of a plane ticket for just him made the decision for him to stay final.

“It cost $300 for him to come here, but it would have been $500 to send him back,” Bivings said. “He’ll be here as long as I’m here.”

The trick to ensuring she and Mason stick around for a while, Bivings said, is staying active.

Bivings puts the advice she got from her doctor to use every Wednesday from 7 a.m. to noon when she goes to Natchez Community Hospital and volunteers her time.

“I do whatever they ask me to do,” Bivings said. “I like visiting with all the people there, and it just keeps me moving.”

While the hospital provides Bivings with a way to help others, it has also served as a wake-up call for Bivings to begin dividing her treasured dolls among her family members when she saw patients younger than her sometimes fighting for their lives.

“(The doll collection) has gotten a little out of hand,” Bivings said. “Some of my family has taken their picks, but everyone will get some of them no matter what.”