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Title: Pretty Polly Perkins
Author: Ethel Calvert Phillips
Illustrator: Edith F. Butler
Release date: August 2, 2024 [eBook #74175]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925
Credits: Susan E., David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY POLLY PERKINS ***
[Illustration: GRANDMOTHER PLACED HER IN PATTY’S ARMS (_page 9_)]
Pretty
Polly Perkins
BY
ETHEL CALVERT PHILLIPS
_Illustrated by_
EDITH F. BUTLER
[Illustration]
_Boston and New York_
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1925
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ETHEL CALVERT PHILLIPS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
TO
DR. GORDON KIMBALL DICKINSON
MY FATHER’S FRIEND AND MINE
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
I. HOW POLLY PERKINS WAS MADE 1
II. WHERE IS POLLY PERKINS? 12
III. POLLY PERKINS GOES ON A JOURNEY 25
IV. WHAT ANNE MARIE SAW FROM THE WINDOW 38
V. OUT IN THE SNOW 49
VI. WEE AILIE MCNABB 59
VII. THREE LITTLE GIRLS AND POLLY PERKINS 68
VIII. GRANDMOTHER KING’S CHRISTMAS PARTY 78
IX. ANNE MARIE AND THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL 90
X. WHAT SANTA CLAUS BROUGHT TO AILIE MCNABB 103
XI. THE VERY BEST CHRISTMAS OF ALL 112
PRETTY POLLY PERKINS
∵
CHAPTER I
HOW POLLY PERKINS WAS MADE
Polly Perkins was a big rag doll, the prettiest, the softest, the most
comfortable rag doll that ever belonged to a little girl.
Grandmother King made her for Patty, who was five years old and
visiting Grandmother at the time, and this is just how it all happened.
In the first place, Patty fell downstairs. She was on her way to the
kitchen where Grandmother was baking a cake, and in her arms she
carried Isabel, the doll she loved the very best of all. Indeed, Isabel
was the only doll that Patty had brought with her from home. She was
a china dolly, with pretty golden curls and blue eyes that opened and
shut, and she wore a blue dress with pockets, very much like one of
Patty’s own.
Now, as I said, Patty was on her way downstairs with Isabel in her arms
when suddenly she tripped and fell. Down the whole flight of stairs she
went, bumping on every single step, it seemed, and landed in a little
heap at the foot of the stairs.
Grandmother heard the sound of the fall, and came hurrying out of the
kitchen with a cup full of sugar in one hand and a big spoon in the
other.
‘My precious Patty! Are you hurt?’ cried Grandmother, picking Patty up
and rubbing her back and rocking her to and fro all at the same time.
When Patty could stop crying, she shook her head.
‘No,’ she said, with a little sniff, ‘I think I am not hurt. But where
is Isabel?’
Oh, poor Isabel! She lay over by the front door, her head broken into a
hundred pieces!
At first Patty couldn’t believe her eyes. Isabel broken! Then whom
would Patty play with? Whom would she dress and undress and take out
for a walk every day? Who would lie beside her on the bed at night
while Grandmother was reading by the lamp downstairs and Patty felt the
need of some one to keep her company just before she fell asleep?
Isabel broken to pieces!
Then Patty did cry.
‘My dolly! My dolly!’ she wailed. ‘My dolly is broken! My dolly!’
She struggled out of Grandmother’s arms to the floor, and there,
sobbing and crying as loud as ever she could, she danced up and down.
She felt so badly she simply couldn’t stand still.
At first Grandmother didn’t say a word. Very carefully she picked up
all that was left of Isabel. Then she took Patty by the hand.
‘Patty,’ said Grandmother firmly, ‘stop crying and stand still.’
Patty was so surprised to hear Grandmother speak in this way that she
did stop crying and stood still.
‘Patty,’ went on Grandmother cheerfully--so cheerfully that Patty
couldn’t help listening to what Grandmother had to say--‘Patty, we are
going to find a box and put Isabel in it. Then we will send her home
to Mother, who will buy a new head for her, I know. We will play that
Isabel has been in an accident and that she has gone down South to be
cured. That is what Mother did last winter when she was so ill, you
remember.’
Patty nodded slowly. Perhaps Isabel could be cured, after all.
‘But whom will I play with while she is gone?’ asked Patty with a
quiver in her voice. ‘I don’t like Darky. He scratches and spits.’
Darky was a black barn cat who lived next door to Grandmother, and it
is quite true that he was not a pleasant playmate for a little girl.
‘There is no one for me to play with but you, Grandmother,’ finished
Patty, two plump tears rolling down her cheeks as she thought how
lonely she would be now without Isabel.
For a moment Grandmother stood without speaking. She was thinking, her
foot softly tapping the floor as Grandmother often did, Patty knew,
when she was making up her mind.
Then Grandmother spoke.
‘Patty, I am going to make you a doll,’ said Grandmother, ‘an
old-fashioned rag doll such as I used to make for your mother years
ago. She always loved hers dearly, and I expect you will, too. And the
best of such a doll is that it can never be broken.’
While Grandmother was speaking, Patty’s face grew brighter and
brighter, until, as Grandmother finished, she really looked her own
merry little self once more.
‘To-day?’ cried Patty hopping up and down, but this time for joy. ‘Will
you make her to-day, Grandmother? To-day?’
‘This very day,’ answered Grandmother, picking up her cup of sugar and
big spoon from the corner where she had hastily set them down when
Patty fell. ‘First, I will finish my cake, and then you and I will go
out shopping to buy what we need to make the new doll.’
So a little later Patty and Grandmother, hand in hand, went down the
road and round the corner to Mr. Johns’ store, where you could buy
almost anything in the world, Patty really believed.
It was the only store in Four Corners, the little village where
Grandmother lived, and so of course it kept everything that anybody
in Four Corners might want to buy. On one side of the store were rows
of bright tin pails, and lawnmowers, and shovels, and rakes, and a
case of sharp knives, and a great saw, too, big enough to cut down the
largest tree that ever grew. On the other side were dresses and aprons,
a hat or two, gay-colored material and plain white, ribbons and laces,
needles and pins. There were boxes of soap and boxes of crackers and
boxes of matches. There were shelves filled with cans and packages of
all shapes and sizes. There was a case full of toys, and a case full
of candies, too, where Patty had been known to spend a penny now
and then. There were great barrels standing about, and rolls of wire
netting, and coils of rope. And on the counter there sat a plump gray
cat, who blinked sleepily at Grandmother and Patty as they came in and
opened his mouth in a wide yawn.
When Mr. Johns heard what Grandmother was going to make--for Patty
told him just as soon as Grandmother had inquired for Mrs. Johns’
rheumatism--he was as interested in the new dolly as Grandmother or
Patty herself.
He measured off the muslin with a snap of his bright shears. He whisked
out a great roll of cotton batting with a flourish. He helped Patty
decide between pink and blue gingham for a dress. She chose pink. And
last of all it was Mr. Johns who said,
‘What are you going to put on the dolly for hair?’
Patty looked at Grandmother and Grandmother looked at Patty.
‘I hadn’t thought yet about hair,’ began Grandmother slowly, when Mr.
Johns disappeared beneath the counter.
Patty could hear him pulling and tumbling boxes about, and at last up
came Mr. Johns from under the counter with his face very red, indeed,
and a smudge of dust on his cheek, but holding in his hand a little
brown curly wig.
‘Will that do?’ asked Mr. Johns, smiling proudly at his surprised
customers. ‘I knew I had a little wig somewhere, if only I could put my
hand on it. It has been lying around here for two years or more.’
Two years old or not, the little brown wig was as good as new, and
Patty was so anxious to have the dolly made and to see how the wig
would look on her head that she pulled at Grandmother’s hand all the
way home and couldn’t help wishing that Grandmother would walk faster
or perhaps even run, instead of stopping to chat with her neighbors on
the way.
It took a day or two to make the dolly, although Grandmother’s nimble
fingers flew. And one night, after Patty had gone to bed, busy Uncle
Charles drove down from the Farm and painted the dolly’s face, a pretty
face, with rosy cheeks and gentle dark-brown eyes that Patty thought
the loveliest she had ever seen.
At last the dolly was finished, and in her gay pink dress, with her
soft brown curls that matched her brown eyes, Grandmother placed her in
Patty’s outstretched arms.
‘I am so happy,’ said Patty, her face aglow, ‘I am so happy that I
don’t know what to do.’
So, standing on tiptoe, Patty first kissed Grandmother and then the
dolly and then Grandmother again. And perhaps, after all, that was the
very best thing that she could do. Grandmother seemed to think so, at
any rate.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ said Patty next, holding the dolly out at arm’s
length the better to see and admire. ‘Her curls are beautiful, and so
are her eyes, and her dress, and her cunning little brown shoes. What
shall I name her, Grandmother? Don’t you think she is beautiful? Isn’t
she the most beautiful dolly that you have ever seen?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ answered Grandmother, smiling to see Patty’s pleasure.
‘She is as beautiful as a butterfly.’
And, to Patty’s further delight, Grandmother began to sing a little
song:
‘She’s as beautiful as a butterfly,
And none can compare
With pretty little Polly Perkins,
Of Abingdon Square.’
Patty clapped her hands and spun round for a moment like a top.
‘Sing it again, sing it again,’ she cried.
So Grandmother obligingly sang her little song again.
And the moment it was ended, Patty, her cheeks as pink as the dolly’s
and her eyes quite as round and bright, exclaimed,
‘That is my dolly’s name--Polly Perkins! Pretty Polly Perkins! Don’t
you think that is a good name for her, Grandmother? Don’t you think
Polly Perkins is a good name for my new dolly to have?’
‘A very good name, indeed,’ was Grandmother’s reply. ‘She looks like a
Polly to me.’
‘She looks like a Polly to me, too,’ agreed Patty happily, ‘a Polly
Perkins.’
And hugging Polly Perkins close, Patty whispered in her ear.
‘If Isabel is cured,’ whispered Patty to Polly, ‘I shall be glad that I
fell downstairs. Because if I hadn’t fallen, I never would have known
you. Wouldn’t you be sorry, Polly Perkins, if you had never known me?’
Patty put her ear close to Polly’s red lips to hear her answer, and she
was not disappointed.
‘Yes,’ whispered back Polly Perkins, ‘I would.’
CHAPTER II
WHERE IS POLLY PERKINS?
Aunt Mary had come down from the Farm to spend the day with Grandmother
and with Patty. She had really come to say good-bye, for to-morrow
Grandmother’s house at Four Corners would be closed and she and Patty
would start for the city, where Grandmother was to spend the winter at
Patty’s home.
Aunt Mary had brought presents with her from the Farm, presents that
were neatly packed in boxes ready to be placed in Grandmother’s big
black trunk.
There was a box of home-made sausages, such as you couldn’t buy in
the city no matter how hard you tried. There was a loaf of Father’s
favorite cake, ‘raised’ cake it was called, covered over with snowy
icing and full of raisins, as Patty well knew. There were two squash
pies for Mother, packed so carefully that they couldn’t possibly be
broken. Last of all there was a present for Patty that did not have to
be packed in a box because it was an apron, a pretty blue pinafore that
covered Patty from top to toe, and that had two pockets large enough to
hold a handkerchief or a ball or anything else that Patty might choose
to put in them. And on each pocket Aunt Mary had embroidered a tiny
bunch of orange and yellow and brown flowers.
Patty was delighted with her present.
‘The little flowers look as real as real can be,’ she declared, patting
and sniffing the flowers and patting the pockets again. ‘I think they
smell sweet, Aunt Mary. I truly think they do.’
Very carefully Patty placed her pinafore in Grandmother’s trunk, and
ran to fetch Polly Perkins to show her to Aunt Mary.
‘Uncle Charles painted her. Did he tell you?’ asked Patty, dancing
Polly up and down before Aunt Mary until the dolly’s brown curls flew.
‘Isn’t she beautiful, Aunt Mary? Hasn’t she the prettiest eyes, and
doesn’t her mouth look smiling? I can brush and brush her hair, too,
all I like, and it curls right up again. Isn’t her dress pretty? How I
wish she had pockets like my new apron! She would be just perfect if
she had pockets on her dress, Aunt Mary.’
‘Run and ask Grandmother for a bit of this pink gingham,’ said
good-natured Aunt Mary, ‘and I will make the pockets for you while we
all sit here and talk.’
Grandmother shook her head and said that Patty would be spoiled if
Aunt Mary were not careful. But she gave Patty the gingham, and a
moment later Aunt Mary was measuring and cutting the pockets for Polly
Perkins’s dress.
‘Would you like a bunch of flowers or a little rabbit embroidered on
each pocket?’ asked Aunt Mary, who was so skillful with her needle that
nothing seemed too hard for her to do.
Patty thought for a moment.
‘A rabbit, I think,’ she began slowly.
Then suddenly she spun round on the tips of her toes.
‘I have thought of something, Aunt Mary!’ cried Patty, smiling a wise
little smile. ‘I have thought of something so nice. Could you sew
Polly’s name on her pockets--Polly on one pocket and Perkins on the
other? Could you do that, Aunt Mary, do you think?’
Yes, Aunt Mary thought that she could.
‘Here is some green thread in Grandmother’s basket,’ said she. ‘It will
be pretty if I embroider her name in green on the pink dress, don’t you
think?’
Patty thought it would be beautiful, and said so. She stood close
beside Aunt Mary and watched her take the first stitches in Polly
Perkins’s name.
Just at that moment who should drive up to the house but the expressman
come for Grandmother’s trunk hours before he had been expected. And
then such a hurry and bustle to crowd the last odds and ends into the
trunk and to lock it and to strap it, all in the twinkling of an eye.
But at last it was done, and away went the trunk, bumping down the
porch steps on the expressman’s back, bumping into the wagon, and
bumping off down the road, round the corner, and out of sight.
And then, and not until then, it was discovered that Polly Perkins,
pockets and all, had been left behind. There she lay in Aunt Mary’s
chair where she had been tossed when the expressman came.
‘Now I can carry her home myself to-morrow,’ said Patty, delighted with
this turn of affairs. ‘I can carry her all the way in my arms, can’t I,
Grandmother? Do say that I may!’
‘Yes, I suppose that you may,’ answered Grandmother, who did not look
so pleased with the plan as did Patty. ‘I am afraid there will not be
any room for her in my bag.’
Aunt Mary worked away until the pockets were finished, and when Patty
looked at her dolly in her gay pink frock, with a green ‘Polly’ on one
pocket and a green ‘Perkins’ on the other, she thought she had never
seen anything so pretty in all her life.
Uncle Charles came to supper and to take Aunt Mary home, and, before he
was inside the door, Patty was all ready to whisper in his ear and to
give him three kisses, one on each cheek and one on his chin.
‘I think you paint the loveliest dollies in the world,’ whispered
Patty in Uncle Charles’s ear. ‘And that is why my dolly is named Polly
Perkins. Because she is as beautiful as a butterfly. Grandmother
said so. And I am going to carry her all the way home in my arms.
Grandmother said that, too.’
But the next morning when Patty woke the rain was pouring down, and
there was no question, in Grandmother’s mind, at least, about Patty
carrying Polly Perkins in her arms.
‘We will send your dolly home in a box by express,’ decided
Grandmother. ‘You wouldn’t enjoy carrying her in the rain, I know.’
‘She might catch cold,’ agreed Patty, ‘for she hasn’t any coat. That is
the way Isabel went home, in a box, and I expect she enjoyed it, too.’
So Polly was wrapped in a pink-and-blue tufted coverlet, that was to
have been used as a traveling-rug, and carefully placed in a large
pasteboard box.
‘Be a good girl,’ whispered Patty, tenderly kissing Polly good-bye on
her rosy mouth.
Then she watched Grandmother wrap the box in heavy paper and tie it
with stout brown twine.
‘I will have my hands full with a bag and an umbrella and a child,’
said Grandmother to Uncle Charles, who had come to take them down to
the train. ‘I can’t think of allowing Patty to carry her doll. I have
packed it in a box and addressed it to Patty’s mother, and I want you
to leave it at the express office as you go home, Charles, if it won’t
be too far out of your way.’
Uncle Charles promised to send Polly Perkins along that very day. So,
with a farewell pat on the outside of the box that held her dolly,
Patty and Grandmother started on their journey in the rain.
It was fun traveling in the rain, Patty thought. She liked to see the
people bustling along in the wet. She liked to watch the dripping
umbrellas bob in and out of the stations that they passed. She liked
the muddy and almost empty roads, with only now and then a procession
of ducks waddling along, or a lonely dog trotting by, or a farmer
driving into town with perhaps a colt tied at the back of his cart.
As they drew near to the big city, Patty peered out of the misty
window-pane over which ran rivulets of raindrops so thick and fast that
the tall houses could scarcely be seen and the street-lamps looked like
cloudy little suns dotting the way.
‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Patty for at least the hundredth time.
And at last Grandmother could answer, ‘Yes, Patty, we are. In five
minutes more you will see Father, I hope.’
Grandmother was right. As the train drew into the station and men in
little red caps, who wanted to carry your bag, Patty knew, came running
down the platform, there on the platform, too, stood Father, and a
second later Patty was in his arms.
Through the rain they rode home to Mother, waiting for them in the
large white apartment house where Patty lived.
There were many houses on the long city street--tall white apartments,
low red-brick houses, then tall white apartments again. Patty pressed
her nose against the window of the cab, peering out at the familiar
scene.
‘There are our Christmas trees!’ she cried, catching a glimpse of the
two little fir trees that, in white flower pots, stood one on either
side of the entrance to their apartment house.
‘And there is Thomas in the doorway. He is watching for me, I do
believe.’
Thomas was the hall boy, and a good friend to Patty, too.
‘And there is Mother in the window. Mother! Mother!’
Patty pounded on the window of the cab and called and waved. The moment
the cab stopped, without waiting for Father’s umbrella, across the
sidewalk went Patty with a skip and a jump, up the steps, and into the
hall where she flung both arms about Mother’s neck.
‘I knew you would come down to meet me,’ said Patty, giving Mother the
tightest squeeze she could and smiling broadly at Thomas over Mother’s
shoulder. ‘I have come home, Thomas. I am home.’
And so she was.
Oh, how much there was to tell and to see! Patty’s tongue flew, and her
bright eyes glanced hither and thither, and her quick little feet sped
up and down the hall and in and out of the rooms she remembered so well.
And in her own room who should be waiting for Patty, sitting in the
middle of her very own little bed, but Isabel, home from her trip to
the South and as good as new, only perhaps a little prettier than
before, Patty thought.
‘Now, Isabel,’ said Patty that night in bed, as Isabel lay where Patty
could put out her hand and touch her if she felt at all lonely before
she fell asleep, ‘now, Isabel, I must tell you all about your new
sister, Polly Perkins. I hope you are going to be good friends. She
will be home perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the day after, and I hope you
will love her very much indeed.’
Isabel promised that she would. And all the next day--another rainy
day, too--she and Patty watched for Polly Perkins, though both Mother
and Grandmother said it was far too soon to expect Polly home. All the
next day and the next and the next Patty and Isabel watched for Polly,
but Polly did not come.
‘Has Polly come?’ was the first question Patty asked every morning.
And every night when she went to bed she said, ‘Please wake me up if
Polly comes to-night.’
But Polly did not come.
So Grandmother wrote to Uncle Charles to ask if he had forgotten to
send Polly. And Uncle Charles wrote back that he had sent her off the
very day that Grandmother and Patty left Four Corners.
Next Father went to the express office, and the express office promised
to find Polly Perkins, if it possibly could.
‘Perhaps she has been shipped out West. Perhaps she is lying in the
Four Corners office,’ said the express people. ‘We will find out and
let you know.’
Meanwhile Patty watched, and talked, and wondered what could have
become of Polly Perkins.
‘My darling Polly! She is as beautiful as a butterfly, Mother,’ said
Patty, not once, nor twice, but many times. ‘You don’t know how
beautiful she is. Grandmother thinks so, too. That is why I named her
Polly Perkins. She has a pink dress and brown curls and the prettiest
brown eyes. And pockets with her name on them, Mother. Just think! I
can’t wait to have you see her. I do wish she would come home.’
But still Polly did not come.
Where is Polly Perkins? What can have happened to her? Where can she be?
Patty and Mother and Father and Grandmother all asked these questions
over and over and over. But not one of them guessed the answer, though
they tried again and again.
And now I will tell you what had happened to Polly Perkins.
CHAPTER III
POLLY PERKINS GOES ON A JOURNEY
While Patty was watching from the window all up and down the long city
street, hoping that every passing wagon or automobile would stop at her
door with Polly Perkins, what was Polly herself doing all this time?
To begin at the beginning, there is no doubt that Polly was
disappointed not to be carried home in Patty’s arms.
‘I would like to see a little of the world,’ thought Polly, when she
heard how she was to make the journey, ‘and I would like to ride on
the train that Patty talks about. I will be as good as gold, and then
perhaps Patty will always take me with her when she goes traveling. Who
knows?’
So when Polly saw the rainy day and heard Grandmother plan to send
her home in a box, Polly couldn’t help being disappointed, though of
course she didn’t show it in the least. She smiled as sweetly as ever
when Patty wrapped her in the pink-and-blue tufted coverlet and kissed
her good-bye. And though she wanted dreadfully to give the cover of the
box just one gentle kick with her pretty brown slipper, to work off a
little of her disappointment as it were, still Polly said to herself,
‘No, I won’t kick the box, for I know Patty wouldn’t like it. And I
want to please Patty in every way I can.’
For Polly had grown to love Patty in the short time she had lived with
her, and she believed that Patty was the very best mother that ever a
dolly could have.
‘She might leave me out all night in the grass,’ thought wise little
Polly. ‘She might stick pins into me, or pull my hair, or drop me down
the well. But she never, never does. Oh, I am glad that Patty is my
mother.’
And if, once in a while, Patty gave her a spanking or put her to bed in
the middle of the day, why, that was no more than happened to Patty
herself, once in a while, and so of course Polly could find no fault.
Polly liked Uncle Charles, too. Hadn’t he given her a pretty face and a
sweet smile? So when Uncle Charles tucked Polly under his arm to carry
her to the express office, Polly gave one or two gentle bumps on the
lid of the box just to show that she was friendly. But if Uncle Charles
heard them, no doubt he thought that Polly was simply slipping about,
and that he must carry the box more carefully.
It was not pleasant in the express office, Polly found. There was a
strong smell of tobacco smoke that sifted straight into Polly’s box,
and there seemed to be men all about, with loud voices, who tossed
packages back and forth, and hauled heavy boxes from one side of the
room to the other. Polly herself was tossed up on a shelf where, after
a moment or two, she snuggled down in her coverlet and sensibly fell
fast asleep.
She was awakened after a long, long nap by being lifted off the shelf.
She thought it must be morning, the express office was so busy and
noisy and so many people were hurrying to and fro.
Then came a great roaring and puffing and snorting just outside the
office door, and Polly knew in a moment what it was.
‘It is the train,’ thought Polly, who had never heard one before. ‘That
is just the sound Uncle Charles made when he played train with Patty
the night he came to supper at our house.’
And Polly was right. It was the train.
Now the bustling grew greater than before. Trunks and heavy boxes were
hoisted aboard the train. Packages, large and small, were flung on
helter-skelter, and among them was Polly, who went flying through the
air and luckily landed face-up on top of a trunk, where it took a whole
moment to get her breath again. But Polly didn’t mind being tossed
about, not one bit. She thought it was exciting, and much better than
lying in the smoky express office on a shelf.
Then the train whistled and puffed and panted and was off.
Roar, roar, roar! Clatter, clatter, clatter!
At first Polly couldn’t hear herself think. But after a short time she
grew used to the noise of the train and could hear the different sounds
all about her in the baggage car in which she lay.
Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Squawk! Squawk!
‘Hens,’ thought Polly, who had often gone with Patty to visit the
chicken coops at the back of Grandmother’s yard.
Then she heard a low whining and scuffling as in answer to the outcry
of the hens, and the next moment a dog lifted his voice in a series of
sharp little barks.
And, would you believe it, Polly understood every word he said.
‘I am Twinkle. Bow-wow!’ said the little dog.
And if Polly could only have looked through her box and seen him, she
would have thought that he couldn’t have a better name. For not only
was there a gay twinkle in his bright black eye, but the curly tuft of
hair on the tip of his tail seemed to twinkle also as he waved it to
and fro. While his soft black nose was a shining little spot that might
easily have been called a twinkle, too.
‘Bow-wow!’ said Twinkle again. ‘I belong to Jimmy, and Jimmy has broken
his leg. Wow! Wow!’
‘Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!’ answered the sympathetic hens. ‘Too bad! Too
bad! Too bad!’
‘I wish I could talk to him,’ said Polly to herself. ‘I am going to
try.’
So in her politest voice she called out, ‘Twinkle, I am in this box and
my name is Polly Perkins. I belong to a little girl named Patty, and I
want to talk to you. How did Jimmy break his leg?’
‘On roller skates. Bow-wow!’ answered Twinkle, as though it were the
most natural thing in the world to be talking to a dolly wrapped up in
a box.
And, come to think of it, Twinkle didn’t know that Polly Perkins was
a doll. He only knew that he wanted to tell some one about his little
master Jimmy.
‘He was roller skating in the park,’ called out Twinkle, ‘and he
fell and broke his leg, and if I had been there it never would have
happened.’
‘Why?’ asked Polly. ‘Why wouldn’t it have happened?’
‘Did he break his leg all last summer while he was playing with me in
the country?’ demanded Twinkle. ‘Of course he didn’t. But no sooner
does he go back to the city than he falls and breaks his leg. It all
happened because I wasn’t there to take care of him.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the city with him?’ asked Polly next. You see,
Patty wasn’t there to tell Polly it wasn’t polite to ask quite so many
questions, and Polly was too young to be expected to know that, all by
herself.
But Twinkle didn’t mind questions in the least.
‘Because his mother said the city was no place for a dog,’ he sniffed
scornfully. ‘Just as if I couldn’t behave as well in the city as
anywhere else. But they have had to send for me now, for Jimmy wants
me. That is where I am going now on the train.’
‘I am going to Patty’s house,’ volunteered Polly Perkins. ‘That is
where I am going. Patty couldn’t carry me home yesterday because of the
rain.’
‘Cluck-cluck-cluck-ca-da-cut!’ called the hens, not wishing to be left
out of the conversation. ‘We are going on a pleasure trip, for pleasure
only. We don’t know whether we are coming back or not. We belong to
Farmer Hill.’
‘I never heard of Farmer Hill,’ barked Twinkle, ‘but he can’t be as
good as Jimmy. Jimmy is the best little boy that ever lived.’
‘He isn’t any better than Patty,’ spoke up loyal Polly. ‘Patty is the
best little girl to live with that any dolly ever knew.’
‘Does she throw sticks in the water for you to bring out?’ asked
Twinkle. ‘Jimmy does.’
‘No,’ answered Polly, ‘but she takes me out for a walk every day.’
‘Does she run races with you up to the big tree and back?’ asked
Twinkle. ‘Jimmy does.’
‘No,’ answered Polly, ‘but she brushes my hair and rocks me to sleep
and we often have parties together, Polly and I.’
‘Does she give you chicken bones, always the drumstick and sometimes
more?’ asked Twinkle. ‘Jimmy does.’
But before Polly could answer, and indeed at the very mention of
chicken bones, all the hens began to squawk and shriek and cluck until
the noise grew so disturbing that a trainhand put his head in the
doorway of the car to see what was the matter.
You may be sure that Polly and Twinkle made never a sound. So the
trainman only shook his cap at the boxful of fluttering hens and
called out, ‘S-sh-sh, Biddy, s-sh-sh!’ Then he went away.
No sooner was he gone than the hens began to scold Twinkle, who backed
into a corner as far away from them as his rope would allow.
‘Aren’t you ashamed, you greedy dog, to talk about eating chicken
bones? Squawk! Squawk!’ chorused the hens. ‘Right to our faces, too!
Squawk! He has no feeling! We will never speak to him again. Never, as
long as we live! Squawk! Cluck! Cluck!’
Poor Twinkle’s little snub face was all twisted with worry and fear.
Why had he mentioned chicken bones? How frightened he felt at these
cross hens! He hoped their box was very strong and would not break.
He longed to talk to Polly about it and to tell her how he felt, but
he didn’t dare speak another word. Chicken bones so good and sweet!
Chicken bones that he had buried in the garden! To think that they
should cause him so much trouble!
The hens were clucking angrily among themselves. Every now and then one
of them would suddenly poke her head out between the bars of the box
and dart a bitter glance toward Twinkle.
So Twinkle did the best thing he could think of at the moment. He put
his head down between his paws and pretended to go to sleep.
At the very next station the hens were taken off the train. They became
so excited that they seemed to forget Twinkle and his chicken bones,
and they did not even send him a parting angry cluck.
It would not have made any difference if they had, for Twinkle by that
time had really fallen asleep. This Polly knew because she heard him
give little snores and happy sighs, so Polly, too, dozed off, which is
something travelers often do on long journeys.
Polly woke to find the train standing still, and to hear Twinkle, who
was being led away, bark again and again,
‘Good-bye, Polly, good-bye! Good-bye!’
This must be the city and the end of Polly’s journeying.
Polly herself, after a long, long wait, was tossed into an automobile
on top of many other packages, most of them much larger than she, and
presently, amid a great tooting of horns, they were off.
Polly knew it was raining, raining hard, for she could hear the steady
patter of the raindrops on the automobile roof and the splash of the
wheels through the puddles in the street.
Up and down, in and out the city streets they rattled. Over the noisy
paving-stones they rolled with many a bump and jolt. Round the corners
they whirled with a dash.
The ride seemed long to Polly.
‘Where does Patty live? Will I never reach home?’ wondered Polly.
Faster and faster rolled the automobile, harder and harder pelted the
rain.
Then Polly felt the packages under her slipping. Round a corner they
went on two wheels, and out into the street flew Polly in her box to
land in a great puddle with a splash!
On whirled the express wagon out of sight, and there lay Polly in the
street wondering what in the world would happen to her next.
CHAPTER IV
WHAT ANNE MARIE SAW FROM THE WINDOW
Anne Marie stood in the window looking out into the rainy street.
Anne Marie was lonely. She had no one with whom to play. She had no one
with whom to talk.
Over in a corner of the room, her knitting in her lap, Anne Marie’s
grandmother, called Grand’mère, napped and woke and napped again. On
the mantel-shelf the white marble clock, upon which rode a bright gilt
horse and horseman who went nowhere, Anne Marie knew, ticked, ticked,
ticked solemnly in the quiet room.
Downstairs in the Bakery, which was owned by Anne Marie’s father, sat
Anne Marie’s mother in a gay little golden cage from which she gave
change to the customers who filed past her with packages of rolls or
cakes or pastries or tarts in their arms.
Anne Marie longed to be downstairs with her mother, whom she called
Maman, and who was pretty and smiling, with dark curling hair and
bright red cheeks like Anne Marie’s. It was so cheerful and exciting
in the Bakery. Anne Marie liked the counters piled high with trays of
crisp brown rolls, long loaves of bread, muffins and buns. She liked
the cases filled with golden and dark and snow-white cakes, with flaky
pastries and tarts. Best of all she liked to watch the people coming
and going, ladies and gentlemen, little boys and girls.
But that afternoon Maman had shaken her head when Anne Marie had begged
to stay with her in the Bakery.
‘The shop is not so good a place for a little girl as is the home,’
Maman had said, kissing Anne Marie and smoothing back her curls.
Then she had gone downstairs to stay until dinner-time when the shop
would close for the evening.
Papa Durant had shaken his head, too, when Anne Marie, an arm about
his neck, had whispered that she would like to visit the kitchen that
afternoon.
‘Some other time, my little jou-jou,’ Papa Durant had whispered back,
‘some day when we are not so busy. Be a bon enfant and perhaps you may
have a tart, a very little tart, for your supper to-night.’
It is not surprising that Anne Marie wished to visit the kitchen. It
was a warm, sweet-smelling place, with great ovens filled with goodies
and white-clad, white-capped, floury bakers moving steadily about their
tasks.
Yes, Papa Durant was justly proud of his kitchen. He was proud of his
Bakery, too. He was proud of the great gold-and-black sign, ‘FRENCH
PASTRY SHOP,’ that stretched over the Bakery door and directly under
the window where Anne Marie now stood.
And Papa Durant was proud of Anne Marie from the crown of her little
black curly head to the tips of her twinkling dancing toes. He loved
the sparkle in her big black eyes, the dimple in her chin, and her gay
little smile.
But this afternoon Anne Marie was not smiling. Not even the promise of
‘a tart, a very little tart’ for her supper could make her feel more
cheerful.
For Anne Marie longed for a playmate. She was tired of all her toys.
Grand’mère was good to Anne Marie, as good as gold. She knitted for her
mittens and stockings without number, and even now was at work upon a
scarf for her, a scarlet scarf that matched Anne Marie’s cheeks and
would make her look like a Robin Redbreast, so Papa Durant laughingly
said. But Grand’mère needed so many naps that she really couldn’t count
as a playmate. Even when she told Anne Marie a story, of princesses
perhaps and of white cats and a fairy prince, at the most exciting
moment Grand’mère would be sure to remember the evening soup that must
be prepared and would quite forget about Anne Marie and the fairies.
Now, as Anne Marie stood looking out at the rain, she was thinking,
thinking hard.
‘I will think of the naughtiest thing I can do,’ said Anne Marie to
herself, ‘and then I will do it.’
So she thought and thought, and at last she made up her mind.
‘I will not eat my soup at supper to-night,’ said Anne Marie, smiling
at her own naughtiness. ‘I am tired of Grand’mère’s soup. And to-night,
when every one sleeps, I will creep downstairs to the Bakery and eat
the huge cake in the front window, the white wedding cake with the tiny
bride and groom standing arm in arm on top. I will eat it every crumb.’
Anne Marie was so pleased with this idea that there is no telling
what fresh piece of mischief she might have planned if at that moment
a heavy automobile truck had not come swinging round the corner and
dashed up the middle of the street. And even as Anne Marie stared at
the truck, glad of something new and exciting to see, there bounced,
from the back of the wagon, a box, a large box, that fell with a splash
into a puddle directly under the window where Anne Marie stood.
Anne Marie waited for the driver of the truck to run back, pick up his
box, and dash off again. But no, the express wagon swung round the
corner and out of sight.
Then Anne Marie waited for a passer-by to pick up the box and carry it
away. But there were very few passers-by on this wet day, as Anne Marie
already knew.
Suddenly a thought came to Anne Marie, a daring thought, that made her
cheeks burn and her very curls bob up and down with excitement.
‘_I_ will pick up the box,’ thought Anne Marie, already creeping on
tiptoe to the door. ‘That is, if Grand’mère will say I may go down,’
she added, with a hand on the rattling white china doorknob.
‘Grand’mère,’ whispered Anne Marie in the very smallest possible
voice, ‘Grand’mère, may I go downstairs after the box?’
Grand’mère did not answer. Her head nodded a little lower, her knitting
slipped down in her lap, and her soft breathing was her only reply.
‘Grand’mère is sound asleep,’ said Anne Marie to herself, ‘and I must
not wake her. It would not be kind.’
So softly Anne Marie stole down the stairs, softly she opened the door
to the street. Then swift as an arrow she darted out into the rain,
picked up the box, and darted back into the house again.
She was not wet at all. Surely Grand’mère would not scold. A few
raindrops on her hair, a few splashes on her dress. As for her shoes,
she rubbed them for a moment on the mat, and lo! they were as dry as
dry could be.
[Illustration: ‘LOOK, GRAND’MÈRE, LOOK!’ CRIED ANNE MARIE]
Then upstairs crept Anne Marie and into the kitchen. The paper
wrapped about the box was wet and torn. Anne Marie pulled it off and
crumpled it up. She stuffed it in the coal scuttle. Then she opened
the box. She lifted out a soft paper wrapping. She folded back a
pink-and-blue tufted coverlet. And there, smiling up into her face, lay
the prettiest doll that Anne Marie had ever seen.
Was it Polly Perkins? Why, of course, it was. And very glad indeed of a
breath of fresh air, too, as you may well imagine.
For a moment in her surprise Anne Marie could neither speak nor move.
Then into the front room she ran, carrying the box in her arms, and
plumped it down upon startled Grand’mère’s lap.
‘Look, Grand’mère, look!’ cried Anne Marie, clasping her hands together
in excitement and delight. ‘A dolly, a bébé, has come to play with me.
Now I shall not be lonely. Now you may nap all you wish and I shall not
care. Look, Grand’mère, look! A dolly for me!’
Of course Grand’mère looked and lifted out the dolly and asked
questions.
And when, at last, Anne Marie had quite finished telling what had
happened, Grand’mère said solemnly,
‘The Saints have sent it to you, Anne Marie. Perhaps because you are a
good girl. Undoubtedly the bébé comes from the Saints.’
But neither Papa Durant nor Maman were quite so sure of this.
‘It fell from a wagon, you say,’ repeated Papa Durant. ‘What kind of a
wagon? A large wagon? A small wagon?’
‘A large wagon,’ answered Anne Marie, ‘but not so large as the
furniture van that carried away Madame Provost’s furniture last week.’
‘That tells nothing,’ said Papa Durant, and forgot all about the dolly
in thinking how to make a new tart of raspberries, nuts, and whipped
cream.
‘Bring me the paper that was wrapped about the box,’ said Maman.
But when Anne Marie ran to fetch it from the coal scuttle, the paper
was not there. Grand’mère had burned it when she put coal on the fire
to prepare the evening soup.
‘Enjoy the dolly, then,’ said Maman, ‘since at present we cannot find
the owner. Perhaps some day we shall learn to whom the dolly belongs.
Here is her name, Anne Marie. Polly, Polly Perkins. It is embroidered
on her dress.’
Anne Marie hugged Polly Perkins close.
‘Chérie,’ whispered Anne Marie in Polly’s ear. ‘Chérie! Dearie!’
She took off all Polly’s clothes, which rested Polly very much after
her long journey, and put on her a nightdress that had once belonged to
another doll. Next she wrapped her in the pink-and-blue tufted coverlet
and tucked her up for the night on the seat of a soft comfortable chair.
Then Anne Marie, herself ready for bed, knelt beside the chair to say
her prayers.
‘The Good God bless Grand’mère and Papa and Maman and everybody,’ said
Anne Marie, ‘and bless Polly Perkins too.’
As for creeping downstairs that night, to eat the wedding cake with the
tiny bride and groom standing, arm in arm, on top, Anne Marie never
thought of it again. Polly Perkins had made her forget all about it.
CHAPTER V
OUT IN THE SNOW
It was a snowy day, and Anne Marie was very happy.
She was sitting in one corner of the front room--Grand’mère with her
knitting in the opposite corner--holding Polly Perkins in her arms and
gently singing and rocking her to sleep.
Anne Marie enjoyed a peaceful little time like this. She liked to hear
the hiss of the snow against the window-pane. She liked the warm,
comfortable feel of Polly in her arms. Above all she liked to look down
into Polly’s smiling face because it always made Anne Marie feel like
smiling, too.
Now she gave her dolly a tight little hug, and gently placed a kiss on
Polly’s red lips.
‘Are you happy, Dearie?’ whispered Anne Marie. ‘I am. Oh, how I hope no
one ever comes to take you away from me.’
If Polly could only have spoken, without startling everybody and making
them jump, she would have answered truthfully that she was happy, too.
Anne Marie had loved her dearly from the very moment that she had first
seen Polly, and Polly with her tender heart had soon learned in her
turn to love Anne Marie.
But do not think for a moment that Polly had forgotten Patty King.
Patty was Polly’s own mother, as it were. She felt toward Anne Marie as
one might toward an aunt or a kind cousin or even an older sister or
friend. But she still hoped that some happy day she would find herself
back in Patty’s arms again.
In the meantime she meant to be as pleasant and as good a dolly as she
knew how. So she smiled sweetly and cuddled close as Anne Marie sang
softly and rocked her to and fro.
‘Il était un petit navire,
Il était un petit navire,
Qui n’avais jam--jam--jamais navigé,
Qui n’avais jam--jam--jamais navigé,’
sang Anne Marie.
‘Now I will tell you what the song is about, Polly,’ she went on. ‘It
is about a little ship that never, never went sailing on the sea.’
There is no doubt that Anne Marie would have told Polly more about this
little ship, but just at that moment the front-room door opened and
quite unexpectedly in walked Papa Durant. Usually at this hour of the
morning he was to be found in the kitchen, giving his orders for the
day and watching his bakers step briskly about under his keen eye. But
here he was, smiling and rubbing his hands together and even making a
little bow every now and then.
‘Come, Anne Marie,’ said Papa Durant, nodding at Grand’mère over Anne
Marie’s head and smiling his broadest smile. ‘Together we will go out
into the snow and visit the great toyshop near by. There you may choose
for yourself any toy that you wish. Any toy, I say. Now run for your
hat and coat. Do not keep me waiting, Anne Marie.’
Last night Papa Durant had gone to a wedding. Not as one of the
guests, oh, no! Far better than that. Papa Durant had baked the cakes
for the wedding, all the little fancy cakes that were to be eaten with
ice-cream, and also the great white wedding cake that held the place
of honor in the very center of the table, with a tiny bride and groom
standing arm in arm on top. Peeping from behind the door, Papa Durant
had actually seen the bride stand and cut the beautiful wedding cake
into generous slices, and had heard the guests on every side say that
never before had they tasted such delicious cake.
So this morning Papa Durant felt very happy, and naturally enough he
wanted to make Anne Marie happy too.
Through the whirling, twirling snowflakes they trudged hand in hand
to the great store near by, that was really two stores connected by a
little bridge high in the air. And there, in the busy, bustling toy
department, crowded with Christmas shoppers, for ‘Noel,’ as Anne Marie
called it, was not many days away, and, surrounded by every kind of a
toy that ever was invented, Anne Marie made her choice.
What did she choose, do you think? A sled! A gay yellow-and-red sled,
with its name ‘Lightning Flash’ painted in bold black letters on the
seat.
Why, out of all these hundreds and hundreds of toys, did Anne Marie
choose a sled? I will tell you. It was because she saw two little boys
buying a sled exactly like the one she later chose. And they were so
happy and excited and smiling over their purchase that Anne Marie felt
that a sled was the very finest toy that any one could have.
So the sled was bought, and Anne Marie rode home in triumph on it,
drawn by Papa Durant, who then disappeared into the kitchen and left
Anne Marie to play alone.
Not really alone, however, for up in one front window sat Grand’mère,
nodding and smiling out at Anne Marie, and in the other window was
perched Polly Perkins, who couldn’t have looked more interested if she
had been a real little girl. Once, too, Maman actually stepped out of
her golden cage for a moment and waved her hand and blew a kiss as she
watched Anne Marie run up and down the street.
By-and-by it stopped snowing, and then Polly Perkins came out for a
ride. Snugly wrapped in the pink-and-blue tufted coverlet she rode
smilingly up and down, lying flat on the sled, staring up at the sky,
and enjoying it all without any doubt.
Anne Marie enjoyed it too. She grew so bold that she could run and
slide with the sled, run and slide again. It was great fun.
But presently along came a dog, a brown shaggy dog, who wore a collar
ornamented by a bell. The dog thought it was fun, too, to run after
the sled. He ran and barked, ran and barked, and every now and then he
would jump up in the air and whirl around in the snow, he felt so happy
and gay.
He didn’t dream for a moment that Anne Marie was afraid of him, but
she was. She ran so fast up the street and even round the corner to
get away from the dog that the sled swung from side to side. It bumped
about, it twisted to and fro.
Finally the dog, with one last joyous bark and whirl, trotted off to
tell his nearest neighbor, a white, fluffy dog, who only walked out on
a leash, what a pleasant time he had had playing in the snow.
Then Anne Marie, stopping to catch her breath, turned about and
discovered that Polly Perkins was gone! The sled was empty, and along
the whole length of the long city block Polly was not to be seen.
This was too dreadful! Anne Marie pressed her red-mittened hands
together hard. What should she do? She wanted to sit down on the sled
and cry, but she knew that was not the way to find Polly Perkins.
To and fro ran Anne Marie in the snow, hunting for Polly Perkins. Up
and down the street she went again and again, looking from side to
side. But her search was in vain. Polly was not lying in the snow. She
had not been tossed out into the street. There was not a trace left of
Polly Perkins. There was not a glimpse to be seen of her pretty pink
dress nor of the tufted pink-and-blue coverlet in which she had been so
warmly wrapped. Anne Marie could scarcely believe it, but it was true.
Polly was gone.
Anne Marie went home in tears. They rolled so fast down her cheeks that
the gay red mittens could not wipe them away. And once home she could
hardly tell what had happened, she was so choked with sobs.
Every one was sorry for Anne Marie. Papa Durant left his baking, though
there were pastries in the oven, and went out to look for Polly Perkins
in the snow. Maman drew Anne Marie into the golden cage, and, smoothing
back her curls, not only whispered that Noel was near and that the
little Noel might possibly place another bébé in Anne Marie’s shoe,
but she also slipped a rich yellow sponge cake into the little girl’s
hand.
‘Do not weep, Anne Marie. The Saints will bring back your bébé,’
declared Grand’mère, so distressed at Anne Marie’s sorrow that she
dropped three stitches in her knitting, a thing she had never been
known to do before.
Then Grand’mère laid aside her knitting and took Anne Marie upon her
lap, and told her the fairy story of the White Cat, without once
stopping to go and prepare the evening soup.
But even all this kindness could not console Anne Marie for the loss of
Polly Perkins.
Sadly the bright new red-and-yellow sled was left standing in the lower
hall behind the door to the street. Anne Marie could play no more that
day. Her heart was too heavy.
When at last bedtime came and Anne Marie in her nightgown knelt at
Grand’mère’s knee, her prayer was very short.
‘May the Good God and all the Saints remember how lonely I am and
please send Polly Perkins home to me again,’ prayed little Anne Marie.
CHAPTER VI
WEE AILIE McNABB
Wee Ailie McNabb was going shopping, and shopping all alone. She held
five cents tight in her little red hand, as she tucked the old plaid
shawl snugly along Granny’s back and softly patted Granny’s shoulder by
way of saying good-bye.
Granny and Ailie lived together in one small room at the very tiptop of
a tall, tall building. Indeed, the building was so high that, looking
from the window, Ailie felt very near the clouds in the sky and the
birds that sometimes flew past. While at night it almost seemed as if,
by putting out her hand, she might draw the glittering moon and stars
down into the room that Ailie called home.
But there had been little time lately for looking out of the window.
Granny was ill, with a troublesome cough, and Ailie had been obliged
to take care of Granny, and run all the errands, and even now and then
to cook the ‘porritch,’ which was often all she and Granny ate nowadays
for breakfast, dinner, and supper.
Now Ailie, still clutching her precious five cents, took a small tin
pail from the table, and with a last gentle pat on Granny’s shoulder
tip-toed from the room.
Down the four long flights of stairs she climbed, and, opening the door
to the street, stepped out into the cold.
The wind whistled and sang a wintry tune, and Ailie gave a little
shiver as her short skirt flapped about her knees. Ailie’s coat was
thin. There was a hole in the side of her shoe. But she wore a warm
tam-o’-shanter hat that pulled down nicely over her ears, and though
she owned no mittens, of course she could always draw her hands up
inside her coat-sleeves.
Ailie was going for a bit of milk. Not only did it taste ‘rare fine’
poured over the ‘porritch,’ as Ailie was often heard to say, but
Granny could sometimes take a sip of milk when she could touch nothing
else.
Swinging her pail, Ailie skipped along the snowy street to the grocery
store. Closely she watched the pouring of the milk from the tall can
into her little pail, for Ailie was a good shopper. Granny herself said
it, so of course it must be true.
Then, making sure that the cover of her pail was on firm and tight,
Ailie started for home.
She was walking slowly, carefully balancing her pail, for she did not
mean to spill one single drop of milk, when, only a step or two from
her own doorway, she saw lying before her on the sidewalk a beautiful
big rag doll.
Ailie set her pail down in the snow and picked up the dolly. Then she
turned and looked up and down the long city street.
At one end of the block was a boy shoveling snow. Clearly he had not
lost a doll. Two men were walking toward Ailie. Their coat-collars were
turned up about their ears, their hands were thrust deep into their
overcoat pockets, and they were talking so busily as they passed that
they did not even give Ailie a glance.
If Ailie had gone down to the corner and there looked up the street,
she would have seen a little girl--Anne Marie, of course--running
wildly along, a friendly little brown dog leaping and whirling at her
side. And if Ailie, a few moments later, had peered from her window,
though, to be sure, it was so high that it was hard to see the street,
she might have spied Anne Marie searching, with tears in her eyes, for
her lost Polly Perkins. If she had done those things, it is very likely
that Anne Marie would not have gone crying to bed that night.
But Ailie did not think of going down to the corner. Neither did she
look from the window when she had hastily climbed the four flights
of stairs, with the pail of milk in one hand and the beautiful dolly
tenderly clasped in the other arm.
[Illustration: OH! HOW AILIE ADMIRED POLLY’S PRETTY PINK DRESS]
‘Eh, my good little Ailie,’ whispered Granny, opening her eyes and
trying to smile as Ailie held Polly Perkins up before her and told
how she had found her lying in the snow, ‘sit ye doun and rock your
bairn the while I sleep again to ease the cough.’
So down before the stove sat Ailie with Polly in her lap. First of all
she unfastened the pink-and-blue coverlet that had been pinned about
Polly’s shoulders as a shawl. And then, oh! how Ailie admired Polly’s
pretty pink dress with the pockets, and her neat brown slippers, and
her soft glossy curls.
‘Once I had a blue dress like yours,’ murmured Ailie to Polly, as she
settled her in her lap and gave her a little hug, ‘but it was a long
while ago before Granny and I were alone. It may have been that my
mither made it for me, but I cannot just remember how it was.’
Of course Polly didn’t answer. But there was a look in her brown eyes
that did almost as well as if she had spoken, and Ailie did not ask for
anything more.
‘My Aunt Elspeth is coming soon,’ went on Ailie in such a low voice
that it did not disturb Granny in the least. ‘My Aunt Elspeth is
coming to take care of Granny and me. She is coming in a big ship from
Scotland. She wrote Granny a letter to tell her so. And when she comes
she will cure Granny’s cough and make a new dress for me, maybe, just
like yours.’
It was such a comfort to talk, and to talk to some one who really
seemed to care as Polly did, that Ailie couldn’t and didn’t think of
stopping.
‘This is what I would like best of all,’ she went on, her sandy curls
standing out all round her head and her honest Scotch blue eyes growing
bright as she talked. ‘It is a secret, but I will tell it to you. I
would like a mither, a pretty mither all my own, and she would wear a
real silk dress every day. And I would like a father who would put his
hand in his pocket and pull me out a penny just as if it were nothing
at all. And I would like four little brothers and four little sisters
to play with me, and we would be happy all day long. Aye, I would like
that fine, wouldn’t you?’
It really seemed as if Polly Perkins answered ‘yes.’ At any rate, Ailie
was so delighted with the dolly that she fell asleep at night with a
smile on her face, a smile that cheered Granny greatly and almost made
her feel better as she turned and tossed and coughed the long night
through.
But in the morning Granny was not so well, and Mrs. McFarland, who
lived downstairs, put a shawl over her head and stepped out for the
doctor.
‘You need good food and rest, Mrs. McNabb, and take this medicine that
will cure your cough in a wink,’ said the cheerful doctor.
So Ailie, with Polly in her arms, ran for the medicine.
She told the friendly druggist all about Granny and about Polly, too.
Then she started for home.
She hurried along, holding Polly close, and as she hurried a little
girl, in a bright red scarf and red mittens, with a sled at her heels,
suddenly stood before her and caught Polly almost out of her arms.
‘It is my doll! It is my doll!’ the little girl was saying over and
over again.
When Ailie heard those words, and knew that the little girl meant to
take Polly away from her, if she could, would you believe it, Ailie
didn’t care at all whether the dolly had once belonged to this strange
little girl or not. She only knew that she wanted with all her heart to
keep the dolly for her own, and that she simply could not bear it if
she had to give her up.
So she held tight to Polly Perkins, as tight as ever she knew how, and
the strange little girl pulled and tugged with all her might and main.
And while they were struggling, with their faces very red and their
lips shut very tight, along the street came two ladies and another
little girl.
They stopped, at least the little girl did, and in a moment the little
girl began to jump up and down, her brown hair flying, and to call out
in a shrill little voice,
‘It is Polly! It is my Polly Perkins! Mother! Grandmother! It is my
Polly Perkins!’
And then the third little girl caught hold of Polly and began to pull
too.
CHAPTER VII
THREE LITTLE GIRLS AND POLLY PERKINS
There is no telling how this tug of war might have ended, three little
girls pulling away at poor Polly Perkins, if Ailie had not dropped
Granny’s bottle of medicine in the snow.
‘Och me!’ cried Ailie, and let go of Polly at once. Granny must have
her medicine, even though it meant that Ailie would never hold Polly in
her arms again.
Fortunately the bottle was not broken. And by the time Ailie had picked
it up, one of the ladies, the taller one, who later proved to be
Grandmother King, had stepped forward and taken Polly Perkins out of
the hands of Anne Marie and of her little granddaughter, Patty King.
‘Let me see the doll, children,’ said Grandmother quietly. ‘I can tell
in a moment, Patty, whether it is your Polly Perkins or not, for I made
her, you know.’
Of course it was Patty’s Polly Perkins. It took only a glance to tell
Grandmother so. But once that point was settled, Grandmother looked at
the three little girls standing before her and scarcely knew what to do
or say next.
For each little girl wanted Polly Perkins, oh! so badly. You could tell
it only to look at them, though no one said a word.
Patty’s arms were stretched out toward Polly, and there was a look of
surprise on her face as if she couldn’t understand why Grandmother
didn’t give her the dolly that had been made expressly for her.
Anne Marie had clasped her red-mittened hands tightly together, her
eyes were big and round, and she looked as if in one moment more she
would sit right down on the sidewalk and begin to cry.
While Ailie, clutching her bottle of medicine close, pressed her lips
together in a thin little line and winked her blue eyes as fast as ever
she could.
‘Not that I’m thinking of crying,’ said Ailie McNabb to herself.
‘Well,’ spoke Grandmother at last, with a smile straight into the eyes
of each little girl, ‘well, I have often heard of one mother with three
children, but I never before knew of three mothers and only one child.’
At this Patty and Anne Marie each mustered up a faint smile, but not
Ailie. This was no time for smiling, thought she.
‘Now I know one of you mothers well,’ went on Grandmother in her
pleasant voice. ‘It is my own little granddaughter Patty, for whom I
made this dolly when she was paying me a visit not long ago. But won’t
you two little girls tell me who you are and how you both happen to
think that Polly Perkins belongs to you?’
Anne Marie was glad of a chance to speak.
‘I am Anne Marie Durant,’ said she, making a polite little curtsy to
Grandmother as Maman had taught her to do, ‘and my papa owns the
Bakery down there on the corner. “FRENCH PASTRY SHOP” the sign says
over the door. And one rainy day I was looking from the window. We
live just over the shop, you know, Papa and Maman and Grand’mère and
I. And I saw a box fall from a wagon. No one came for the box, there
it lay in the rain, so I ran down and picked it up, and in the box was
Polly Perkins. We could not find to whom the box belonged. Grand’mère
had burned the paper wrapped about it. And so I kept Polly Perkins.
Grand’mère said, too, the Saints had sent her to me. And yesterday I
lost her, lost her from this sled. And that is all,’ said Anne Marie,
quite out of breath, finishing off her long speech with another little
curtsy and a smile.
‘I know your Bakery well, Anne Marie,’ said Patty’s mother. ‘I go there
almost every day, I think.’
It was now Ailie’s turn to speak, and speak she did, but her voice was
so low that she could scarcely be heard.
Grandmother managed to understand her, however, and when Ailie had
finished her story, Grandmother drew her close to her side and patted
her softly upon the shoulder.
‘Of course I understand just how it was,’ said Grandmother kindly.
‘Anne Marie lost Polly yesterday in the snow and Ailie picked her up.
In a way Polly Perkins does belong to each one of you three little
girls. Now let me think for a moment.’
Grandmother stood quite still, with her foot tapping the sidewalk in a
way that Patty knew very well. Without a doubt Grandmother was making
up her mind about something.
Then Grandmother took Mother by the arm and walked up the street with
her, talking busily all the while.
Patty and Anne Marie and Ailie stared at one another, already looking
much happier, all three, and even smiling a little now and then. For
somehow they all felt that Grandmother was going to make everything
come out right, though how she would do it they didn’t even try to
guess.
Grandmother still held Polly Perkins in her arms, and over
Grandmother’s shoulder Polly smiled sweetly down in a way that was
pleasant to see. Patty couldn’t help thinking that Polly’s brown eyes
held a special look for her. But then who knows that Anne Marie and
Ailie were not thinking the very same thing?
At last back came Mother and Grandmother to where the little girls
stood.
‘Remember,’ Mother was saying with a shake of the head, ‘that Christmas
is only one week away.’
‘I know it,’ answered Grandmother, who no longer tapped her foot, ‘but
I have done much harder things than this. Besides, you will help me, I
am sure.’
What did Grandmother mean? The children couldn’t imagine, nor did they
have time to try.
For Grandmother had made up her mind what she meant to do, and at once
she started Mother and Patty and Anne Marie off for the Bakery, and
Grandmother and Polly Perkins and Ailie set out for Ailie’s house.
Now this is a strange thing, but one quite apt to happen in a large
city. It turned out that Patty and Anne Marie and Ailie lived almost
within a stone’s throw of one another.
It was this way. On the corner of two streets lived Anne Marie,
upstairs over her Bakery, as you know. On one of these two streets, in
her large white apartment house, lived Patty. On the other of these
streets, at the tiptop of her tall, tall building, lived wee Ailie
McNabb.
Well, Mother and Patty and Anne Marie went straight to the Bakery, and
there it was discovered that Maman knew Mrs. King very well. Had not
Mrs. King for years bought her rolls and bread, her cakes and tarts, at
the ‘FRENCH PASTRY SHOP’? Out of the golden cage stepped Maman. Papa
Durant was sent for and hastily came up from the kitchen, bowing and
smiling and rubbing his hands as he always did when very well pleased.
The story of Polly Perkins was told from the very beginning, and
then Mother delivered Grandmother’s invitation, that came as a great
surprise to the little girls who heard it.
‘Might Anne Marie come to spend the afternoon with Patty on Christmas
Eve? The hour, four o’clock.’
Anne Marie and Patty squeezed one another’s hands in rapture at the
thought.
‘Certainly, certainly,’ answered Maman and Papa Durant. ‘We shall be
only too delighted to accept for Anne Marie.’
Down at the end of the street, Grandmother, holding Ailie’s little
red hand, slowly climbed the four long flights of stairs that led to
Ailie’s home.
Into the poor little room stepped Grandmother, at once setting startled
Granny McNabb at ease by her smile and pleasant manner, even before she
had time to explain what errand had brought her there.
‘Take a spoonful of this medicine before we say a word, Mrs. McNabb,’
said Grandmother, placing a chair close by Granny’s side, ‘for Ailie
tells me it will cure your cough as quick as a wink.’
By the time Grandmother had finished her talk and was ready to go, she
and Granny McNabb had become good friends.
‘You must let me look after you a bit until Aunt Elspeth’s ship comes
in,’ said Grandmother, as she was leaving. ‘We live only around the
corner and are neighbors, you know. At least we would be neighbors if
we were out in the country, where I live most of the year. I shall
bring around to-day the broth I told you of, that helped me when I had
a cough like yours. And I am sure that my little granddaughter Patty
has a number of outgrown clothes that will fit your good wee Ailie here.
‘Don’t forget the party, Ailie, on Christmas Eve, at four o’clock.’
And Grandmother, still carrying Polly Perkins, went carefully down the
stairs, leaving Ailie to rush back into the room to tell Granny over
and over again just how it had all happened.
‘She is a grand good friend,’ said Granny with a nod of her head. ‘You
can read it in her face.’
‘Aye, that you can,’ answered wee Ailie.
CHAPTER VIII
GRANDMOTHER KING’S CHRISTMAS PARTY
Patty was so surprised at everything that had happened that she didn’t
know what to think.
You may imagine how surprised she felt to see her own dear lost Polly
Perkins being almost pulled apart in the street by two strange little
girls. But you may also imagine her surprise to find on reaching home
that Grandmother had carried Polly into her own room and that Patty was
not to see her at all.
‘It is Christmas time, Patty,’ said Mother with a smile. ‘Remember
Grandmother’s Christmas Party and be patient and wait.’
That was all Mother would say to Patty about it, and Grandmother told
her even less. Indeed, Grandmother now spent most of her time shut in
her own room, while Mother went about with a smile on her face, closing
closet doors that would pop open and whisking parcels into bureau
drawers so that Patty might not see.
In a day or so Patty began to smell a Christmas Tree, but though she
searched and searched she could find no trace of one.
‘But I know I smell a Christmas Tree, Isabel,’ confided Patty to her
doll. ‘Don’t you? And don’t you want to see Polly Perkins the worst way
now that she is in the house with us? I don’t see how I can ever wait
for Grandmother’s Party, Isabel. Oh, how I wish Christmas Eve was this
very, very minute.’
But there was so much Christmasing going on in Patty’s house, these
days, that really the time passed quickly, after all.
One night Father went into Grandmother’s room straight from dinner, and
though the door was shut tight and even locked, Patty could hear Father
laugh, great big laughs over something so funny that it made Patty
smile, too, though she couldn’t guess what the joke was about. She even
lay on the floor and tried to peep under Grandmother’s door, but she
couldn’t see a thing, not even feet. When Father came out, his fingers
were stained the strangest colors, and there was a great streak of red
on his cheek. But still Patty couldn’t imagine what he had been doing.
One day Mother went out shopping, and came home with her arms full of
queer knobby bundles. Another day Grandmother went, and brought home
any number of packages, large and small, that were whisked out of sight
before Patty could take so much as a peep. And every night, when Father
came home, Patty was shut in the dining-room until Father’s pockets
were emptied and their contents hidden away.
But at last the day of Grandmother’s Party came, Christmas Eve, bright
and frosty and clear.
Patty and Isabel spent the morning alone in the dining-room.
‘I promised Mother we wouldn’t peek, Isabel,’ said Patty, ‘and neither
will we listen.’
So over her head Patty tied a scarf, while Isabel had a little shawl
pinned under her chin that shut out every sound that could possibly
drift into the room.
‘We look like beggars,’ said Patty, ‘but I don’t care. You are such a
good child, Isabel, that you shall come to the party, too, just as if
you were a real little girl.’
And so Isabel did. For when four o’clock came, time for the party to
begin, there sat Isabel on the dining-room table dressed in her best,
which of course was her one blue dress, but with clean face and hands
and shining hair, waiting for the guests to arrive.
By this time Patty couldn’t sit still a minute. She fluttered up and
down the hall and in and out of the dining-room. She straightened
Isabel’s dress and smoothed her curls over and over again. A half-dozen
times she thought she heard the doorbell ring. A half-dozen times she
opened the door only to find no one there.
But at last the bell did ring. It was Anne Marie, her black eyes big
and bright and her cheeks as red as the little scarlet frock she wore.
Papa Durant had brought her, and had left in her arms a huge box which
Anne Marie put into Grandmother’s hands with her very best curtsy and
smile.
‘For the Party, for Noel,’ said Anne Marie.
It was a box of cakes, French Christmas cakes, covered with sugar
frosting, pink and green and white, and on many of them appeared the
words ‘Joyeux Noel,’ which was Anne Marie’s French way of saying ‘Merry
Christmas.’
Then in came wee Ailie McNabb, warmly dressed not only in a blue coat
that Patty had outgrown, but also in a neat little frock that had once
belonged to Patty, it is true, but that fitted wee Ailie McNabb as if
it had been made for her.
Straight up to Grandmother walked Ailie and stretched out a small foot
clad in a glossy brown shoe.
‘They are fine and warm,’ said Ailie, just as if Grandmother knew all
about them, as no doubt she did.
It was time then for the front-room door to be opened. And fortunately
Father now came home from the office, for Patty felt that not even a
Christmas Party would be quite perfect unless Father were there to
enjoy it too.
So the front-room door was thrown open and in they went, first Anne
Marie and Ailie and Patty, carrying Isabel, and then Grandmother and
Mother and Father close behind.
The first thing they saw, that filled all one side of the room,
was--well, can’t you guess? A Christmas Tree! A great, shining
Christmas Tree that touched the ceiling of the room and spread out its
branches far and wide on either hand. A great, shining Christmas Tree,
covered with glittering balls and bells and chains, with beautiful
stars and candles of every hue.
But, would you believe it, though it was by far the gayest, prettiest
sight that Patty or Anne Marie or Ailie had ever looked upon, after the
first glance the three little girls did not look at the Tree at all.
They were looking at something under the Tree, at something so
delightful, so exactly what they wanted to see, that they simply could
not look at anything else.
For each little girl was looking at Polly Perkins sitting under the
Tree. But instead of _one_ Polly Perkins there were _three_!
Yes, actually three Polly Perkinses, looking exactly alike, with gentle
brown eyes and pretty pink cheeks and glossy brown curls. And each
Polly Perkins wore a sweet, sweet smile. There were the three pink
dresses, the three pair of neat brown slippers, too.
It was simply too good to be true. But it was true. Oh, yes, indeed, it
was.
Down on the floor before one Polly Perkins went Patty King, down went
Anne Marie Durant before another, and last of all down went Ailie
McNabb before the third Polly Perkins sitting under the Tree.
Then Grandmother stepped forward and placed a dolly in each of the
little girls’ arms.
‘This is your dolly, Anne Marie,’ said Grandmother, her face as bright
as that of the little girls. ‘Her name is on her apron--Polly Perkins
Durant. And here is your doll, Ailie, with Polly Perkins McNabb
embroidered on her apron, too. And here, my Patty, is your own dolly
back again, with Polly Perkins King on her apron for every one to see.’
Sure enough, each dolly wore a pinafore, a fine white pinafore, too,
and across the hem, in the neatest stitches ever seen, ran each dolly’s
name, just as Grandmother said.
And over each dolly’s arm was flung a cape, a cape with a hood, and
as soon as they were tried on, it was seen that they were the most
beautiful capes that had ever been made.
Patty’s Polly wore a brown cape and hood, edged with beaver fur, and
lined with a lovely rose-colored silk. Anne Marie’s Polly wore a gray
cape and hood, trimmed with soft black fur, and lined with a pale shade
of blue, while Ailie McNabb’s Polly wore a dark blue cape and hood,
edged with squirrel fur, and lined with the gayest Scotch plaid silk
that Grandmother could find in all the city of New York.
At first the little girls couldn’t speak a word. They could only look
and look, each one at her own Polly Perkins.
Then Patty turned and said, ‘Oh, Grandmother!’ and flung both arms
about Grandmother’s neck and gave her a mighty hug. Next, to every
one’s surprise, shy little Ailie did the same. And last of all Anne
Marie stepped up and not only gave Grandmother a polite little hug, but
dropped her a curtsy and placed a kiss on her hand as well.
‘Merci, Madame, merci,’ said Anne Marie, so excited that, for the
moment, she quite forgot how to speak English.
‘Isabel,’ then cried Patty, turning to the table where Isabel had
been hastily set down, ‘Isabel, look at Polly Perkins, do! Isn’t she a
sister that you are proud to have? Oh, how glad I am that Polly is home
with us at last!’
Ailie slipped a little hand into Grandmother’s and smiled up into her
new friend’s face.
‘’Tis rare fine,’ whispered Ailie, pointing to the gay Scotch plaid
lining in her dolly’s cape, ‘and Granny will be saying so, too, I’m
thinking. The prettiest one of all.’
Holding their dollies the little girls could now turn their attention
to the Tree.
It really seemed as if all the bright, sparkling, glittering objects
in the world had been brought together and hung upon this Tree for
Grandmother King’s Christmas Party.
Chains and balls, flowers and fruit, icicles and snowballs, all in gold
and silver, rose and blue, scarlet and green, swung and bloomed on the
thick, sweet, green boughs. There were gay cornucopias filled to the
brim. There were chocolate roosters and chickens and ducks. There were
pink-and-white peppermint baskets and canes and hats. There were fairy
ships, and a parrot in a cage, and wee birds in a nest, and two little
babies asleep in a cradle, side by side. And over all, on the topmost
bough, there shone a great silver star, that seemed to glow with as
pure and clear and frosty a light as that of any real star in the sky
on this Eve of Christmas Day.
Then came ice-cream--for Grandmother said it wouldn’t be a real party
without ice-cream--and Anne Marie’s Christmas cakes, oh, so good! And
candy, as much as you could eat. And last of all, you might choose
whatever you would, to keep, from off the Christmas Tree.
Patty chose the two little babies asleep in the cradle, Anne Marie
chose a silver-and-white fairy dancer, and Ailie’s choice was the
bright little red-and-green parrot swinging in his cage.
‘He will keep Granny company when I go out to shop,’ explained Ailie.
[Illustration: ‘WHAT WILL SANTA CLAUS SAY TO-NIGHT WHEN HE SEES _THREE_
POLLY PERKINSES?’ ASKED PATTY]
Papa Durant came to take Anne Marie home, and bowed and smiled and
rubbed his hands together when he heard the praises of his Christmas
cakes, and saw Polly Perkins Durant held in happy Anne Marie’s arms.
Thomas, the hall boy, who had brought wee Ailie McNabb to the party,
was to take her home again.
But just at the last moment, Patty asked a question that made every one
at the Party stand still and think.
‘What will Santa Claus say to-night when he sees _three_ Polly
Perkinses?’ asked Patty.
And that was a question no one could answer, not even Grandmother King.
CHAPTER IX
ANNE MARIE AND THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
What did Santa Claus say when he saw the three Polly Perkinses?
That is something you and I will never know, unless some day one of the
Polly Perkinses opens her lips and tells.
For, of course, no one saw Santa Claus that Christmas Eve. Neither
Patty, nor Ailie, nor Anne Marie, nor any one of the hundreds and
hundreds of little boys and girls who meant to lie awake that night
and steal a glimpse of Santa Claus, or at least hear the patter of his
reindeer’s hoofs or catch the faintest tinkle of their bells.
But Anne Marie did see the Christmas Angel.
To be sure, there was one moment the next day when she thought it
might have been all a dream. But that moment was very short, indeed.
And finally Anne Marie made up her mind that not only had she seen
the Christmas Angel, but that the Angel had bent over her bed and had
smilingly given her a gentle Christmas kiss.
When Anne Marie, holding fast to Papa Durant’s hand, walked home from
the Party, although the walk was a short one, she managed to tell him
everything that had happened, from the moment she had presented her
Christmas cakes to Grandmother King until Papa Durant himself had come
to take her home.
She scarcely glanced up at the deep-blue starry sky. She scarcely
noticed the happy people, laden with bundles, who hurried to and fro in
the gay and frosty street.
Once home, she could scarcely eat her supper, so eager was she to tell
Grand’mère all about the Christmas Party and to display the new Polly
Perkins Durant in all her beauty of fresh pink frock and gray cloak and
hood.
‘This cape is worthy of Paris,’ pronounced Grand’mère, after carefully
examining not only the cape, but the pale blue lining as well. And
this, from Grand’mère was praise indeed, as Anne Marie well knew.
It seemed very hard that Anne Marie could not tell Maman all about her
happy afternoon, nor even show to her Polly Perkins Durant.
But Christmas Eve was a busy night in the Bakery, and Maman would sit
late in her little golden cage, not leaving it until Anne Marie had
long been abed and asleep. Of course, their friends and patrons must
have their Christmas cakes and pastries, their Christmas buns and
rolls. Anne Marie would not have had it otherwise.
‘But I would like to slip downstairs just for a moment to show my Polly
to Maman,’ coaxed Anne Marie, leaning across her bowl of bread and milk
to pat Grand’mère upon the cheek.
Although Grand’mère smiled at Anne Marie, she shook her head.
‘That would not please Maman,’ was Grand’mère’s answer, and Anne Marie
knew it was true. ‘You may show her your Polly to-morrow morning when
you wish her “Joyeux Noel.” Maman left a message for you, Anne Marie.
She said that you might go into her bedroom and look at her ball dress
that is lying on the bed, but that you must not touch it. Wait, Anne
Marie, wait for me.’
For already Anne Marie had slipped from her chair, and with Polly in
her arms was hurrying down the hall toward Maman’s bedroom.
‘You did not know it, Polly,’ said Anne Marie as she went, ‘but
to-night Papa and Maman go to the ball. And of all the lovely ladies
who will be there to-night, in pink and blue dresses, in scarlet and
white, Maman will be the loveliest of them all. Papa has told me this,
but I already knew it myself before he told me. And now we are to see
her dress, her new ball dress that she has never worn.’
The new ball dress lay spread out upon the bed. It was white, soft and
filmy white, and trimmed with delicate silver lace.
Not for anything in the world would Anne Marie have so much as laid a
finger upon it. It was far, far too beautiful for any little girl to
touch.
Beside the dress lay the softly gleaming silver slippers that Maman was
to wear. And there, too, oh, how lovely! was the wreath of tiny silver
flowers that would rest like a crown on Maman’s dark curling hair.
‘Oh!’ breathed Anne Marie in delight. ‘Oh, Grand’mère!’
Grand’mère nodded, smiling all the while, and in silence she and Anne
Marie stood looking at the bed.
‘I know,’ said Anne Marie suddenly, ‘I know whom Maman will be like.
She will be like my little fairy dancer, only, of course, much more
beautiful. Come, Grand’mère! Come and see my fairy dancer. She, too, is
all silver and white. See her dance, Grand’mère! See her whirl! I can
do that too.’
And, holding Polly’s hands, Anne Marie whirled and twirled like her
little fairy dancer until both she and Polly fell in a heap to the
floor.
‘It is now time for bed,’ said Grand’mère, ‘and there is much for you
to do to-night before you go to sleep.’
In less time than you might think, Anne Marie was washed and brushed
and in her nightgown, almost ready for bed.
Almost ready for bed, but not quite. For it was Christmas Eve,
remember, and although Anne Marie was not going to hang up her
stocking, she was going to leave her shoe beside the hearth.
And would the little Noel fill a shoe as surely as Kris Kringle would
stuff a stocking with toys and goodies of every kind?
Certainly he would.
He had done it over and over for Papa and Maman when they were little
children in far-away France. He had done it for Grand’mère in that
long-ago time when she was a little girl like Anne Marie. Indeed,
without doubt, he would do it that very night for those little children
in France and elsewhere who believed in him and who left one of their
shoes beside the hearth for him to fill.
So Anne Marie made ready to place her shoe beside the hearth.
‘Shall I take one of my best shoes, Grand’mère?’ asked Anne Marie, ‘my
shiny shoes with the gray tops? Or would you take one of my everyday
brown shoes, do you think?’
‘The best shoe, perhaps,’ answered Grand’mère, ‘though little Noel is
not one to scorn a shabby shoe.’
‘Then I will take my everyday shoe,’ decided Anne Marie, after a
moment’s thought. ‘It is not kind on Christmas Eve to take the best
shoe because it is the prettiest. Sometimes the shiny shoes pinch me,
and the brown ones never do. Then, too, the brown shoe is the larger,’
added Anne Marie.
Down beside the hearth went the brown shoe to wait for little Noel,
and Anne Marie made ready to light her Christmas candle.
‘This is for the little Noel,’ Anne Marie told Polly softly, as
Grand’mère in the window pinned the curtains safely back and raised the
shade. ‘He will come to earth to-night, and in the dark and cold my
candle in the window may be the very light he needs to guide him on his
way.’
The candle lighted and Anne Marie tucked in bed, Grand’mère put out all
other lights and crept away.
Beside the bed on a chair sat Polly Perkins, holding the little fairy
dancer in her lap.
Of course, Anne Marie meant not to go to sleep. She meant to stay awake
and at least hear the little Noel moving about, even though she were
not able to have a peep at him. Perhaps, too, Maman would come in to
say good-night before she went to the ball.
The candle burned steadily, sending out a clear yellow light.
‘Dear little Christ Child, dear little Noel,’ thought Anne Marie
drowsily. ‘Will he see my candle, I wonder, to-night? Will he come down
the long, long way from heaven, the long, long way--’
And while thinking these long, long thoughts, Anne Marie fell asleep.
Just why Anne Marie woke in the middle of the night she never knew.
There was not a sound, not even the ticking of the clock to be heard.
The candle was still burning. Its soft yellow light made a bright glow
in one corner of the dark room, and there, before Anne Marie, directly
in the light stood--the Christmas Angel!
How could Anne Marie be mistaken?
The Angel was in white, as Angels always are, and she glistened from
head to foot as if powdered with star-dust or light-o’-the-moon. She
stood quite still, with a sweet smile on her face, but as Anne Marie
watched, slowly and as light as a feather the Angel moved toward her
bed.
Anne Marie held her breath. She was not in the least afraid. Over her
bed bent the Angel, and Anne Marie felt a kiss, the gentlest, softest
kiss you may imagine, placed upon her forehead.
It was all so beautiful! so lovely! Anne Marie wished that the Angel
might stay with her forever. Not for any reason would she stir and
perhaps startle the Angel away.
She closed her eyes for an instant only, but when she opened them
again the room was dark. The Christmas Candle had burned out and the
Christmas Angel had vanished.
When Anne Marie next awoke, the room was filled with daylight. It was
a gray light, to be sure, for already a few flakes were drifting down
from the cloudy sky and the day promised to be a snowy one.
But at least morning had come, and it took Anne Marie only a moment
to dart to the hearth and find her shoe well-filled, to carry it in
to Maman and Papa’s bedside, to wish them a ‘Joyeux Noel’ With many
kisses, and then to climb upon the bed to see what was in her shoe.
An orange, candy, a gay little purse filled with golden pennies, a box
of colored pencils, a silver thimble, for Anne Marie dearly loved to
sew.
It was remarkable how many presents the little Noel had managed to put
into one small shoe.
And down in the very toe, where Anne Marie might never have thought of
looking--only, of course, she did--was a box, and in the box a ring, a
real gold ring, set with three stones of a most lovely shade of blue.
‘Turquoise, they are called,’ said Papa Durant.
The ring fitted Anne Marie exactly. How had the little Noel known the
size of her finger so well?
But Anne Marie spent little time in thinking of that. She had
something so tell--the Visit of the Christmas Angel.
As she told her story, Papa Durant nodded and nodded again.
‘True, true,’ murmured he when Anne Marie had finished. ‘It was truly
an Angel that you saw last night.’
But Maman only laughed softly and said, ‘But was it not all a Christmas
dream, Anne Marie?’
Anne Marie shook her head doubtfully. For a moment she did not know
quite what to say or think. Perhaps it was a dream. But no, Anne Marie
felt almost certain that a real shining Angel had stood beside her bed
last night.
‘Why not ask your Polly Perkins?’ suggested Papa. ‘She sat beside your
bed, did she not? and so must have seen all that went on during the
night.’
This was quite true, and Anne Marie ran for Polly Perkins.
Maman was delighted with Polly and her cape. She listened with
interest to Anne Marie’s account of Grandmother King’s Party.
But she only laughed again and again when Anne Marie said solemnly to
her dolly,
‘Polly Perkins, did I see the Christmas Angel last night?’
Of course Polly didn’t answer out loud, but, as Anne Marie said, she
looked as if she meant to say ‘yes.’
So then Anne Marie made up her mind.
‘I did see the Christmas Angel,’ said Anne Marie.
And smiling at Anne Marie and Maman, Papa Durant nodded,
‘Yes, Anne Marie, I, too, think that you did.’
CHAPTER X
WHAT SANTA CLAUS BROUGHT TO AILIE McNABB
‘Granny,’ said Ailie, ‘do you think Santa Claus will come here
to-night?’
‘Aye,’ answered Granny, ‘he might.’
‘Will you see him?’ asked Ailie.
‘Not I,’ answered Granny, ‘not a peep.’
‘Will I see him if I stay awake?’ asked Ailie after a moment’s thought.
‘Not if you are canny,’ was Granny’s reply. ‘Santa Claus leaves nothing
for bairns who lie awake on Christmas Eve.’
‘Oh,’ said Ailie, ‘oh, doesn’t he?--Shall I hang up my stocking?’ was
Ailie’s next question.
‘You might,’ was Granny’s reply.
So Ailie hung her stocking, a well-mended stocking, too, from a
convenient nail by the mantel-shelf, and with her head on one side
watched it for a moment as it dangled empty there.
Then she turned to Granny who, well wrapped in her old plaid shawl, sat
rocking to and fro.
‘I hope Santa Claus will bring you something, too,’ said Ailie.
‘I have had my Christmas already,’ replied Granny, ‘a good new friend
round the corner and a cure for my cough.’
‘But perhaps Santa Claus will bring you something more,’ said Ailie
hopefully, as she climbed into bed with Polly in her arms.
‘Snuggle doun,’ said Ailie to Polly, ‘while I tell you a secret. I
told it to the other Polly and now I will tell it to you. This is what
I would like rare fine, though I’m not thinking that Santa Claus will
bring it to me to-night. I would like a mither, a pretty mither, who
would wear a dress made of silk like the one Patty’s mither wore at the
Party to-day. And I would like a father who would put his hand in his
pocket and pull me out a penny just as if it were nothing at all. And
I would like four little brothers and four little sisters to play with
me. I would wash them and dress them and take them all out for a walk.
But if I never had a one of them, Polly, I would not cry, because I
have you, and so long as I have you I will never be lonely again.’
Hand in hand lay Ailie and Polly on the bed. But presently in her
sleep Ailie turned over and burrowed down under the bedclothes until
you couldn’t see so much as the tip of her nose nor one of the sandy
ringlets that clustered all over the top of her round little head. So
far under the bed-covers went she that no doubt that is why Ailie heard
not a sound all the night long.
But Polly, lying beside her on the bed, did not close her pretty brown
eyes the whole night through. So Polly must have seen Santa Claus, for
certainly Ailie’s stocking was filled when she woke in the morning, and
who, may I ask, filled the stocking unless Santa Claus himself had
been there?
Polly, too, through the window, must have watched the moon sail slowly
past in the Christmas sky. She must have seen the stars twinkle and
burn and then grow pale as little by little the light grew stronger and
at last morning came. No doubt Polly saw the great gray snow-clouds
spread and spread until the whole sky was covered over and the first
frosty flakes came softly fluttering down.
Last of all, Polly must have heard the clatter of feet on the stairs, a
clatter that came nearer and nearer to Ailie’s little room at the very
tiptop of the tall, tall building until at last the clatter stopped
just outside Ailie’s own door.
Now Granny was already awake and dressed when the noise came up the
stair.
‘Who can it be so early in the day?’ said Granny to herself.
But when she opened the door and saw who it was standing there on the
little landing, she flung both arms about Aunt Elspeth’s neck--for it
was Aunt Elspeth herself whom Granny saw standing there--and joyfully
brought her into the little room. And behind Aunt Elspeth came Uncle
Rob, carrying a big bag in one hand, and with a white bundle carefully
held in his other arm.
Oh, how glad Granny was to see Aunt Elspeth and Uncle Rob, come all the
way from Scotland over the sea, and, oh, how glad they both were to see
Granny, too!
Then Aunt Elspeth made Granny sit down in the rocking-chair and very
gently she took the white bundle from Uncle Rob’s arms.
She laid it in Granny’s lap, she unpinned a soft white blanket, and
there looking up into Granny’s face lay a little rosy baby with blue
eyes and a sandy curl or two that might have belonged to Ailie McNabb
herself.
‘This is Thomas,’ said Aunt Elspeth proudly,--‘my Thomas. But we call
him Tammus for short.’
‘He is the image of our Ailie,’ said Granny, hugging wee Tammus and
rocking him to and fro and never once taking her eyes off his round
rosy little face.
‘Ailie?’ cried Aunt Elspeth. ‘Where is Ailie?’
There she was, fast asleep, rolled into a ball in the middle of the bed.
Aunt Elspeth took off all wee Tammus’s outside wrappings, and then with
a smile she tucked him under the covers, right down beside Ailie in the
bed.
Now Tammus was wide awake and he didn’t mean to lie still a moment
longer. His fat little legs waved to and fro, his short arms struck out
right and left, and with a mighty thump Tammus turned himself over and
began to crawl up on his Cousin Ailie’s head.
So Ailie woke. And when she saw a real live pink-and-white baby
crawling and tumbling about in the bed, at first Ailie didn’t know what
to think, and then in a moment she understood just what had happened.
‘Santa Claus brought him,’ said Ailie. ‘Santa Claus brought him to me.’
Then Ailie saw Aunt Elspeth and Uncle Rob, and she opened her eyes
wider than ever before.
‘Is it a mither for me?’ asked Ailie in her surprise. ‘A mither and a
father too?’
‘No, Ailie,’ said Granny with a shake of the head, but smiling as Ailie
had not seen her smile in many a long day, ‘but it is almost as good.
It is Aunt Elspeth and Uncle Rob come from Scotland to take care of you
and me.’
When Aunt Elspeth picked up Ailie and hugged her close, Ailie put both
arms about Aunt Elspeth’s neck and felt that this was the very best
present that Santa Claus had ever brought to a little girl.
Then Ailie asked a question that first surprised Aunt Elspeth and then
that made her laugh.
‘Have you a silk dress?’ asked Ailie in Aunt Elspeth’s ear.
‘Yes,’ whispered back Aunt Elspeth, ‘a bright blue silk. Will you like
it, do you think?’
‘Aye,’ answered Ailie, patting Aunt Elspeth’s back in her delight, ‘and
when you put it on you will be prettier than Patty’s mither, for your
cheeks are rosier than hers.
‘I did want four little brothers and four little sisters,’ went on
Ailie, after a bit, ‘but Tammus will do just as well as all of them, I
think.’
‘He will be much easier to take care of,’ agreed Aunt Elspeth. ‘And
then you know Uncle Rob is going to buy a farm, and you and Granny are
coming to live with us there. We will have hens and chickens and ducks,
and a pig, and a cow, and horses, too. You will have plenty of friends
to play with there. You will never miss the four little brothers and
four little sisters, I ween.’
‘Aye, Aunt Elspeth,’ said Ailie happily, ‘’twill be rare fine for Granny
and Tammus and me.’
Uncle Rob proved to be so kind and friendly that Ailie, sitting upon
his lap, went so far as to confide to him ‘her secret,’ her secret wish
for a mother and a father and brothers and sisters, too, and how she
now thought that he and Aunt Elspeth and Tammus would take their places
and answer just as well.
And when, later in the day, Uncle Rob did actually put his hand in his
pocket and pull out a penny for Ailie, ‘just as if it were nothing at
all,’ you couldn’t have found a happier little girl in New York City
than Ailie McNabb.
‘It is a grand Christmas Day, Polly,’ said Ailie as she and Polly
Perkins settled down in a corner for a quiet little talk. ‘Santa Claus
brought me everything. A stocking full of goodies, oranges and nuts and
candies, too. And he brought me Aunt Elspeth and Tammus and Uncle Rob.
‘But I will always love you most, Polly, never fear, because I knew you
first of all. Aye, I will always love you rare fine, Polly Perkins,’
said little Ailie McNabb.
CHAPTER XI
THE VERY BEST CHRISTMAS OF ALL
Christmas morning, early and dark and gray!
Patty woke, she sat up in bed, she listened.
Not a sound!
Father and Mother and Grandmother must still be fast asleep.
Had Santa Claus come last night?
There was one sure way of telling. Was her stocking filled?
So Patty slipped out of bed and stole into the living-room.
There stood the Tree, fragrant and green, looking taller and more
beautiful than ever in the dull morning light.
Under the Tree, propped comfortably against the low branches, sat Polly
Perkins King. Her face wore a wise little smile as if she knew all that
had happened last night, but would never, never tell.
‘Merry Christmas, Polly,’ whispered Patty as she crept into the room.
‘Oh, look at my stocking, look!’
Yes, the stocking that last night had hung from the mantelpiece, so
thin and limp, had now become delightfully plump and thick, with
strange little bumps and knobs all over it, and with packages actually
peeping over the edge of the top, it was so full.
‘Oh!’ said Patty again, her eyes fixed on the stocking, ‘oh, Polly,
look!’
Up on a chair climbed Patty and with nimble fingers unfastened the
stocking and lifted it down.
Then into Mother’s room she ran to wake Mother and Father and
Grandmother, too, across the hall, and to be the very first one to wish
them all a Merry Christmas Day.
You would never guess all the presents that had been crowded into
Patty’s stocking.
Of course there were apples and oranges and candies and nuts.
There was a little watch to be worn on Patty’s wrist.
‘Not a really truly watch,’ explained Patty, ‘but just as good as a
really truly one.’
There was a pair of soft gray gloves all lined with fur.
‘As soft as a kitten and as warm as a bear,’ declared Patty, trying
them on at once. ‘Maybe Santa Claus wears this kind his very own self.’
‘Maybe he does,’ answered Father. ‘Open that long box, Patty. It says
on the card, “Merry Christmas from Thomas.” Perhaps Santa Claus came in
through the hall last night, for Thomas must have asked him to put this
in your stocking for him.’
Thomas was the hall boy, you remember, and a good friend to Patty, too.
So Patty untied Thomas’s box. It held a large silk handkerchief,
blue-and-red on one side and red-and-blue on the other.
It was bright, it was gay, and Patty was delighted.
‘But I shan’t use it for a handkerchief,’ said she. ‘It is too good.
I shall use it for a--for a shawl,’ said Patty, putting it about her
shoulders and making herself look like a little Mother Bunch.
‘You might wear it for a muffler under your coat,’ suggested Father,
‘like my black-and-white muffler, you know.’
‘I will,’ said Patty, ‘I will wear it this very day.’
For Patty was going on a journey this Christmas Day. She was going
to Four Corners with Father and Mother and Grandmother to eat her
Christmas dinner at the Farm with Aunt Mary and Uncle Charles.
So Patty made haste to empty her stocking.
She found a string of beautiful pink coral beads in the toe. There was
a small paint-box, and a book full of pictures all ready for Patty to
paint. There was a ball of gay red worsted and two knitting-needles.
Grandmother must have known something about that, for she had long ago
promised to teach Patty to knit.
But the present in her stocking that Patty liked best of all was a wee
pair of brown mittens so tiny that no little girl, not even a baby
girl, could possibly have squeezed her fingers into them.
Then whom were the mittens for?
Patty knew in a minute.
‘They are for Polly!’ cried Patty. ‘They are for Polly Perkins. She
shall wear them to-day to show Aunt Mary and Uncle Charles.’
Yes, Polly Perkins was going with Patty to the Farm. Mother had said
she might because it was Christmas Day.
Soon they were ready for the journey. Polly Perkins looked well,
dressed in her new brown cape and hood, trimmed with beaver fur, and
her brown mittens that were a perfect fit. Patty, too, wore her new
fur-lined gloves, and her string of pink coral beads, while about her
neck as a muffler was Thomas’s gay silk handkerchief, the blue-and-red
side out.
But just before Patty left the house, she began to run around, looking
here and there and asking every one,
‘Where are my mice? Where are my five mice? Oh, Mother! Oh,
Grandmother! Please help me find my mice!’
What did Patty mean? Why should a little girl want to find five mice?
And just as she was starting on a journey, too!
Well, wait and see.
The mice were found, tucked away in a paper bag, and were placed in
Father’s overcoat pocket for safe-keeping.
And then they were off.
The snow was falling, a flake here and a flake there, when they
started. But as the train sped farther and farther along into the
country, the ground grew white and the window-panes of the train were
dotted thick with flying snow. Soon each little bush and tree was
clothed in a warm white cloak, while every fencepost and pole wore a
round white hood or a tall pointed cap that gave to some of them the
sauciest air in the world.
It was a real snowstorm, and Patty couldn’t help thinking that nothing
could have been planned that would have given her greater pleasure.
She thought the country beautiful in its covering of spotless white.
She was delighted when Uncle Charles met them at the Four Corners
Station with the old two-seater and the farm team of horses, instead
of the automobile. As the horses pulled and plunged through the snow,
Patty and Polly peeped over the edge of the carriage robe, their eyes
very bright and their noses very red, but with their fingers as warm as
toast in their new Christmas gloves, and both of them enjoying every
moment of their ride.
The old red farmhouse looked pretty and homelike in its heavy trimming
of soft white snow. And there in the doorway stood Aunt Mary, so
anxious to see her visitors that she couldn’t wait indoors another
moment.
Presents, and another beautiful Christmas Tree, and every one laughing
and talking and wishing ‘Merry Christmas’ all at once. That is what
happened at first, with Patty in the midst of it, hopping about, and
sitting on people’s laps, and then slipping away to walk around the
Christmas Tree again and again.
But presently Patty remembered something.
‘Where are the kitties, Aunt Mary?’ asked Patty, ‘the four new little
kitties you wrote Mother to tell me about?’
‘Out in the barn,’ said Aunt Mary. ‘Would you like to see them? Uncle
Charles will take you out there if you do.’
‘I have brought each of them a Christmas present, and one for their
mother, too,’ said Patty with a happy face. ‘They are mice, little mice
made of catnip, and I would like to give them to the kitties now.’
‘You might see whether your present for Patty is dry yet,’ called Aunt
Mary after Uncle Charles, as, well wrapped up, he and Patty and the
mice set out for the barn.
‘Another present for me? Do let me see it, Uncle Charles,’ begged
Patty, all excitement.
So up the narrow barn stairs to the loft went Patty and Uncle Charles
and the mice. And there in one corner of the loft stood a cradle, an
old-fashioned wooden cradle, made by Uncle Charles for Polly Perkins
as soon as Grandmother’s letter telling of the three Polly Perkinses
had reached the Farm. It was painted a lovely shade of blue, and though
the paint was still a little moist, Uncle Charles believed it would be
quite dry by night so that the cradle might be safely carried home.
‘Aunt Mary has made the pillows and sheets and blankets for it,’ said
Uncle Charles, setting the cradle aswing. ‘This is the kind of a bed
your great-grandmother was put to sleep in, Patty King.’
Then down the stairs went happy Patty and Uncle Charles to see the
four new kitties and their mother.
The big gray mother cat was sleepy and plump, but she had the most
interesting and lively family of kittens that Patty had ever seen.
One was gray, one was black-and-white, one was all white with pale
blue eyes, and the last and smallest and liveliest one of all was
orange-yellow and white, ‘a tortoise-shell kitten,’ Uncle Charles said
it was called.
How the kittens did like their catnip mice! Even their sleepy old
mother tossed and boxed her mouse about, and presently ran up and down
the length of the barn as lively as any of her lively brood of kittens,
who leaped and tumbled and raced about to their hearts’ content and to
Patty’s great entertainment.
‘I think they are so excited because this is the first Christmas
present they have ever had,’ said Patty to Uncle Charles, as after a
peep at the horses and the cows they made their way through the snow
back to the house.
Then out came the little pillows and mattress and sheets and blankets
for Polly Perkins’s new cradle. And when they had been admired and
shown to every one, and to Polly Perkins, too, it was dinner-time.
So it was not until after dinner and late in the afternoon that Patty
was able to sit down in peace and quiet with Polly and talk over this
most delightful Christmas Day.
‘Of course, Polly,’ said Patty, ‘this is the first Christmas you have
ever had. You must feel like the kittens, so excited you don’t know
what to do. Now I have had five Christmases. Five of them--just think!
But I will tell you something, Polly Perkins. This Christmas is the
very best Christmas of all.’
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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