GRANDMOTHER PLACED HER IN PATTY’S ARMS (page [9])

Pretty
Polly Perkins

By
ETHEL CALVERT PHILLIPS

Illustrated by
EDITH F. BUTLER

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

CONTENTS

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.

‘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.