CHAPTER VIITHREE LITTLE GIRLS AND POLLY PERKINS
Thereis 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 theBakery 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 mindwhat 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, bowingand 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.