CHAPTER VIWEE AILIE McNABB
Wee Ailie McNabbwas 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 obligedto 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, butGranny 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 handswere 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.
HOW AILIE ADMIRED POLLY’S PRETTY PINK DRESSOH! HOW AILIE ADMIRED POLLY’S PRETTY PINK DRESS
OH! HOW AILIE ADMIRED POLLY’S PRETTY PINK DRESS
OH! HOW AILIE ADMIRED POLLY’S PRETTY PINK DRESS
‘Eh, my good little Ailie,’ whispered Granny, opening her eyes and trying to smile as Ailieheld 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 onAilie 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 behappy 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 asshe 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, andin 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.