Pretty Polly Perkins

‘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.