Pretty Polly Perkins

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.

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.