Pretty Polly Perkins

Patty was so surprised at everything that had happened that she didn’t know what to think.

You may imagine how surprised she felt to see her own dear lost Polly Perkins being almost pulled apart in the street by two strange little girls. But you may also imagine her surprise to find on reaching home that Grandmother had carried Polly into her own room and that Patty was not to see her at all.

‘It is Christmas time, Patty,’ said Mother with a smile. ‘Remember Grandmother’s Christmas Party and be patient and wait.’

That was all Mother would say to Patty about it, and Grandmother told her even less. Indeed, Grandmother now spent most of her time shut in her own room, while Mother went about with a smile on her face, closing closet doors that would pop open and whisking parcels into bureau drawers so that Patty might not see.

In a day or so Patty began to smell a Christmas Tree, but though she searched and searched she could find no trace of one.

‘But I know I smell a Christmas Tree, Isabel,’ confided Patty to her doll. ‘Don’t you? And don’t you want to see Polly Perkins the worst way now that she is in the house with us? I don’t see how I can ever wait for Grandmother’s Party, Isabel. Oh, how I wish Christmas Eve was this very, very minute.’

But there was so much Christmasing going on in Patty’s house, these days, that really the time passed quickly, after all.

One night Father went into Grandmother’s room straight from dinner, and though the door was shut tight and even locked, Patty could hear Father laugh, great big laughs over something so funny that it made Patty smile, too, though she couldn’t guess what the joke was about. She even lay on the floor and tried to peep under Grandmother’s door, but she couldn’t see a thing, not even feet. When Father came out, his fingers were stained the strangest colors, and there was a great streak of red on his cheek. But still Patty couldn’t imagine what he had been doing.

One day Mother went out shopping, and came home with her arms full of queer knobby bundles. Another day Grandmother went, and brought home any number of packages, large and small, that were whisked out of sight before Patty could take so much as a peep. And every night, when Father came home, Patty was shut in the dining-room until Father’s pockets were emptied and their contents hidden away.

But at last the day of Grandmother’s Party came, Christmas Eve, bright and frosty and clear.

Patty and Isabel spent the morning alone in the dining-room.

‘I promised Mother we wouldn’t peek, Isabel,’ said Patty, ‘and neither will we listen.’

So over her head Patty tied a scarf, while Isabel had a little shawl pinned under her chin that shut out every sound that could possibly drift into the room.

‘We look like beggars,’ said Patty, ‘but I don’t care. You are such a good child, Isabel, that you shall come to the party, too, just as if you were a real little girl.’

And so Isabel did. For when four o’clock came, time for the party to begin, there sat Isabel on the dining-room table dressed in her best, which of course was her one blue dress, but with clean face and hands and shining hair, waiting for the guests to arrive.

By this time Patty couldn’t sit still a minute. She fluttered up and down the hall and in and out of the dining-room. She straightened Isabel’s dress and smoothed her curls over and over again. A half-dozen times she thought she heard the doorbell ring. A half-dozen times she opened the door only to find no one there.

But at last the bell did ring. It was Anne Marie, her black eyes big and bright and her cheeks as red as the little scarlet frock she wore. Papa Durant had brought her, and had left in her arms a huge box which Anne Marie put into Grandmother’s hands with her very best curtsy and smile.

‘For the Party, for Noel,’ said Anne Marie.

It was a box of cakes, French Christmas cakes, covered with sugar frosting, pink and green and white, and on many of them appeared the words ‘Joyeux Noel,’ which was Anne Marie’s French way of saying ‘Merry Christmas.’

Then in came wee Ailie McNabb, warmly dressed not only in a blue coat that Patty had outgrown, but also in a neat little frock that had once belonged to Patty, it is true, but that fitted wee Ailie McNabb as if it had been made for her.

Straight up to Grandmother walked Ailie and stretched out a small foot clad in a glossy brown shoe.

‘They are fine and warm,’ said Ailie, just as if Grandmother knew all about them, as no doubt she did.

It was time then for the front-room door to be opened. And fortunately Father now came home from the office, for Patty felt that not even a Christmas Party would be quite perfect unless Father were there to enjoy it too.

So the front-room door was thrown open and in they went, first Anne Marie and Ailie and Patty, carrying Isabel, and then Grandmother and Mother and Father close behind.

The first thing they saw, that filled all one side of the room, was—well, can’t you guess? A Christmas Tree! A great, shining Christmas Tree that touched the ceiling of the room and spread out its branches far and wide on either hand. A great, shining Christmas Tree, covered with glittering balls and bells and chains, with beautiful stars and candles of every hue.

But, would you believe it, though it was by far the gayest, prettiest sight that Patty or Anne Marie or Ailie had ever looked upon, after the first glance the three little girls did not look at the Tree at all.

They were looking at something under the Tree, at something so delightful, so exactly what they wanted to see, that they simply could not look at anything else.

For each little girl was looking at Polly Perkins sitting under the Tree. But instead of one Polly Perkins there were three!

Yes, actually three Polly Perkinses, looking exactly alike, with gentle brown eyes and pretty pink cheeks and glossy brown curls. And each Polly Perkins wore a sweet, sweet smile. There were the three pink dresses, the three pair of neat brown slippers, too.

It was simply too good to be true. But it was true. Oh, yes, indeed, it was.

Down on the floor before one Polly Perkins went Patty King, down went Anne Marie Durant before another, and last of all down went Ailie McNabb before the third Polly Perkins sitting under the Tree.

Then Grandmother stepped forward and placed a dolly in each of the little girls’ arms.

‘This is your dolly, Anne Marie,’ said Grandmother, her face as bright as that of the little girls. ‘Her name is on her apron—Polly Perkins Durant. And here is your doll, Ailie, with Polly Perkins McNabb embroidered on her apron, too. And here, my Patty, is your own dolly back again, with Polly Perkins King on her apron for every one to see.’

Sure enough, each dolly wore a pinafore, a fine white pinafore, too, and across the hem, in the neatest stitches ever seen, ran each dolly’s name, just as Grandmother said.

And over each dolly’s arm was flung a cape, a cape with a hood, and as soon as they were tried on, it was seen that they were the most beautiful capes that had ever been made.

Patty’s Polly wore a brown cape and hood, edged with beaver fur, and lined with a lovely rose-colored silk. Anne Marie’s Polly wore a gray cape and hood, trimmed with soft black fur, and lined with a pale shade of blue, while Ailie McNabb’s Polly wore a dark blue cape and hood, edged with squirrel fur, and lined with the gayest Scotch plaid silk that Grandmother could find in all the city of New York.

At first the little girls couldn’t speak a word. They could only look and look, each one at her own Polly Perkins.

Then Patty turned and said, ‘Oh, Grandmother!’ and flung both arms about Grandmother’s neck and gave her a mighty hug. Next, to every one’s surprise, shy little Ailie did the same. And last of all Anne Marie stepped up and not only gave Grandmother a polite little hug, but dropped her a curtsy and placed a kiss on her hand as well.

‘Merci, Madame, merci,’ said Anne Marie, so excited that, for the moment, she quite forgot how to speak English.

‘Isabel,’ then cried Patty, turning to the table where Isabel had been hastily set down, ‘Isabel, look at Polly Perkins, do! Isn’t she a sister that you are proud to have? Oh, how glad I am that Polly is home with us at last!’

Ailie slipped a little hand into Grandmother’s and smiled up into her new friend’s face.

‘’Tis rare fine,’ whispered Ailie, pointing to the gay Scotch plaid lining in her dolly’s cape, ‘and Granny will be saying so, too, I’m thinking. The prettiest one of all.’

Holding their dollies the little girls could now turn their attention to the Tree.

It really seemed as if all the bright, sparkling, glittering objects in the world had been brought together and hung upon this Tree for Grandmother King’s Christmas Party.

Chains and balls, flowers and fruit, icicles and snowballs, all in gold and silver, rose and blue, scarlet and green, swung and bloomed on the thick, sweet, green boughs. There were gay cornucopias filled to the brim. There were chocolate roosters and chickens and ducks. There were pink-and-white peppermint baskets and canes and hats. There were fairy ships, and a parrot in a cage, and wee birds in a nest, and two little babies asleep in a cradle, side by side. And over all, on the topmost bough, there shone a great silver star, that seemed to glow with as pure and clear and frosty a light as that of any real star in the sky on this Eve of Christmas Day.

Then came ice-cream—for Grandmother said it wouldn’t be a real party without ice-cream—and Anne Marie’s Christmas cakes, oh, so good! And candy, as much as you could eat. And last of all, you might choose whatever you would, to keep, from off the Christmas Tree.

Patty chose the two little babies asleep in the cradle, Anne Marie chose a silver-and-white fairy dancer, and Ailie’s choice was the bright little red-and-green parrot swinging in his cage.

‘He will keep Granny company when I go out to shop,’ explained Ailie.

Papa Durant came to take Anne Marie home, and bowed and smiled and rubbed his hands together when he heard the praises of his Christmas cakes, and saw Polly Perkins Durant held in happy Anne Marie’s arms.

Thomas, the hall boy, who had brought wee Ailie McNabb to the party, was to take her home again.

But just at the last moment, Patty asked a question that made every one at the Party stand still and think.

‘What will Santa Claus say to-night when he sees three Polly Perkinses?’ asked Patty.

And that was a question no one could answer, not even Grandmother King.