The postman was coming up the street and Sally stood on the doorstep waiting for him.

His whistle sounded loud and shrill, slowly, house by house, he drew near, and at last with a smile and a tap on Sally’s head, he put a letter into her hands and bade her give it to her mother before she lost it.

This was an old joke between the postman and Sally that never failed to make them both laugh.

‘Just as if I would lose a letter,’ thought Sally to herself as she went into the house, ‘when I am almost six years old.’

‘Mother,’ she called, climbing the stairs, ‘Mother, here is a letter for you.’

And as Mother dropped her sewing into her lap, Sally placed the letter squarely in her mother’s hands.

‘There now,’ said she with a triumphant nod, ‘I didn’t lose that letter, did I?’

Mother absently shook her head. She was reading her letter and smiling as she read.

‘Who wrote it?’ asked Sally, pressing against Mother’s knee.

‘Aunt Sarah Waters,’ was Mother’s reply.

‘My Aunt Sarah?’ demanded Sally. ‘What does she say about me, Mother? What does she say about me?’

‘She is writing about your birthday,’ answered Mother. ‘She has made a funny mistake. She thinks that to-morrow is your birthday, Sally, instead of a whole month away. And she wants you to buy your own birthday present this year, because she is in the country, far away from any shop, and cannot buy it for you herself.’

Sally’s face grew very bright. A present from Aunt Sarah, and a present that she might choose her very own self! She leaned forward suddenly and placed a kiss on Mother’s chin. She was so happy she felt that she must do something to show it.

‘What shall I buy, Mother?’ asked Sally, her cheeks red with excitement. ‘What shall I choose? I want a tea-set and a doll’s piano more than anything else, but I would like a farmyard, too, with little cows and pigs and ducks like the new one Alice has, or perhaps a big bag full of marbles like Andy’s. I could shoot marbles just as well as Andy. I know I could.’

‘We will think about it,’ answered Mother. ‘There is plenty of time. It is a whole month, four long weeks, before your birthday, remember.’

‘But, Mother,’ began Sally, in great surprise, ‘but, Mother, I shan’t wait a whole month for my present, shall I? Won’t we go and buy it to-morrow? I don’t want to wait, Mother. I don’t, I don’t.’

Sally’s face was no longer bright. It had clouded over, and her under lip was thrust out as if she might be going to cry.

‘Why, Sally,’ answered Mother gently, ‘I hardly know what to say. To-morrow isn’t your birthday, you know. If you bought a present now from Aunt Sarah you wouldn’t have one when the real birthday came.’

‘Yes, I would, Mother,’ urged Sally, winking hard. ‘I would have the one I would buy to-morrow. I won’t lose it or break it or let Tippy play with it. I will be so careful. Aunt Sarah wants me to buy it to-morrow. She says so in her letter. You know she does.’

Sally gazed so anxiously up into her mother’s face that Mother thought for a moment and then said cheerfully,

‘This is what we will do, Sally. To-night we will tell Father all about it and whatever he says we will do. Now run over to Aunt Bee’s with this card of buttons. She left them here yesterday. And don’t stay too long, Sally. Come home soon.’

What would Father say to-night? Was she to buy her present now or to wait four long, long weeks? Sally could think and talk of nothing else.

‘If I am very good all day long, don’t you think Father will say, “Buy your present now?”’ Sally asked Aunt Bee, and Aunt Bee thought it likely that he would.

Then Sally went over to visit Alice, and she and Alice talked and talked about the present that might be bought the very next day.

‘A tea-set,’ said Alice at once. ‘I don’t think there is anything nicer than a tea-set. And do try to choose one with pink flowers. Pink flowers are the prettiest of all.’

Sally did want a tea-set, but, oh! think of a doll’s piano!

‘A trunk would be nice for the dolls,’ suggested Sally, ‘only I haven’t many clothes to put in it, and I would like a rolling-pin and a wash-tub and some teeny, tiny clothes-pins, too. I wish it was night, don’t you, Alice? Don’t you wish Father was home now?’

But, to-night, of all nights in the year, Father didn’t come home to dinner at all. He telephoned Mother that he would not be home until long past Sally’s bedtime. So Sally was forced to go to bed without knowing what Father’s answer would be.

But the next morning she woke to find Mother standing at her bedside, and before Sally could ask a single question she knew by Mother’s smiling face that she was to buy her present now.

‘Yes, we are to go into the city to-day,’ said Mother, ‘to buy your birthday present.’

At this news Sally was so happy that she could scarcely speak a word.

She left her chair at breakfast three times to hug Father close, and, if she could, she would have hurried Mother off to the train an hour before it started.

Once on the train there was so much to be seen from the window that Sally had little time to talk.

Green meadows, fields of corn, a brook with cows knee-deep in the shade. Over a bridge, through a dark tunnel, with every now and then a glimpse of the sparkling sea.

On and on thundered the train. Sometimes it would stop at a small village station to let an old woman with a basket climb on or off. Sometimes it roared its way into a smoky town, the streets lined with brick buildings and filled with people moving to and fro.

Then came the marshes, covered with pale green grasses and rushes, with pools of water that gleamed white in the sun.

Last of all, the city, the great bustling city, with its dashing automobiles and heavy trucks, its crowds of people, its haste and confusion and noise.

Sally held fast to Mother’s hand. If she let go, even for a moment, Mother might be swallowed up in the crowd, and then how would Sally ever find her way home again?

‘Do you think all these people have little boys and girls like me at home?’ asked Sally, as she and Mother made their way through the crowd toward the big shops where you might buy almost anything in the world.

‘A great many of them have,’ answered Mother, ‘and some of them have brought their little boys and girls with them to town.’

Sure enough, directly in front of Sally walked a little boy wearing a blue sailor suit, and not far away she spied a little girl with long yellow curls.

‘I see them,’ said Sally. ‘I wonder whether they would buy a tea-set or a piano or a farmyard for a birthday present, if they had an Aunt Sarah to give them one. Would you stop and ask them, Mother, if you were me?’

‘No, indeed,’ said Mother. ‘I would rather go into this shop and look at the toys for sale.’

In the store entrance Mother paused to let Sally look in the shop window. It was filled with stiff figures of women, wearing silk dresses and fancy hats, and with gay scarfs thrown about their necks. They all had pretty, smiling faces and very pink cheeks and lips. Sally thought they were beautiful.

‘Are they dressed for a party?’ she asked.

‘They look as if they were,’ answered Mother.

‘Perhaps a birthday party,’ suggested Sally. ‘Oh, Mother, look, look!’

Sally gave Mother’s hand a violent shake, for from within the store a man was lifting into the show window the figure of a little girl. She was dressed in a neat dark blue frock. Upon her feet were shining brown shoes. Her hands were outstretched in a most friendly fashion.

But what made Sally’s cheeks grow pink and her eyes very bright were the cape and hood worn by the figure of the little girl. It was a scarlet cape, a gay scarlet cape, and fastened to it was a round hood that pulled snugly up over the little girl’s head.

As Sally looked at the cape she thought she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life.

She looked and she looked and she did not say a word. She saw how the stiff brown curls of the little figure were pulled out so prettily from under the close hood. Just so her own yellow hair would peep out, if only the cape belonged to her. She liked the way the cape folded back and showed the front of the dark blue frock. It is true that Sally had no dark blue dress at home, but surely a white one would look just as well.

Then Mother turned to go and Sally spoke.

‘Mother,’ said Sally, ‘I don’t want a tea-set and I don’t want a piano. I want a cape for my birthday present.’

‘A cape?’ said Mother in surprise. ‘Do you mean a red cape like the one in the window? Why, you don’t need a cape, Sally. Come upstairs now, and look at the toys.’

‘I want a cape,’ persisted Sally. ‘Aunt Sarah said I might choose my present myself.’

‘So you shall,’ answered Mother. ‘But come and look at the toys first.’

So upstairs went Sally, and round and round the toy department she and Mother walked. Sally had never seen so many toys before in all her life.

She saw tea-sets and tea-tables, stoves and pianos. She saw dolls and their carriages, their cribs, their bureaus, and even their bathtubs. She saw toy animals and games, doll-houses, trains, and boats. There were picture books and painting sets, there were balls and blocks. There were really no toys made for a little girl’s pleasure that Sally did not see.

When they had walked all round the room Mother said, ‘Well, Sally, what will you choose?’

And Sally’s answer was, ‘Please, I want a cape.’

So Mother and Sally went downstairs in the store to buy a cape.

‘Suppose they haven’t one left,’ thought Sally.

But the saleswoman pulled out a rack hung with scarlet capes, and in a trice she had fastened one round Sally’s neck that proved a perfect fit. The hood was pulled up round her head and that, too, fitted nicely. Sally noticed, as she stood before the long mirror, that her hair peeped out from under the hood just as did the curls on the little figure in the window downstairs.

‘Will you wear it home or shall we have it put in a box?’ asked Mother, smiling to see Sally’s delight.

‘I will wear it, please,’ answered Sally in a whisper.

She was too happy to speak out loud.

All the long day spent in the city Sally wore her scarlet cape. She trudged happily along at Mother’s side, in and out of the shops, up and down in the great store elevators. She walked until her shoes felt as heavy as if made of wood. She was so tired that she slept all the way home on the train.

But when Father met them at the Seabury Station she was wide awake, and turned proudly round and round so that Father might see her birthday present from every side.

‘Well, I declare,’ said Father at last, ‘you look just like little Red Ridinghood’s sister.’

‘Do I?’ said Sally, smiling up at Father as pleased as could be. ‘Do I? But then, who is the wolf?’

‘Why, Tippy, of course,’ answered Father, smiling back.

‘Oh, oh!’ said Sally, squeezing Father’s hand. ‘Will you write and tell Aunt Sarah about it, about the cape and little Red Ridinghood’s sister, and the wolf?’

‘Yes, I will,’ promised Father. ‘I will write to her to-night.’

‘But, Father,’ said Sally, after a moment, ‘will you tell her that Tippy is a good wolf, that he is not bad? Tell her that he is a good wolf most times.’

‘Yes, I will write that, too,’ agreed Father. ‘But what shall I tell her about Red Ridinghood’s sister? Is she good or bad?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sally, turning bashful. ‘Mother, what shall Father say about me?’

‘Well,’ answered Mother thoughtfully, ‘I think little Red Ridinghood’s sister is like her wolf, Tippy, good most times, too.’