LITTLE RED RIDINGHOOD’S SISTER
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.
[Illustration: LITTLE RED RIDINGHOOD’S SISTER]
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.’