[Illustration: GRANDMOTHER PLACED HER IN PATTY’S ARMS (_page 9_)]
Pretty
Polly Perkins
BY
ETHEL CALVERT PHILLIPS
_Illustrated by_
EDITH F. BUTLER
[Illustration]
_Boston and New York_
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1925
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ETHEL CALVERT PHILLIPS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
TO
DR. GORDON KIMBALL DICKINSON
MY FATHER’S FRIEND AND MINE
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
I. HOW POLLY PERKINS WAS MADE 1
II. WHERE IS POLLY PERKINS? 12
III. POLLY PERKINS GOES ON A JOURNEY 25
IV. WHAT ANNE MARIE SAW FROM THE WINDOW 38
V. OUT IN THE SNOW 49
VI. WEE AILIE MCNABB 59
VII. THREE LITTLE GIRLS AND POLLY PERKINS 68
VIII. GRANDMOTHER KING’S CHRISTMAS PARTY 78
IX. ANNE MARIE AND THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL 90
X. WHAT SANTA CLAUS BROUGHT TO AILIE MCNABB 103
XI. THE VERY BEST CHRISTMAS OF ALL 112
PRETTY POLLY PERKINS
∵
CHAPTER I
HOW POLLY PERKINS WAS MADE
Polly Perkins was a big rag doll, the prettiest, the softest, the most
comfortable rag doll that ever belonged to a little girl.
Grandmother King made her for Patty, who was five years old and
visiting Grandmother at the time, and this is just how it all happened.
In the first place, Patty fell downstairs. She was on her way to the
kitchen where Grandmother was baking a cake, and in her arms she
carried Isabel, the doll she loved the very best of all. Indeed, Isabel
was the only doll that Patty had brought with her from home. She was
a china dolly, with pretty golden curls and blue eyes that opened and
shut, and she wore a blue dress with pockets, very much like one of
Patty’s own.
Now, as I said, Patty was on her way downstairs with Isabel in her arms
when suddenly she tripped and fell. Down the whole flight of stairs she
went, bumping on every single step, it seemed, and landed in a little
heap at the foot of the stairs.
Grandmother heard the sound of the fall, and came hurrying out of the
kitchen with a cup full of sugar in one hand and a big spoon in the
other.
‘My precious Patty! Are you hurt?’ cried Grandmother, picking Patty up
and rubbing her back and rocking her to and fro all at the same time.
When Patty could stop crying, she shook her head.
‘No,’ she said, with a little sniff, ‘I think I am not hurt. But where
is Isabel?’
Oh, poor Isabel! She lay over by the front door, her head broken into a
hundred pieces!
At first Patty couldn’t believe her eyes. Isabel broken! Then whom
would Patty play with? Whom would she dress and undress and take out
for a walk every day? Who would lie beside her on the bed at night
while Grandmother was reading by the lamp downstairs and Patty felt the
need of some one to keep her company just before she fell asleep?
Isabel broken to pieces!
Then Patty did cry.
‘My dolly! My dolly!’ she wailed. ‘My dolly is broken! My dolly!’
She struggled out of Grandmother’s arms to the floor, and there,
sobbing and crying as loud as ever she could, she danced up and down.
She felt so badly she simply couldn’t stand still.
At first Grandmother didn’t say a word. Very carefully she picked up
all that was left of Isabel. Then she took Patty by the hand.
‘Patty,’ said Grandmother firmly, ‘stop crying and stand still.’
Patty was so surprised to hear Grandmother speak in this way that she
did stop crying and stood still.
‘Patty,’ went on Grandmother cheerfully--so cheerfully that Patty
couldn’t help listening to what Grandmother had to say--‘Patty, we are
going to find a box and put Isabel in it. Then we will send her home
to Mother, who will buy a new head for her, I know. We will play that
Isabel has been in an accident and that she has gone down South to be
cured. That is what Mother did last winter when she was so ill, you
remember.’
Patty nodded slowly. Perhaps Isabel could be cured, after all.
‘But whom will I play with while she is gone?’ asked Patty with a
quiver in her voice. ‘I don’t like Darky. He scratches and spits.’
Darky was a black barn cat who lived next door to Grandmother, and it
is quite true that he was not a pleasant playmate for a little girl.
‘There is no one for me to play with but you, Grandmother,’ finished
Patty, two plump tears rolling down her cheeks as she thought how
lonely she would be now without Isabel.
For a moment Grandmother stood without speaking. She was thinking, her
foot softly tapping the floor as Grandmother often did, Patty knew,
when she was making up her mind.
Then Grandmother spoke.
‘Patty, I am going to make you a doll,’ said Grandmother, ‘an
old-fashioned rag doll such as I used to make for your mother years
ago. She always loved hers dearly, and I expect you will, too. And the
best of such a doll is that it can never be broken.’
While Grandmother was speaking, Patty’s face grew brighter and
brighter, until, as Grandmother finished, she really looked her own
merry little self once more.
‘To-day?’ cried Patty hopping up and down, but this time for joy. ‘Will
you make her to-day, Grandmother? To-day?’
‘This very day,’ answered Grandmother, picking up her cup of sugar and
big spoon from the corner where she had hastily set them down when
Patty fell. ‘First, I will finish my cake, and then you and I will go
out shopping to buy what we need to make the new doll.’
So a little later Patty and Grandmother, hand in hand, went down the
road and round the corner to Mr. Johns’ store, where you could buy
almost anything in the world, Patty really believed.
It was the only store in Four Corners, the little village where
Grandmother lived, and so of course it kept everything that anybody
in Four Corners might want to buy. On one side of the store were rows
of bright tin pails, and lawnmowers, and shovels, and rakes, and a
case of sharp knives, and a great saw, too, big enough to cut down the
largest tree that ever grew. On the other side were dresses and aprons,
a hat or two, gay-colored material and plain white, ribbons and laces,
needles and pins. There were boxes of soap and boxes of crackers and
boxes of matches. There were shelves filled with cans and packages of
all shapes and sizes. There was a case full of toys, and a case full
of candies, too, where Patty had been known to spend a penny now
and then. There were great barrels standing about, and rolls of wire
netting, and coils of rope. And on the counter there sat a plump gray
cat, who blinked sleepily at Grandmother and Patty as they came in and
opened his mouth in a wide yawn.
When Mr. Johns heard what Grandmother was going to make--for Patty
told him just as soon as Grandmother had inquired for Mrs. Johns’
rheumatism--he was as interested in the new dolly as Grandmother or
Patty herself.
He measured off the muslin with a snap of his bright shears. He whisked
out a great roll of cotton batting with a flourish. He helped Patty
decide between pink and blue gingham for a dress. She chose pink. And
last of all it was Mr. Johns who said,
‘What are you going to put on the dolly for hair?’
Patty looked at Grandmother and Grandmother looked at Patty.
‘I hadn’t thought yet about hair,’ began Grandmother slowly, when Mr.
Johns disappeared beneath the counter.
Patty could hear him pulling and tumbling boxes about, and at last up
came Mr. Johns from under the counter with his face very red, indeed,
and a smudge of dust on his cheek, but holding in his hand a little
brown curly wig.
‘Will that do?’ asked Mr. Johns, smiling proudly at his surprised
customers. ‘I knew I had a little wig somewhere, if only I could put my
hand on it. It has been lying around here for two years or more.’
Two years old or not, the little brown wig was as good as new, and
Patty was so anxious to have the dolly made and to see how the wig
would look on her head that she pulled at Grandmother’s hand all the
way home and couldn’t help wishing that Grandmother would walk faster
or perhaps even run, instead of stopping to chat with her neighbors on
the way.
It took a day or two to make the dolly, although Grandmother’s nimble
fingers flew. And one night, after Patty had gone to bed, busy Uncle
Charles drove down from the Farm and painted the dolly’s face, a pretty
face, with rosy cheeks and gentle dark-brown eyes that Patty thought
the loveliest she had ever seen.
At last the dolly was finished, and in her gay pink dress, with her
soft brown curls that matched her brown eyes, Grandmother placed her in
Patty’s outstretched arms.
‘I am so happy,’ said Patty, her face aglow, ‘I am so happy that I
don’t know what to do.’
So, standing on tiptoe, Patty first kissed Grandmother and then the
dolly and then Grandmother again. And perhaps, after all, that was the
very best thing that she could do. Grandmother seemed to think so, at
any rate.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ said Patty next, holding the dolly out at arm’s
length the better to see and admire. ‘Her curls are beautiful, and so
are her eyes, and her dress, and her cunning little brown shoes. What
shall I name her, Grandmother? Don’t you think she is beautiful? Isn’t
she the most beautiful dolly that you have ever seen?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ answered Grandmother, smiling to see Patty’s pleasure.
‘She is as beautiful as a butterfly.’
And, to Patty’s further delight, Grandmother began to sing a little
song:
‘She’s as beautiful as a butterfly,
And none can compare
With pretty little Polly Perkins,
Of Abingdon Square.’
Patty clapped her hands and spun round for a moment like a top.
‘Sing it again, sing it again,’ she cried.
So Grandmother obligingly sang her little song again.
And the moment it was ended, Patty, her cheeks as pink as the dolly’s
and her eyes quite as round and bright, exclaimed,
‘That is my dolly’s name--Polly Perkins! Pretty Polly Perkins! Don’t
you think that is a good name for her, Grandmother? Don’t you think
Polly Perkins is a good name for my new dolly to have?’
‘A very good name, indeed,’ was Grandmother’s reply. ‘She looks like a
Polly to me.’
‘She looks like a Polly to me, too,’ agreed Patty happily, ‘a Polly
Perkins.’
And hugging Polly Perkins close, Patty whispered in her ear.
‘If Isabel is cured,’ whispered Patty to Polly, ‘I shall be glad that I
fell downstairs. Because if I hadn’t fallen, I never would have known
you. Wouldn’t you be sorry, Polly Perkins, if you had never known me?’
Patty put her ear close to Polly’s red lips to hear her answer, and she
was not disappointed.
‘Yes,’ whispered back Polly Perkins, ‘I would.’