POLLY PERKINS GOES ON A JOURNEY
While Patty was watching from the window all up and down the long city
street, hoping that every passing wagon or automobile would stop at her
door with Polly Perkins, what was Polly herself doing all this time?
To begin at the beginning, there is no doubt that Polly was
disappointed not to be carried home in Patty’s arms.
‘I would like to see a little of the world,’ thought Polly, when she
heard how she was to make the journey, ‘and I would like to ride on
the train that Patty talks about. I will be as good as gold, and then
perhaps Patty will always take me with her when she goes traveling. Who
knows?’
So when Polly saw the rainy day and heard Grandmother plan to send
her home in a box, Polly couldn’t help being disappointed, though of
course she didn’t show it in the least. She smiled as sweetly as ever
when Patty wrapped her in the pink-and-blue tufted coverlet and kissed
her good-bye. And though she wanted dreadfully to give the cover of the
box just one gentle kick with her pretty brown slipper, to work off a
little of her disappointment as it were, still Polly said to herself,
‘No, I won’t kick the box, for I know Patty wouldn’t like it. And I
want to please Patty in every way I can.’
For Polly had grown to love Patty in the short time she had lived with
her, and she believed that Patty was the very best mother that ever a
dolly could have.
‘She might leave me out all night in the grass,’ thought wise little
Polly. ‘She might stick pins into me, or pull my hair, or drop me down
the well. But she never, never does. Oh, I am glad that Patty is my
mother.’
And if, once in a while, Patty gave her a spanking or put her to bed in
the middle of the day, why, that was no more than happened to Patty
herself, once in a while, and so of course Polly could find no fault.
Polly liked Uncle Charles, too. Hadn’t he given her a pretty face and a
sweet smile? So when Uncle Charles tucked Polly under his arm to carry
her to the express office, Polly gave one or two gentle bumps on the
lid of the box just to show that she was friendly. But if Uncle Charles
heard them, no doubt he thought that Polly was simply slipping about,
and that he must carry the box more carefully.
It was not pleasant in the express office, Polly found. There was a
strong smell of tobacco smoke that sifted straight into Polly’s box,
and there seemed to be men all about, with loud voices, who tossed
packages back and forth, and hauled heavy boxes from one side of the
room to the other. Polly herself was tossed up on a shelf where, after
a moment or two, she snuggled down in her coverlet and sensibly fell
fast asleep.
She was awakened after a long, long nap by being lifted off the shelf.
She thought it must be morning, the express office was so busy and
noisy and so many people were hurrying to and fro.
Then came a great roaring and puffing and snorting just outside the
office door, and Polly knew in a moment what it was.
‘It is the train,’ thought Polly, who had never heard one before. ‘That
is just the sound Uncle Charles made when he played train with Patty
the night he came to supper at our house.’
And Polly was right. It was the train.
Now the bustling grew greater than before. Trunks and heavy boxes were
hoisted aboard the train. Packages, large and small, were flung on
helter-skelter, and among them was Polly, who went flying through the
air and luckily landed face-up on top of a trunk, where it took a whole
moment to get her breath again. But Polly didn’t mind being tossed
about, not one bit. She thought it was exciting, and much better than
lying in the smoky express office on a shelf.
Then the train whistled and puffed and panted and was off.
Roar, roar, roar! Clatter, clatter, clatter!
At first Polly couldn’t hear herself think. But after a short time she
grew used to the noise of the train and could hear the different sounds
all about her in the baggage car in which she lay.
Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Squawk! Squawk!
‘Hens,’ thought Polly, who had often gone with Patty to visit the
chicken coops at the back of Grandmother’s yard.
Then she heard a low whining and scuffling as in answer to the outcry
of the hens, and the next moment a dog lifted his voice in a series of
sharp little barks.
And, would you believe it, Polly understood every word he said.
‘I am Twinkle. Bow-wow!’ said the little dog.
And if Polly could only have looked through her box and seen him, she
would have thought that he couldn’t have a better name. For not only
was there a gay twinkle in his bright black eye, but the curly tuft of
hair on the tip of his tail seemed to twinkle also as he waved it to
and fro. While his soft black nose was a shining little spot that might
easily have been called a twinkle, too.
‘Bow-wow!’ said Twinkle again. ‘I belong to Jimmy, and Jimmy has broken
his leg. Wow! Wow!’
‘Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!’ answered the sympathetic hens. ‘Too bad! Too
bad! Too bad!’
‘I wish I could talk to him,’ said Polly to herself. ‘I am going to
try.’
So in her politest voice she called out, ‘Twinkle, I am in this box and
my name is Polly Perkins. I belong to a little girl named Patty, and I
want to talk to you. How did Jimmy break his leg?’
‘On roller skates. Bow-wow!’ answered Twinkle, as though it were the
most natural thing in the world to be talking to a dolly wrapped up in
a box.
And, come to think of it, Twinkle didn’t know that Polly Perkins was
a doll. He only knew that he wanted to tell some one about his little
master Jimmy.
‘He was roller skating in the park,’ called out Twinkle, ‘and he
fell and broke his leg, and if I had been there it never would have
happened.’
‘Why?’ asked Polly. ‘Why wouldn’t it have happened?’
‘Did he break his leg all last summer while he was playing with me in
the country?’ demanded Twinkle. ‘Of course he didn’t. But no sooner
does he go back to the city than he falls and breaks his leg. It all
happened because I wasn’t there to take care of him.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the city with him?’ asked Polly next. You see,
Patty wasn’t there to tell Polly it wasn’t polite to ask quite so many
questions, and Polly was too young to be expected to know that, all by
herself.
But Twinkle didn’t mind questions in the least.
‘Because his mother said the city was no place for a dog,’ he sniffed
scornfully. ‘Just as if I couldn’t behave as well in the city as
anywhere else. But they have had to send for me now, for Jimmy wants
me. That is where I am going now on the train.’
‘I am going to Patty’s house,’ volunteered Polly Perkins. ‘That is
where I am going. Patty couldn’t carry me home yesterday because of the
rain.’
‘Cluck-cluck-cluck-ca-da-cut!’ called the hens, not wishing to be left
out of the conversation. ‘We are going on a pleasure trip, for pleasure
only. We don’t know whether we are coming back or not. We belong to
Farmer Hill.’
‘I never heard of Farmer Hill,’ barked Twinkle, ‘but he can’t be as
good as Jimmy. Jimmy is the best little boy that ever lived.’
‘He isn’t any better than Patty,’ spoke up loyal Polly. ‘Patty is the
best little girl to live with that any dolly ever knew.’
‘Does she throw sticks in the water for you to bring out?’ asked
Twinkle. ‘Jimmy does.’
‘No,’ answered Polly, ‘but she takes me out for a walk every day.’
‘Does she run races with you up to the big tree and back?’ asked
Twinkle. ‘Jimmy does.’
‘No,’ answered Polly, ‘but she brushes my hair and rocks me to sleep
and we often have parties together, Polly and I.’
‘Does she give you chicken bones, always the drumstick and sometimes
more?’ asked Twinkle. ‘Jimmy does.’
But before Polly could answer, and indeed at the very mention of
chicken bones, all the hens began to squawk and shriek and cluck until
the noise grew so disturbing that a trainhand put his head in the
doorway of the car to see what was the matter.
You may be sure that Polly and Twinkle made never a sound. So the
trainman only shook his cap at the boxful of fluttering hens and
called out, ‘S-sh-sh, Biddy, s-sh-sh!’ Then he went away.
No sooner was he gone than the hens began to scold Twinkle, who backed
into a corner as far away from them as his rope would allow.
‘Aren’t you ashamed, you greedy dog, to talk about eating chicken
bones? Squawk! Squawk!’ chorused the hens. ‘Right to our faces, too!
Squawk! He has no feeling! We will never speak to him again. Never, as
long as we live! Squawk! Cluck! Cluck!’
Poor Twinkle’s little snub face was all twisted with worry and fear.
Why had he mentioned chicken bones? How frightened he felt at these
cross hens! He hoped their box was very strong and would not break.
He longed to talk to Polly about it and to tell her how he felt, but
he didn’t dare speak another word. Chicken bones so good and sweet!
Chicken bones that he had buried in the garden! To think that they
should cause him so much trouble!
The hens were clucking angrily among themselves. Every now and then one
of them would suddenly poke her head out between the bars of the box
and dart a bitter glance toward Twinkle.
So Twinkle did the best thing he could think of at the moment. He put
his head down between his paws and pretended to go to sleep.
At the very next station the hens were taken off the train. They became
so excited that they seemed to forget Twinkle and his chicken bones,
and they did not even send him a parting angry cluck.
It would not have made any difference if they had, for Twinkle by that
time had really fallen asleep. This Polly knew because she heard him
give little snores and happy sighs, so Polly, too, dozed off, which is
something travelers often do on long journeys.
Polly woke to find the train standing still, and to hear Twinkle, who
was being led away, bark again and again,
‘Good-bye, Polly, good-bye! Good-bye!’
This must be the city and the end of Polly’s journeying.
Polly herself, after a long, long wait, was tossed into an automobile
on top of many other packages, most of them much larger than she, and
presently, amid a great tooting of horns, they were off.
Polly knew it was raining, raining hard, for she could hear the steady
patter of the raindrops on the automobile roof and the splash of the
wheels through the puddles in the street.
Up and down, in and out the city streets they rattled. Over the noisy
paving-stones they rolled with many a bump and jolt. Round the corners
they whirled with a dash.
The ride seemed long to Polly.
‘Where does Patty live? Will I never reach home?’ wondered Polly.
Faster and faster rolled the automobile, harder and harder pelted the
rain.
Then Polly felt the packages under her slipping. Round a corner they
went on two wheels, and out into the street flew Polly in her box to
land in a great puddle with a splash!
On whirled the express wagon out of sight, and there lay Polly in the
street wondering what in the world would happen to her next.