The lady snuggled Maggie close and held out one hand to Tilda
“I’ll lend you my baby, missis,” she offered softly. “You can take her every day. I’ll fetch her in the gocart and”—Tilda faltered, then continued bravely—“you can make b’lieve she’s yours and not ours at all.”
“Oh, thank you, dear!” Really truly smiles now chased away the lady’s tears. She snuggled Maggie close and held out one hand to Tilda.
“Yes, indeed, I should like to borrow wee Maggie often, and you, too, little mother! You are better than the sunshine. Come sit down here and tell me all about yourself and baby.”
The stray passers-by smiled with friendly interest at the odd trio seated there so cozily on the park bench: cheery little Tilda from the tenement in her faded blue gingham, punctuating the conversation with intermittent bobbings of her funny, homemade Dutch cut; the beautiful young woman known to society as a wealthy banker’s wife—Tilda immediately had dubbed her “Fairy Godmother”—in an immaculate white costume; and wee, rosy Maggie in a pink dotted calico cuddled between them.
Fairy Godmother listened with a strange, new awakening as Tilda, with glowing eyes, went on to enumerate all her riches. First, of course, there was Maggie, the sweetest baby in the world, and dear Mother, who worked so hard to provide for them since Father’s death. Then there were her precious day school and Sunday school, the enchanted park—Tilda loved to pretend it was full of fairies—and there were Pete and the gocart, and now there was Fairy Godmother herself.
“Tilda,” a light struggled bravely through the mist in Fairy Godmother’s eyes, “this is my own baby’s birthday—darling little Anne, who was lent to us for twelve happy months, then taken back by the Father of us all. It was to this same park nurse and I used to bring her, and so I came here today to keep her birthday. But your bright little selves have shown me a better way. Yes, I’m going to borrow you both and take you to my home to help me change this day from the saddest to the gladdest day of all the year.”
Shortly they were spinning along in the trolley, the gocart on the rear platform
Shortly they were spinning along in the trolley, with the precious gocart on the rear platform. And before Tilda had a chance to really “come to,” Fairy Godmother was saying, “Here we are.” The car stopped, the jolly conductor helped them out, gocart and all, and in a moment more Tilda found herself entering the “stylishest” house she had ever seen. She followed on tiptoe into the grand hall, up the wide stairs, and stepped straight into fairyland. It wasn’t any dream kind, either, that you wake up from right in the most exciting place. Tilda made sure of that by biting her finger hard—and it hurt.