With a swift movement Polly Ann dropped the doll back into the box, and picked up the other one. The next moment the brown delaine dress was rubbing elbows with a richly bound book and a Duchesse lace collar in the middle bureau drawer. Polly Ann cocked her head to one side and debated; did she dare ask Aunt Margaret to make the change?
With a slow shake of her head she owned that she did not. She knew her aunt and her aunt's convictions as to the ethics of present-giving too well. And, if she were tempted to doubt, there were the two sets of presents before her, both of which, even down to the hemp twine and brown paper in one and the red ribbons and white tissue-paper in the other, proclaimed their donor's belief as to the proper distribution of usefulness and beauty.
The two dolls did look odd in their present environment. Polly Ann admitted that. Reluctantly she picked them up, and was about to return each to her own place, when suddenly the Great Idea was born.
With a little cry and a tense biting of her lip Polly Ann fell back before it. Then excitedly she leaned forward, and examined with searching eyes the presents. She drew a long breath, and stood erect again.
"Well, why not?" she asked herself. Aunt Margaret had said she was utterly irresponsible and absent-minded. Very well, then; she would be utterly irresponsible and absent-minded. She would change the labels and misdirect the boxes. John's should go to Mary, and Mary's to John. Nellie should have that doll. Incidentally Nellie's mother and sisters and brother and grandmother should have, too, for once in their starved lives, a Christmas present that did not shriek durability the moment the wrappings fell away.
It was nothing but fun for Polly Ann after this. With unafraid hands she arranged the two sets of presents on the top of the bureau, and planned their disposal. Mentally she reviewed the two families. In Mary's home there were Mary herself; Joe, eighteen; Jennie, sixteen; Carrie, fourteen; Tom, eleven; and Nellie, six; besides Grandma. In John's there were John, his wife, Julia; their son Paul, ten; and daughter Roselle, four; besides John's younger sister Barbara, eighteen, and his mother.
It took a little planning to make the presents for six on the one hand do for seven on the other, and vice versa; but with a little skillful dividing and combining it was done at last to Polly Ann's huge satisfaction. Then came the tying-up and the labeling. And here again Polly Ann's absent-mindedness got in its fine work; for the red ribbons and the white tissue-paper went into Mary's box, which left, of course, only the brown paper and hemp twine for John's.
"There!" sighed Polly Ann when the boxes themselves were at last tied up and addressed. "Now we 'll see what we shall see!" But even Polly Ann, in spite of her bravely upheld chin, trembled a little as she turned toward the room where Margaret Brackett lay sick.
It was a pity, as matters were, that Polly Ann could not have been a
fly on the wall of Mary's sitting-room at that moment, for Mary's
Jennie was saying gloomily, "I suppose, mother, we'll have Cousin
Margaret's Christmas box as usual."
"I suppose so," her mother answered. Then with a determined cheerfulness came the assertion, "Cousin Margaret is always very kind and thoughtful, you know, Jennie."