It was Sally’s birthday and she was six years old.
Four long weeks ago she and Mother had gone into the city and had bought Sally’s little Red Ridinghood cape, a present from Aunt Sarah Waters.
‘My early birthday present,’ Sally called it, and wore it every time a cape was needed and often, too, when it was not.
This birthday morning Sally was out of bed early. She had been awake a long, long time, as much as five minutes, perhaps, watching the sun make a rosy pattern on her wall. But now she couldn’t wait any longer for the presents that she felt sure were hidden in Mother’s closet or dresser drawer.
She stopped long enough to put on her red cape over her nightgown and then crept into Mother’s room across the hall.
Sally had meant to waken Mother and Father with a hug, a birthday hug. But there on Mother’s table were the presents, all spread out in a row, and Sally simply couldn’t stop to hug until she had untied the boxes and bundles that she knew were meant for her.
Father and Mother, too, it seemed, were awake early like Sally, and were quite as interested as she in finding out what her presents might be.
There was a tea-set with pink flowers, the pinkest kind of pink flowers, too.
‘Alice will like that,’ said Sally in great satisfaction.
There was a wash-tub and scrubbing-board and teeny, weeny, wooden clothes-pins, and actually a little clothes-line, so that you wouldn’t have to use a bit of string.