Pretty Polly Perkins

by Ethel Calvert Phillips

So this morning Papa Durant felt very happy, and naturally enough he wanted to make Anne Marie happy too.

Through the whirling, twirling snowflakes they trudged hand in hand to the great store near by, that was really two stores connected by a little bridge high in the air. And there, in the busy, bustling toy department, crowded with Christmas shoppers, for ‘Noel,’ as Anne Marie called it, was not many days away, and, surrounded by every kind of a toy that ever was invented, Anne Marie made her choice.

What did she choose, do you think? A sled! A gay yellow-and-red sled, with its name ‘Lightning Flash’ painted in bold black letters on the seat.

Why, out of all these hundreds and hundreds of toys, did Anne Marie choose a sled? I will tell you. It was because she saw two little boys buying a sled exactly like the one she later chose. And they were so happy and excited and smiling over their purchase that Anne Marie felt that a sled was the very finest toy that any one could have.

So the sled was bought, and Anne Marie rode home in triumph on it, drawn by Papa Durant, who then disappeared into the kitchen and left Anne Marie to play alone.

Not really alone, however, for up in one front window sat Grand’mère, nodding and smiling out at Anne Marie, and in the other window was perched Polly Perkins, who couldn’t have looked more interested if she had been a real little girl. Once, too, Maman actually stepped out of her golden cage for a moment and waved her hand and blew a kiss as she watched Anne Marie run up and down the street.

By-and-by it stopped snowing, and then Polly Perkins came out for a ride. Snugly wrapped in the pink-and-blue tufted coverlet she rode smilingly up and down, lying flat on the sled, staring up at the sky, and enjoying it all without any doubt.

Anne Marie enjoyed it too. She grew so bold that she could run and slide with the sled, run and slide again. It was great fun.

But presently along came a dog, a brown shaggy dog, who wore a collar ornamented by a bell. The dog thought it was fun, too, to run after the sled. He ran and barked, ran and barked, and every now and then he would jump up in the air and whirl around in the snow, he felt so happy and gay.

He didn’t dream for a moment that Anne Marie was afraid of him, but she was. She ran so fast up the street and even round the corner to get away from the dog that the sled swung from side to side. It bumped about, it twisted to and fro.