Pretty Polly Perkins

by Ethel Calvert Phillips

When at last bedtime came and Anne Marie in her nightgown knelt at Grand’mère’s knee, her prayer was very short.

‘May the Good God and all the Saints remember how lonely I am and please send Polly Perkins home to me again,’ prayed little Anne Marie.

CHAPTER VI
WEE AILIE McNABB

Wee Ailie McNabb was going shopping, and shopping all alone. She held five cents tight in her little red hand, as she tucked the old plaid shawl snugly along Granny’s back and softly patted Granny’s shoulder by way of saying good-bye.

Granny and Ailie lived together in one small room at the very tiptop of a tall, tall building. Indeed, the building was so high that, looking from the window, Ailie felt very near the clouds in the sky and the birds that sometimes flew past. While at night it almost seemed as if, by putting out her hand, she might draw the glittering moon and stars down into the room that Ailie called home.

But there had been little time lately for looking out of the window. Granny was ill, with a troublesome cough, and Ailie had been obliged to take care of Granny, and run all the errands, and even now and then to cook the ‘porritch,’ which was often all she and Granny ate nowadays for breakfast, dinner, and supper.

Now Ailie, still clutching her precious five cents, took a small tin pail from the table, and with a last gentle pat on Granny’s shoulder tip-toed from the room.

Down the four long flights of stairs she climbed, and, opening the door to the street, stepped out into the cold.

The wind whistled and sang a wintry tune, and Ailie gave a little shiver as her short skirt flapped about her knees. Ailie’s coat was thin. There was a hole in the side of her shoe. But she wore a warm tam-o’-shanter hat that pulled down nicely over her ears, and though she owned no mittens, of course she could always draw her hands up inside her coat-sleeves.

Ailie was going for a bit of milk. Not only did it taste ‘rare fine’ poured over the ‘porritch,’ as Ailie was often heard to say, but Granny could sometimes take a sip of milk when she could touch nothing else.