‘Och me!’ cried Ailie, and let go of Polly at once. Granny must have her medicine, even though it meant that Ailie would never hold Polly in her arms again.
Fortunately the bottle was not broken. And by the time Ailie had picked it up, one of the ladies, the taller one, who later proved to be Grandmother King, had stepped forward and taken Polly Perkins out of the hands of Anne Marie and of her little granddaughter, Patty King.
‘Let me see the doll, children,’ said Grandmother quietly. ‘I can tell in a moment, Patty, whether it is your Polly Perkins or not, for I made her, you know.’
Of course it was Patty’s Polly Perkins. It took only a glance to tell Grandmother so. But once that point was settled, Grandmother looked at the three little girls standing before her and scarcely knew what to do or say next.
For each little girl wanted Polly Perkins, oh! so badly. You could tell it only to look at them, though no one said a word.
Patty’s arms were stretched out toward Polly, and there was a look of surprise on her face as if she couldn’t understand why Grandmother didn’t give her the dolly that had been made expressly for her.
Anne Marie had clasped her red-mittened hands tightly together, her eyes were big and round, and she looked as if in one moment more she would sit right down on the sidewalk and begin to cry.
While Ailie, clutching her bottle of medicine close, pressed her lips together in a thin little line and winked her blue eyes as fast as ever she could.
‘Not that I’m thinking of crying,’ said Ailie McNabb to herself.
‘Well,’ spoke Grandmother at last, with a smile straight into the eyes of each little girl, ‘well, I have often heard of one mother with three children, but I never before knew of three mothers and only one child.’