At this Patty and Anne Marie each mustered up a faint smile, but not Ailie. This was no time for smiling, thought she.
‘Now I know one of you mothers well,’ went on Grandmother in her pleasant voice. ‘It is my own little granddaughter Patty, for whom I made this dolly when she was paying me a visit not long ago. But won’t you two little girls tell me who you are and how you both happen to think that Polly Perkins belongs to you?’
Anne Marie was glad of a chance to speak.
‘I am Anne Marie Durant,’ said she, making a polite little curtsy to Grandmother as Maman had taught her to do, ‘and my papa owns the Bakery down there on the corner. “French Pastry Shop” the sign says over the door. And one rainy day I was looking from the window. We live just over the shop, you know, Papa and Maman and Grand’mère and I. And I saw a box fall from a wagon. No one came for the box, there it lay in the rain, so I ran down and picked it up, and in the box was Polly Perkins. We could not find to whom the box belonged. Grand’mère had burned the paper wrapped about it. And so I kept Polly Perkins. Grand’mère said, too, the Saints had sent her to me. And yesterday I lost her, lost her from this sled. And that is all,’ said Anne Marie, quite out of breath, finishing off her long speech with another little curtsy and a smile.
‘I know your Bakery well, Anne Marie,’ said Patty’s mother. ‘I go there almost every day, I think.’
It was now Ailie’s turn to speak, and speak she did, but her voice was so low that she could scarcely be heard.
Grandmother managed to understand her, however, and when Ailie had finished her story, Grandmother drew her close to her side and patted her softly upon the shoulder.
‘Of course I understand just how it was,’ said Grandmother kindly. ‘Anne Marie lost Polly yesterday in the snow and Ailie picked her up. In a way Polly Perkins does belong to each one of you three little girls. Now let me think for a moment.’
Grandmother stood quite still, with her foot tapping the sidewalk in a way that Patty knew very well. Without a doubt Grandmother was making up her mind about something.
Then Grandmother took Mother by the arm and walked up the street with her, talking busily all the while.