For a moment Grandmother stood without speaking. She was thinking, her foot softly tapping the floor as Grandmother often did, Patty knew, when she was making up her mind.
Then Grandmother spoke.
‘Patty, I am going to make you a doll,’ said Grandmother, ‘an old-fashioned rag doll such as I used to make for your mother years ago. She always loved hers dearly, and I expect you will, too. And the best of such a doll is that it can never be broken.’
While Grandmother was speaking, Patty’s face grew brighter and brighter, until, as Grandmother finished, she really looked her own merry little self once more.
‘To-day?’ cried Patty hopping up and down, but this time for joy. ‘Will you make her to-day, Grandmother? To-day?’
‘This very day,’ answered Grandmother, picking up her cup of sugar and big spoon from the corner where she had hastily set them down when Patty fell. ‘First, I will finish my cake, and then you and I will go out shopping to buy what we need to make the new doll.’
So a little later Patty and Grandmother, hand in hand, went down the road and round the corner to Mr. Johns’ store, where you could buy almost anything in the world, Patty really believed.
It was the only store in Four Corners, the little village where Grandmother lived, and so of course it kept everything that anybody in Four Corners might want to buy. On one side of the store were rows of bright tin pails, and lawnmowers, and shovels, and rakes, and a case of sharp knives, and a great saw, too, big enough to cut down the largest tree that ever grew. On the other side were dresses and aprons, a hat or two, gay-colored material and plain white, ribbons and laces, needles and pins. There were boxes of soap and boxes of crackers and boxes of matches. There were shelves filled with cans and packages of all shapes and sizes. There was a case full of toys, and a case full of candies, too, where Patty had been known to spend a penny now and then. There were great barrels standing about, and rolls of wire netting, and coils of rope. And on the counter there sat a plump gray cat, who blinked sleepily at Grandmother and Patty as they came in and opened his mouth in a wide yawn.
When Mr. Johns heard what Grandmother was going to make—for Patty told him just as soon as Grandmother had inquired for Mrs. Johns’ rheumatism—he was as interested in the new dolly as Grandmother or Patty herself.
He measured off the muslin with a snap of his bright shears. He whisked out a great roll of cotton batting with a flourish. He helped Patty decide between pink and blue gingham for a dress. She chose pink. And last of all it was Mr. Johns who said,