Part 2

When daddy had taken the letters to the poor children in his overcoat pocket to mail, Mary Louise fell to planning about the gifts. Only one little girl--all boys! How dreadful! But mother helped Mary Louise by suggesting things that little boys might like. From her own playthings Mary Louise selected her biggest doll for Lily and would have given her ever so many other dolls, had not mother thought that Mary Louise might add other little girls to her Christmas list of poor children and make the helping of Santa Claus more equally distributed among those who might otherwise be forgotten.

How fast the nineteen dollars and fifty-three cents did go--just buying the tree and the fixings, and the sled and the overcoat and mittens, and skates, and carts, and baseball bats! It was a tragic moment when Mary Louise suddenly discovered that Benny had been neglected and didn’t have as many gifts as the others. She consulted daddy, as there were no boys’ toys among her playthings and nothing seemed right. Daddy said--well, he said she might work and earn the money to buy Benny a present.

Never in her life had Mary Louise worked to earn money! “How can I earn money?” she asked.

Daddy thought. “If you will learn the seven times seven table, and the eight, and the nine and any of the others, I’ll give you a dollar for every one you can say perfectly. That’s very special, Mary Louise, because it’s Christmas, you know.”

Dear me! To think of having to sit down quietly in all the excitement of Christmas rush and learn horrid multiplication tables! If anything was work, that surely was!

But where there’s a will there’s a way and Mary Louise did it. She did it so well that she remembered all of the seven table perfectly. She also went on and learned the eight and nine table and the ten table--that was easy. Then, being quite enthusiastic, she tried hard at the others and mastered the twelve table after keeping at it a steady day. With the proceeds of these earnings, paid gravely by daddy, she was able to buy Benny a game, and when she went to buy it and found some little poor children right by the car that stopped at the entrance of Bunty’s Department Store, she was able to invite them then and there and go right in and buy presents for them. They needed woolen scarfs and mittens, and Mary Louise had found presents on the toy shelf among the toys kept for very special occasions. These would do for them.

When once Mary Louise had started to help Santa Claus, there was no knowing where she would end. Whenever she went out, she saw little children whom she was sure Santa Claus had forgotten because they looked so wistfully in at shop windows. Some of them nurse let her speak to and she added these to her list for the party. There seemed to be no table of thirteens to learn but daddy gave a dollar for every poem she could recite and Mary Louise knew ever so many and it was easy to learn short ones.

Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How the time did fly! Before Mary Louise knew it, Christmas Eve was there! There had been all the fun of fixing the tree and daddy and mother had helped. Mary Louise hoped Santa Claus wouldn’t disappoint her! She hoped that he surely would come! She was very much relieved when James came in and said that he had just been asked to deliver a message that came from Santa Claus over the telephone. It was a telegram and it said:

Will be at your Christmas party Christmas Eve eight o’clock.

SANTA CLAUS.

After that, Mary Louise didn’t worry. She let Marie take the tangles out of her hair and help her into her very best pink silk dress and then she dashed downstairs to wait for all the guests who had been invited to come. She wanted to play games with them and she wanted to tell them all about Santa Claus and she hoped they would like to sing carols and dance around the tree--but most of all she hoped that they would like the presents she had arranged for them at Santa Claus’ suggestion. Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to see Santa Claus give out the big white Teddy bear and the big brown fuzzy bear and the pink doll and the cart and the skates and--and--

But here the doorbell rang and there was a scuffle of happy feet. It was Lily and Benny and Tony and all the rest. They were as happy as happy could be. Mary Louise greeted them all and then they beamed upon her almost as if she were Santa Claus herself, but I just wish you could have heard the shrieks of delight when the front doorbell rang and James ushered in Santa Claus himself! It was just too bad that daddy wasn’t there to see all the fun, though mother did hope that maybe he might be able to come later. Oh, what a good time they all did have! It was the very best and happiest Christmas that Mary Louise had ever, ever, _ever_ had! It was wonderful!

Why, Mary Louise had such a good time that she forgot all about the pink doll till Santa Claus came and gave it to her, after giving out all the other gifts. It was the very doll that Mary Louise had wanted, but she asked Santa Claus to be sure he could spare it and that he had neglected nobody else to give _her_ the doll. He said he guessed not--at least he hoped not, and then they sat on the sofa and ate ice cream together while Santa Claus joked and told stories. But he couldn’t stay very long, he said, and he had to go. Then just afterwards, alas, in came daddy, who might have met Santa Claus, if only he had got there a wee bit sooner! And the children danced around the tree and sang carols. And then they all wished Mary Louise a Happy Christmas and went home with arms laden with packages that they hugged tight and smiled and chuckled over.

After the children went, there was just mother and daddy left. They both kissed Mary Louise and vowed that they’d have another party again next year, maybe. Then daddy took Mary Louise upon his knee and put a little blue ring upon her finger. It was the kind of a ring that Mary Louise had wanted--one just like mother’s, only little. And mother told Mary Louise that _her_ Christmas present was the doll house. It was coming as soon as possible. It was so big that one could play inside and it was to be placed right close to the garden greenhouses.

It was a Christmas that Mary Louise never forgot and couldn’t forget, even if it had not been for the blue ring and the multiplication tables!

_The Penny Bank Window_

_THE JANUARY SURPRISE_

_The January surprise pocket had held a little picture calendar. Marjorie had opened it according to directions that said_:

“_Open sometime when you want to write a letter._”

_As there was a Christmas thank-you letter to write upon the very first day of January, Marjorie had opened that pocket and found the calendar. Then she had looked to see just when she might open the story pocket. The writing on this one said_:

“_Open on some Saturday afternoon, when you are sitting by the fire._”

_The very first Saturday afternoon that came in January, Marjorie took the Surprise Book and went to the fireside. She could not wait to find out what was in the story pocket. She told Dotty that the time had come for the story and Dotty curled happily at her feet on the rug while she read “The Penny Bank Window” that was the January story._

_III_

_The Penny Bank Window_

“That penny bank is to blame for it all,” said Billy Williams. “If it hadn’t been for the bank, nothing would have happened.” The bank was quite full of pennies that Billy had been saving carefully ever since his birthday. It had been given him then with nine times nine bright pennies to put into it. That was because Billy was nine years old.

One afternoon Billy took up the china bank and shook it to hear it rattle. Really, when the bank rattled, it made Billy feel tremendously rich. There was almost a whole dollar in the bank by now! But right here, out fell one dull penny and it rolled along the floor.

Billy let it roll till it stopped and the rattle of the bank seemed quite as big without the missing penny, so he suddenly decided to spend it--but for what? Why, just at that very minute, Billy felt hungry. Mother was off at work and would not be home to get their dinner till six. Billy was all alone in the rooms over the drygoods shop where he lived with his mother. He had eaten the bread and butter that she left out for his lunch and he was hungry. It suddenly dawned upon him that he wanted a lollypop and that he could find a nice, sweet, red one at the candy store around the corner. “All right!” beamed Billy. He put the dull penny in his pocket and raced off to get the lollypop.

If it hadn’t been for the bank, there would not have been the lollypop. If it had not been for the lollypop, there would have been no penny bank window. So, you see, the bank _was_ responsible. Hardly had Billy bought the red lollypop and torn the paper off than he became quite absorbed in eating it--and he stepped down from the curb at the street corner quite without looking. It was a careless thing to do, for he didn’t see what was coming. What was coming happened to be an automobile that rounded the corner without tooting its horn!

The doctor felt Billy all over and pronounced him a very lucky boy indeed. “There might have been nothing left of you, my son,” said he. “But there happens to be a good deal left in spite of the fact that your foot got bumped into. You’ll have to keep quiet for a while; then you’ll be as good as new.”

“I suppose I mightn’t be so lucky another time,” grinned Billy, “but I guess I’ll be more careful in crossing streets. It’s the fault of the lollypop.” But it didn’t seem very lucky to be hurt and have to sit all day in a chair while mother was away. It was fearfully lonely. Even though Mrs. Finger from the next-door flat brought in magazines and two picture books; even though, after school, some of the boys came in to play checkers and dominoes and they stayed as long as they could when they really wanted to be outdoors with the other kids. Even though Billy learned to knit for the soldiers; even though he snipped pillows for the Red Cross, it was frightfully lonely till mother came home from work.

After he watched the children pass on their way to school one morning, his eyes roved across the yard where the leafless trees beyond shut off the view of the roofs of other houses. Below in the quiet street hopped sparrows. It was cold out there and they found nothing to eat. Billy bent forward and lifted the window. From his breakfast tray that mother had left, he took a slice of bread and tossed it far out. The sparrows darted for it and chirped and twittered. Billy laughed. “Don’t I wish they’d come up here to the window,” he sighed. “Guess I’ll try it an’ see if they will.” And there was one venturesome sparrow who did come! Billy was still watching him when the doctor came for his morning visit.

“If I were you, Billy Williams, I’d start a bird window,” the doctor suggested. “My little girl knows all about bird windows and she’s made several at home. The birds come every day. That foot looks as if it were doing well--suppose I ask my little girl to come in and make _you_ a bird window?”

Billy said he’d like it jim dandy. It really was awfully lonesome. Nothing ever passed in the street. If there were birds to watch, it would be fun. “You won’t forget about the bird window,” he cautioned, as the doctor took up his grip to go. And the doctor said he surely wouldn’t.

Knitting progressed that day rather slowly. All Billy’s bread went into the street to the sparrows. But Billy had reached almost as far as the end of his gray muffler in the afternoon--and the boys had come in from school for a hasty, “Hello, kid, we’re glad you’re alive and gay! We can’t stop because--” Yes, of course, they couldn’t come every day but it was lonesome. Then there came a knock at the door and in came a little girl. She was as bright and cheerful as her crimson cloak.

“Hello,” she greeted. “If you’re the boy that ate the lollypop and got run into, I know all about you. I’m the doctor’s little girl. I came to help you make a bird window--bird windows are my specialty, you know,” she laughed.

“I’ve got some money, if you need to buy anything,” Billy announced. “I want a real jim dandy window! You’ll make me a nice one, won’t you? I like birds and animals, don’t you? I never had any pets but I always did want a bird or something. Maybe I can tame the birds when they come to my window. How do you fix it?”

“Well, you have to have a shelf of some kind--a box that is shallow will make _that_,” explained the doctor’s little girl. “I brought some nails and a hammer with me and I brought a lump of suet that the cook gave me. She sometimes won’t give it to me but this time I told her about you and she gave it without another word. She says she’s sorry for you and so’m I. I’m going to fix you up a splendid window.”

The doctor’s little girl thrust up the sash of Billy Williams’ window. “I’m awfully hard up,” she pursued, “or I’d have bought some sunflower seed to bring with me. You ought to have sunflower seed to sprinkle on your bird-shelf, for it brings the chickadees and the purple finches and ever so many other kinds of birds. The woodpeckers come for the suet and if you have peanuts, beautiful big blue jays will come and carry them off. Could I have twenty cents to buy sunflower seed, do you suppose? It costs ten cents a pound at the druggist’s.”

Billy showed her the penny bank and they shook it and shook it till there was really more money than twenty cents--“If it hadn’t been for the bank, I’d have been running about now,” Billy grumbled. “That bank’s got to give me something nice now anyhow!”

“Well, I’m shaking it to punish it,” laughed the doctor’s little girl. “I’m shaking it ever so hard. I don’t believe it likes to be shaken. You did have ever so much money in it. I don’t wonder that you wanted the lollypop!”

She slipped the money into her purse and went off to make purchases. Billy told her to get anything that the money would buy. He wanted a bird window that would be the best anybody could have. He waited anxiously for her to come back and when she came, her arms were full.

Billy had to laugh. She had a small evergreen tree that she had bought for thirty-five cents. She had two pounds of sunflower seed that had cost twenty cents--oh, ever so much seed comes for that price and it will last a long time, too. She had a shallow grocery box that was long and flat and without any cover. It was about the length of Billy’s window ledge. She had a package that came from the ten cent store. When it was undone, it showed two tin strainers at five cents apiece. Now, what did all this mean?

The doctor’s little girl rolled up her sleeves and put on Billy Williams’ mother’s blue gingham apron. First, she took the shallow grocery box and nailed it to the window ledge. Billy was surprised to see that the doctor’s little girl could drive a long nail almost as well as he himself!

“That’s the bird-shelf,” she explained. “You sprinkle sunflower seed on it every day. The birds can light on its rim. Some days you’ll have as many as twenty at a time. The chickadees are darling and the purple finches are beautiful and they sing too.”

She took a handful of striped gray and white sunflower seed and sprinkled it on Billy’s new bird-shelf. “You’ll have to wait a while till the birds find out about the shelf,” she said, “but it doesn’t take them long.” Then she took the little green fir tree and some stout cord. She tied the wee tree to one side of Billy’s blind. She tied its trunk at top and at bottom with several twists of heavy string. It made the window pretty--almost as if one were looking out over the top of a fir tree. The doctor’s little girl paused after her work and smiled at Billy. “I think that’s nice, don’t you?” she asked.

Billy nodded. “What’s it for?” he inquired.

“You tie bits of suet lumps to its limbs,” she explained. “The birds will light on the branches. Suppose you cut up the suet into two or three-inch lumps. Tie string around each and tie the lumps to the different branches. Can you do it?”

Yes, Billy could. The little girl had to help a bit, but not so very much.

“The strainers are to be tacked up. You put seed into them. When it rains, the seed doesn’t get soaked. Birds don’t like the soaked seed, you know.” The strainers went at the other side of Billy’s blind, opposite the fir tree.

It seemed as if the bird window was all done but it wasn’t! The doctor’s little girl took a good-sized tree-twig that she had brought, and nailed this against the window frame to make a perch. There were three perches made this way. She put them near the two strainers and tied suet to each perch. She said that the woodpeckers would come to these tree-perches; they didn’t come to the fir-tree because--well, woodpeckers couldn’t.

When all this was done, the doctor’s little girl took something else from her pocket. It was what Billy thought--bird-seed. It was a mixture of seed: millet, wheat, rape, cracked corn. She said that one could get it mixed at a grain store--eight cents a pound. If Billy wanted her to, she’d buy some and bring it to him tomorrow, but for today all was done.

It was twilight and almost dark by now, so they shut down the window. The birds must all have gone off to shelter. It was too late to expect anything of the bird window that day, but the doctor’s little girl promised to put a bit of suet on a bush under Billy’s window as she went home. It was to attract the birds and call attention to the window.

That night when mother came home, she thought the bird window a splendid thing. Billy dreamed of it all night. Indeed, he could not wait for morning to come. He woke at four o’clock and kept wondering if any birds would come. Then, because he was so drowsy, he fell asleep. He woke with a sudden start just at sunrise. Was it true?--Yes, yes! Knock--knock--knock! What kind of bird was it? There was a bird at the suet that was tied to the perch at the window. _That_ must be it! Billy sat up in bed and bent forward to look. There on the perch that was highest was a black and white bird with a bright scarlet cap--it was brother woodpecker busy eating a breakfast of suet!

My, how exciting! Billy hardly dared to draw a breath, he was so afraid that the woodpecker would see him and fly away. Billy had hardly been in his chair near the window for more than a few minutes when there was a flutter of wings and a strange little slate-gray bird lit upon another perch and circled it, making queer, cheerful little noises. The bird had a black head and it seemed full of sociable curiosity. Billy wondered what it was. He did not remember ever to have seen a bird like it before! He resolved to ask the doctor’s little girl what it was. And then came wee little birds that called dee--dee--dee. They were the chickadees, little gray birds with black hoods. They seemed very tame. They came in a cluster and besieged the limbs of the little green fir tree. While they were there, came birds like sparrows, too. They were _not_ sparrows though--some of them were rosy red in color. Oh, they must be what the doctor’s little girl had called purple finches! My, how exciting! How they quarreled! What fun! They were all over the bird-shelf, eating the striped sunflower seed in a very hungry way. When a big blue jay came screaming toward a near-by tree, they flew off in a hurry and the blue jay with his crest acock carefully reconnoitered the premises and decided to eat from the bird-shelf too. Oh, wasn’t it gay! When the doctor came, he quite agreed that it was jolly and he brought a bird book from his little girl and a package of the mixed seed that he laughingly called “medicine.”

It must have been medicine, for Billy’s foot, so the doctor claimed, grew well in a wonderfully rapid manner from this time on. And the time passed so quickly at the bird window that really the days went by before Billy had time to be lonely. The birds were great company. The same ones came from day to day--the little Miss Chickadees were the tamest. They really learned to take shelled peanuts from Billy’s fingers and to sit upon his warm hand while they ate. Brother Woodpecker and his wife came early. They needed no alarm clock to wake them. Billy heard the knock--knock before he was in his chair of a morning. Then the curious little nuthatches,--those strange little gray birds with the funny noise that sounded like quack, quack--they came, too, regularly. In snow and sleet and rain and sun, Billy had his bird friends. He had the doctor’s little girl, too, some days. They sat by the window and played games while she told him all she knew about birds. Then, when his foot got so well that the doctor let him go out, Billy’s first trip was to the drugstore to buy more sunflower seed with her.

Everybody came to see Billy’s window and the fame of it spread far and wide. Billy always declared afterwards that it had almost been worth the red lollypop accident, but it was the penny bank that really did it all, you know!

_Angelina’s Valentine_

_THE FEBRUARY SURPRISE_

_Of course, anybody might guess that the valentine card came in the first pocket of the Surprise Book in February. It did! It was a red heart cut from bright red paper and it had a verse upon it, too. The story for February was a valentine story, too. It was in a pocket that was sealed with an embossed rose. The writing said:_

“_Open after school at 3.30 on Valentine’s Day afternoon._”

_Marjorie and Dotty watched the clock till the exact seconds had ticked. Then, with the arm of her own Valentine about her, Marjorie read aloud the story of “Angelina’s Valentine.”_

_IV_

_Angelina’s Valentine_

The ten cent store was the first to show valentines. On the very first day of February, its windows were filled with bright red hearts and wonderful pictures made with lacy gilt papers. Some were of little birds and some were of little boys and little girls, and there was one that showed a sleek gray pussy-cat like the one that belonged to the Parillo family. Twice a day, coming to school and returning home, Maria, Louisa and Angelina passed by the beautiful valentines in that window.

“Maria,” begged Louisa, “let us go in--just a little minute! We need not go right home today!”

“Please,” wheedled Angelina. “Please, Maria, do let us!”

“Valentine’s Day is still a long way off,” returned Maria. “There is work to be done at home. I must see to the fire and wash and iron Angelina’s dress and then get supper. We cannot stop.” This was the way it happened every afternoon that the three little Italian girls passed homeward from school. It was Maria who had taken her mother’s place. She was the mother of the family now. Was it not she who cooked, washed, cleaned? Was it not she who with twelve years of wisdom governed Louisa and Angelina? Did not her father trust her to do the marketing? Maria with her duties at home was superior to valentines. Valentines were meant for children. Maria was duty bound, and so every day the three little Parillos marched past the ten cent store without stopping to go in. They lived in the three rooms of the brown tenement on the outskirts of the town. There was a corner to turn after one had passed by the ten cent store. Often Louisa and little Angelina hung back and peeped in at the valentines, waiting till Maria should reach the corner. Then they dashed after her lest she turn and scold, “Angelina and Louisa, come at once! There is no time to loiter. The fire in the stove will have gone out if you do not hurry. It will take time to build another and the rooms will be cold--come, I say!”

“We saw them,” Louisa would announce, almost out of breath, quite as if Maria were interested. “If I were rich and had money I would buy the valentine that is beautiful with red roses. I would give it to my teacher at school.”