CHAPTER IIPlaymate Polly
CHAPTER IIPlaymate Polly
Itwas some time after this that Jessie made the acquaintance of Polly Willow and it came about in a way that Jessie had not expected. It was due in the beginning to 589 which seemed of late to be getting into a habit of tardiness. One morning when Jessie was going to school she missed her good friend Ezra at the door of his little house. A stranger was there, a gruff sort of somebody who cried out sharply: “Get over there quick, sissy. You ain’t no business crossing tracks when trains is coming.”
“There isn’t any train coming,” said Jessie. “I know all about the trains. There isn’t any after the 803 when 411 comes along. The next train is at twelve and the one after at four.”
“Much you know,” replied the man. “I suppose the president of the road has sent you a special message saying he’s just changed the fallschedule. I had my information from Ezra, but I reckon he don’t know. He told me to look out for a train at 8:35.”
“There wasn’t any such train on Friday,” said Jessie.
“Fall schedule hadn’t come into effect. Time changes to-day.”
“Where is Ezra?” asked Jessie, still unbelieving, but by this time safely across the track.
“Took down with rheumatiz. Been bothering him on and off for some time. Now he’s laid up in bed.”
“Dear me, but I am sorry,” said Jessie.
“That don’t cure his aches and pains,” returned the man. “You’d better hustle along, sis. I’ve got to signal to this here train and I can’t stand here all day talking to you.”
Jessie turned away indignantly. Ezra would have asked if she didn’t want to hold the flag when the train went by, and he would not have told her in that rude way to “go along.” She did not like this man at all. She wondered if Ezra would be ill all winter, and then suddenly she thought of what her mother had said; that if anything happened to Ezra, her parents wouldnot feel that they could allow Jessie to take the walk to the Hill School.
However, Ezra and the trains were forgotten when the little girl reached school, for there were several interesting things to take up her thoughts that morning. In the first place, there was a new scholar named Anna Sharp. She had come to live with her aunt in the neighborhood and was going to attend the Hill School. Next Effie Hinsdale whispered that there were four dear new kittens in the barn and that Jessie could have one if she liked. Effie had been given a demerit for whispering, and that had so disturbed Jessie that she missed her geography lesson and had to recite it after school, so altogether there was quite enough to put Ezra out of her mind.
She remembered him before she reached the railroad, and then she determined that she would not pay the least attention to the flagman who was taking Ezra’s place, but that she would run across the tracks without turning her head. She had not resisted the temptation to stop at Effie’s long enough to see the new kittens, and had chosen the gray one, so that it was later thanusual when she reached the railroad. Of course 589 must have gone by, for it was the express and was due at four o’clock. There could not be the least danger, thought Jessie. She saw that the flagman had his back to her and was standing looking up the track. She made haste to cross before he could see her, and, in her hurry, she tripped over the rail and her books were scattered in every direction. She picked herself up and was about to gather her books together when she heard the shrill whistle of an approaching train, while from up the track she saw the express rapidly advancing upon her. For a second she stood, numb with fright, and then she leaped across the rails, her heart beating fast. Another moment and the train went flying by. She was safe if her books were not. She saw her geography go careering down the road, her arithmetic lying some distance away, and her reader nowhere to be seen. But books were of no account just then. The child’s whole thought was to get home as quickly as possible. Without looking back once she sped along as fast as she could run, tears coursing down her cheeks and herself so shaken that when shereached home she burst into the sitting-room and flung herself, sobbing, into her mother’s arms.
“Why, my darling, what is the matter?” asked Mrs. Loomis anxiously.
“589 was late and Ezra has the rheumatism and they have changed the time and I tripped on a rail and lost my books. There was a horrid man there, too, and he called me ‘sis.’”
In this rather mixed-up speech her mother recognized that something alarming had really happened. “Never mind, dearie,” she said soothingly. “Wait till you can stop crying and then tell me all about it. Mother has you safe anyhow, hasn’t she?” She cuddled the little girl closely in her lap and in a few minutes Jessie was able to give a better account of what had occurred.
Mrs. Loomis looked very grave as she shook her head. “Thank heaven,” she said, “that you were not so bewildered as to stand still. We didn’t know the winter schedule was in effect. Ezra would have sent us word if he had not been ill. Oh, my child!” She hugged Jessie suddenly to her and after a moment continued, “It is clear to me that it is not safe for you to go toschool by yourself. I will see if we can arrange to have Sam take you, and I might be able to spare Minerva to bring you home. You could go as far as the Hinsdales and wait there for her. I should never have an easy moment if you were to go over that road alone. Try to forget this afternoon’s fright, dear child, and go talk to Minerva. I see your father coming.”
Jessie went to Minerva and helped her feed the chickens, almost forgetting in this task, that she had been so frightened. But after supper her father took her on his knee and questioned her about the matter.
“No more school for you yet a while, miss,” he said. “I can’t spare Sam just now for I am a man short, and it won’t hurt you to stay at home for a week while we plan what is to be done next. I pinned my faith on Ezra, but now that he is out of the question we shall have to think of some other way of doing.”
So the next day Jessie stayed home from school, and not only the next, but for several days she was free to wander about the place and do pretty much as she pleased. “She’s had a bad fright,” said Mr. Loomis to his wife, “andshe is a nervous, imaginative little thing, so she’d better stay out-of-doors all she can till she gets over this. I don’t think we need let her bother with lessons for a while yet.”
The first day Jessie amused herself near the house; the next she wandered as far as the mountain cherry-tree; the third found her down by the brook, and there she saw Polly Willow waiting for her.
“I’ve just got to have somebody to play with,” said Jessie, looking at Polly Willow’s funny head. “I think maybe you’ll do for a playmate, Polly. There’s one thing about it; you can’t run away and you’ll always be here when I want you. Of course you are pretty big, but so are the other people in your family. You are much the smallest of any of them, so I don’t suppose you are any older than I. I think the first thing I do must be to get you a hat. I know where there is one I think I can have.”
She ran back to the house and up to the attic where she found an old straw hat. On her way down she stopped at the door of her mother’s room to poke in her head and say: “May I have this, mother?”
“What is it?”
“An old hat. I want to play with it.”
Her mother glanced at the hat. “Yes, you may have it. Where are you playing?”
“Down by the brook.”
“Don’t get your feet wet. So long as you have your rubbers on and are in the open air, I am satisfied.”
With the hat in hand Jessie ran back to the brook. The fallen leaves already dappled its surface with red and yellow, but goldenrod and asters made a gay fringe along the sides. Sitting down on a fallen log she proceeded to trim the hat with flowers. A plume of goldenrod decorated one side; a bunch of asters the other, and when it was finished, Jessie stood on tiptoe and stuck the hat on Polly’s big head. “It’s rather small for you,” she said as she gravely regarded the effect, “but it makes you look more like a little girl. Now, Polly, we’ll play. I’m going to live over there.” She waved her hand in the direction of a large rock a short distance away. “I see Mrs. Mooky is coming to see me, so I shall have to go, but I’ll come over again after a while. Good-bye, Polly.”
A pretty fawn-colored cow was grazing near the big rock. This was the person Jessie called Mrs. Mooky. The little girl was not in the least afraid of cows, of this one in particular, for she had been accustomed to seeing Mrs. Mooky ever since she was a little calf which had fed from her hand. So now she approached her boldly, saying, “Good-morning, Mrs. Mooky. I’m very glad to see you. I am sorry I was not at home when you called just now, but I had to run over to Polly’s. She has a new hat that she wanted me to see.”
The cow lifted her head and gave a gentle “moo.”
“I understand,” Jessie went on. “You’ll come again some other day. Very well. Good-bye.” And the cow moved on. “I’m going to ask mother if I can’t have a tea-party here with Playmate Polly. No, I won’t say with Playmate Polly; she might laugh. A grown person couldn’t exactly understand how nice it is to have a Playmate Polly for a friend. I’ll bring one of the dolls, and—oh, dear, I wish the gray kitten were big enough. Mother says I can’t have it till it is quite able to do without its mother,so I’ll have to wait, and I shall have to get Charity.”
Again she went back to the house, this time to get the doll which had been bought at a bazaar in the city by Jessie’s aunt who had suggested the old-fashioned name of Charity for her, since it was a charity bazaar at which she had been bought, and because the doll was dressed in a very old-fashioned costume to represent a Colonial Dame. She had now a long cloak to cover her brocade frock, a cloak that Jessie had made from a piece of gray flannel, and in consequence of her having this warm garment, Jessie thought her better prepared for outdoor play than the other dolls.
“May I have something for a party? I’m taking Charity with me down to the brook,” she said to her mother whom she found in the kitchen.
“Why, yes,” said her mother, “what do you want?”
“What is it that smells so good?”
“Peach marmalade, I suspect. We’re making some.”
“I’d like some of that on some bread.”
“It’s hot,” said Minerva, “and it isn’t done yet, but I reckon it will taste good and it will soon cool off in the open air. What will you have it in? Oh, I know; one of those little jars the beef extract comes in. There are some in the pantry on the shelf behind the door.”
Jessie set Charity on one of the kitchen chairs, and went to the pantry for the little jar which Minerva filled with marmalade. She then cut a couple slices of bread, buttered them and put them wrapped in a napkin, into a small egg basket, adding the jar of preserves and an apple. “Be careful how you carry it,” she warned Jessie. “You don’t want to smear that sticky stuff all over the basket, and be sure to bring it and the jar back when you come. Now, don’t forget.”
“I’ll remember,” said Jessie. “Thank you, Minerva. I shall have a lovely time.”
“Here, come back,” cried Minerva, as Jessie went out. “I didn’t put in any spoon. Would you rather have a spoon or a knife?”
“A spoon, I think,” said Jessie, “for then if I want to eat any preserves I can do it easier, and a spoon will do to spread with, too.”
“One of the kitchen spoons, Minerva,” saidMrs. Loomis. “We don’t want the silver lost at the bottom of the brook.”
Jessie was quite satisfied with a kitchen spoon and went happily on her way, holding the little basket and her doll, carefully. “We’re going over to Playmate Polly’s, Charity,” she informed her doll. “You don’t know her, but she is a very nice little girl, just the kind I like. She knows all about the flowers and birds and such things, for she lives right down by the brook where they live. She told me this morning that she is very intimate with the birds especially, and now that they are going south for the winter she would be very lonely if I didn’t play with her. I think she will be glad to see you, too, for I am sure she doesn’t have much company these days. Mrs. Mooky comes pretty often, but then she is not a little girl like me, and that makes a great difference.”
Talking thus to her doll, she went on her way and soon reached the brook. The marmalade was still warm, but when it was spread on the bread which Jessie laid out on the red doily, it soon cooled, and if Jessie was obliged to eat both Polly’s and Charity’s share by proxy, she did nothave to eat for the birds, who were glad of the crumbs, and who, when the last speck had vanished, came near enough to look inquiringly with their bright eyes as if to ask, Is that all?
“Now, Polly,” said Jessie, “I’m going to ask you to take care of Charity for me a little while. She isn’t very well this morning, and I want to see the doctor about her. You know Dr. Bramble, of course.”
Polly, answering in Jessie’s voice, said she knew Dr. Bramble very well indeed, that he was a sharp sort of person, and often very disagreeable, but that he was a good doctor and his cordial fine stuff.
So, leaving Charity in Polly’s care, Jessie went to hunt up Dr. Bramble. She was obliged to stay quite a while for when she reached his house she found that Mrs. Bramble had a few belated blackberries for her, and they were so tempting that Jessie was obliged to gather them all. “They’ll do finely for pills for Charity,” she said, “or maybe I’d better make medicine of them; I can mash them in the jar with the spoon and give her a teaspoonful at a time!”
The berries were rather hard and could not beeasily crushed, but finally Jessie accomplished the work and Charity was given her first dose, though she cried a good deal over it and insisted that she could not take it. “But you must, my dear,” said Jessie firmly, “or you will not get well. Do you want to be ill and not have any more of the nice marmalade Minerva is making?”
Charity deciding that she preferred marmalade to illness, at last took the medicine by means of Jessie’s mouth, and was then put to bed and covered up with leaves. Then Jessie amused herself a long while with Playmate Polly. They talked about many things; the birds, the fishes, the flowers, the gray kitten and of Charity’s illness, and the time went so pleasantly that when the dinner horn sounded Jessie had no idea that it was so late. She had enjoyed her morning hugely, and had come to have a great affection for her new friend, Playmate Polly.