LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS

LITTLE POLLY PRENTISSBYELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD

BYELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD

Polly Prentiss is an orphan who, for the greater part of her life, has lived with a distant relative, Mrs. Manser, the mistress of Manser Farm. Miss Hetty Pomeroy, a maiden lady of middle age, has, ever since the death of her favorite niece, been on the lookout for a little girl whom she might adopt. She is attracted by Polly’s appearance and quaint manners, and finally decides to take her home and keep her for a month’s trial. In the foregoing chapters, Polly has arrived at her new home, and the great difference between the way of living at Pomeroy Oaks and her past life affords her much food for wonderment. In the meantime Miss Pomeroy has inwardly decided that she will keep Polly with her, but as yet she has not spoken to the little girl of her intentions.

While the old people at Manser Farm were reading Polly’s letter, the little girl herself was listening with a sober face to a piece of news which had come to Miss Pomeroy. It was eight o’clock—past Polly’s bed-time—but she was so anxious to finish the wonderful story of the Snow Queen that Miss Hetty had offered to read the last pages aloud. She had reached the end only a moment before Hiram brought the mail.

“Bobby—my little nephew—is coming here to spend Sunday on his way to see another aunt, his mother’s sister,” said Miss Pomeroy, looking up from her letter to Polly, who stood waiting to say good-night. “I’m very glad, Mary, for I am sure you two children will enjoy each other, you are both so quiet and fond of books. Perhaps we can persuade Bobby to make us a longer visit on the way home.”

That night and the next morning Polly stretched in Ebenezer’s fashion until her little arms and legs ached. She made up her mind that she would lose no opportunity for the next three days of performing this gymnastic exercise or of hurrying on her growing likeness to Eleanor in other ways.

She sat for hours with Miss Pomeroy, sewing patchwork and listening to stories of the old curiosities in the Indian cabinet that stood in the parlor. They were interesting stories, but the room was kept very warm because of Miss Hetty’s rheumatism which was troublesome just then, and Polly’s head grew hot and tired as she sat quietly in the little chair at Miss Pomeroy’s side. She ate as much as she possibly could at every meal, and she did not speak of going out to walk in the afternoons after her hour on the bed.

“I shall be glad when I get over this stiffness, so we may have our walks together again,” said Miss Pomeroy, when Friday night came. “I’m afraid if it were not for me, Mary, you would not have enough outdoor air. But I am glad you are so contented in the house, for it is very pleasant to have a little companion while I am obliged to keep still so much of the time.”

Polly smiled affectionately at her, but the little girl’s heart was heavy. She was listless in her movements except when under some one’s eye, and felt a strange indifference to the things which had always delighted her.

“I guess I’m getting just exactly like Eleanor in some ways,” she said to herself many times a day. “The brook calls and calls me just the way it did at first, but my legs feel so queer and my head is so funny. I don’t seem to care so much about paddling in the water now. Miss Arctura says it is too cold in the woods yet, anyway. She says her brother John’s wife caught her death once, neglecting to use her judgment when a cold spell came in April. Oh, dear.I wish Bobby had been here and gone away! S’posing he doesn’t ’prove of me. Wouldn’t that be dreadful!”

Hiram was Polly’s stay and comfort in this trying time. Arctura—the truth must be told—had suffered more or less from a grumbling toothache ever since her afternoon in the woods. Arctura objected to going to the dentist “on principle,” she said, though Miss Pomeroy had never been able to understand just what she meant by that. Hiram was the only person who ventured to brook the subject to his sister, and his advice was sharply scorned.

“Don’t you think you’d ought to have that tooth pulled, ’Tura?” Hiram had mildly asked as he washed his hands at the noon hour on Thursday, and Miss Green had turned upon him with swift contempt.

“Better have my legs removed next time they get a mite overtired and ache a little, hadn’t I?” she said, severely. “Go and have all your own teeth out whenever you want, but just leave mine alone, if you please!”

Polly had overheard this dialogue as she entered the kitchen on an errand, and she could hardly believe her ears.

“But, ’Tura’ll be all right soon as the weather warms up again,” Hiram had explained to Polly in the barn at milking-time. “She ain’t been quite herself the last day or two; toothache appears to upset her more than anything else in this world. I saw her grinding her jaws together yesterday morning, and I knew ’twas that old left-hand wisdom of hers at it again. She’s got a roasted raisin in it now, I know by the way she mumbled at me when I went in for the milk-pail, but I dursn’t refer to it. We’ll just step kind of easy for the next twenty-four hours and it’ll be all clear weather again. She hasn’t got any real malice in her, ’Tura hasn’t.”

“I think she’s just as kind as she can be,” said Polly, warmly. But it was a sober little face at which Hiram smiled broadly down when he arose from the milking stool.

“You stay here while I take this in,” he said, cheerily, “and I’ll fetch out a lantern so we can run through ‘On Linden’ far as we’ve gone. You said old Marm Hackett was with Miss Hetty, I believe?”

“Yes,” said Polly, “and she told me to run out for a while as she had something to lay before Miss Pomeroy. Do you think she’s a very pleasant old lady, Mr. Hiram?”

“Well, now, let’s see if I’ve ever heard anybody speak of her that way,” said Hiram, cautiously. “I guess I’d better consider it while I’m carrying off the milk.”

Polly knew that his opinion agreed with hers, and she gave a little laugh as he swung out of the barn with the pail of milk. When he returned with the lantern she was standing in the middle of the barn floor and made a sweeping courtesy to him as he entered.

“That’s good,” said Hiram, setting down the lantern and seating himself on the lowest stair of the flight that led up to the loft. “That’s first-rate. How would it be if you should make two of ’em—one to the left and one to the right? In case folks were seated promiscuous—that is here and there,” explained Hiram, “it would be fair to all parties. That’s it—that’s the way to do it!” and he clapped his hands as Polly greeted an imaginary audience. “Nobody’s going to feel left out with that beginning. Now for it.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Polly, with a wide sweep of her arms, “the piece that I am about to speak to you is ‘Hohenlinden,’ by Mr. Thomas Campbell.”

“Little louder, if you please,” said Hiram, in a disguised voice, “there’s a couple of old ladies at the rear that don’t want to miss a word.”

“‘On Linden, when the sun was low.’”

said Polly, in a clear, loud voice—and as she spoke, she stooped and indicated the position of the sun with her right hand—

“‘All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,And dark as winter was the flowOf Iser, rolling rapidly.’”

“‘All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,

And dark as winter was the flow

Of Iser, rolling rapidly.’”

The rapidity of Iser’s flow was shown by Polly’s two little arms, which swung back and forth from her shoulders as fast as she could possibly move them.

“That’s prime!” said Hiram, approvingly. “Seems as if I could see old Iser right before me. Now, the next verse.”

“‘But Linden saw another sight,’”

said Polly, flushed with pleasure, shielding her eyes with her hand and gazing anxiously about the barn.

“First-rate!” cried her instructor. “I tell you, little Mary, you’ve got the real spirit for reciting! Now that gesture had never come into my mind, and yet there ’tis, fitting in complete. I make no doubt Linden folks were out looking just that way, bound to see, yet scared of what would meet ’em. Now for the drums!”

“‘When the drum beat at dead of night,’”

said Polly, valiantly belaboring her right palm with the clenched fingers of her left hand.

“‘Commanding fires of death to lightThe darkness of her scenery.’”

“‘Commanding fires of death to light

The darkness of her scenery.’”

“There’s not a bit of fault to be found with that,” said Hiram, as he received the lantern from the hands of his pupil, who had seized it and swung it wildly about when the “fires of death” were lighting. “Of course, the lantern will be behind you the night of the entertainment, ready for use.”

“Of course,” said Polly. “Now comes the best verse of all, I think, Mr. Hiram:

“‘By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,’

I shall have a candle and the tin horn that night, you know—

“‘Each horseman drew his battle-blade—’”

Uncle Blodgett’s gift was drawn with a fierce flourish—

“‘And, furious, every charger neighedTo join the dreadful revelry.’”

“‘And, furious, every charger neighed

To join the dreadful revelry.’”

The verse ended with an indescribable sound, and Hiram drew his hand across his mouth before he spoke in answer to Polly’s questioning eyes.

“I call that a pretty fair neigh,” he said, encouragingly. “I don’t know as I’d go so far as to say ’twould deceive anybody into thinking there was a horse right on the spot, but it’s improving in its quality all the time, I notice.”

“I’m so glad,” said Polly, “because, you see, I can’t make the roars and other noises for the ‘dreadful revelry’ the way you can, and I wanted to do something.”

The next two verses finished Polly’s recitation for that evening. Hiram had promised to assist with “the hills with thunder riven” and the “red artillery.” The thunder was to be made with a pair of wooden dumb-bells, and the “red artillery” was a little old lantern with a red glass front which would dart about Polly’s figure in Mr. Green’s hand.

“That was an extra good rehearsal,” said he, as the little girl sat down beside him on the stairs. “Now, we’ll learn the next verse, shall we, and call it we’ve finished for the night?”

When the next lines, with their “furious Frank and fiery Hun,” were pronounced perfect, Polly begged for a story.

“Just a little bit of a short one, Mr. Hiram, before I go to bed,” she said, coaxingly, “and I don’t care whether it is true or not.”

“That being the case,” said Hiram, soberly, as they sat close together with the lantern at their feet, “I’ll relate a little circumstance that a man once told me. It’ll give you something to think about, but I shouldn’t want to say how true ’tis, for it seems a mite improbable. This man said that a friend of his out West somewhere had always had trouble with the chimney in his parlor—I would say with the draught of it up from the fireplace. He had it tinkered off an’ on for years, and finally he decided he’d have the old contraption torn down and a bran’ new chimney put up.

“Someway the mason made a mistake and got the new chimney on wrong side up, and the draught was a powerful one, and, first they know, rain, hail, snow, and what-all were drawed right down into the room, making dreadful work.

“They sent for the mason, of course, and he took the chimney down and put it on again right side up, and then the draughtwas so powerful that it drawed a braided rug and a pair o’ tongs and a three-legged stool and a number of other articles right up the chimney.

“Then they saw something had got to be done, so they put a poultice—a flour poultice, I understood him to say—on the jamb of the fireplace, and that drawed down so it balanced and counteracted the draught, and after that the chimney gave perfect satisfaction.”

Polly had stared at the narrator when he began the story, but as he progressed she covered her mouth with both hands for fear she should laugh out and interrupt him.

“Mr. Hiram,” she cried, as the storyteller rose, chuckling, and began to close the barn for the night, “next to Mr. Hans Christian Andersen’s I would rather hear your make-believe circumstances than anybody’s that ever I heard!”

“Compliment number two,” said Hiram, as they stepped out of the barn, side by side. “You’d better be looking sharp or you’ll have me all stuffed out with pride before you know it, young lady.”

Nobody but the kittens knew that Polly dreaded the coming of Eleanor’s twin. She told them all about it Saturday morning as they sat in her lap, cuddled up into a warm heap under the gray shawl that Arctura had wrapped about her.

Arctura’s tooth had not quite stopped its grumbling and she had firmly declined Polly’s aid in the kitchen that morning.

“I’ve got some bothersome cooking to do,” said Arctura, without the smile which might let in a draft of air on the convalescent jaw, “and I’d best be alone, for my nerves are sort of jumpy along with a pain I’ve been enduring in my head without speaking of it, for some days. The air’s mild enough for you to sit out on the piazza and watch for Miss Hetty and Bobby, if I wrap you up well. It’s getting ready to rain again to-morrow, and then I have hopes of some fair, warm weather when it clears off finally.”

Miss Pomeroy’s rheumatism was much less troublesome than it had been for some days, and Hiram had helped her into the low basket phaeton an hour before.

“I expect she’s ’most home now,” said Polly to the kittens, with a little shiver, “and she’s bringing that boy—that Bobby—home with her. He’s going to stay till Monday morning. You needn’t be frightened, Snip and Snap, for he’s a boy that just likes to read; he wouldn’t do the things to kitties that the Higgins boys do—things with strings and spools, till the teacher stopped them. And, anyway, you’ve got lots of places to hide, where nobody could get you. But I can’t hide. I’m obliged to be right out where he can see me, and tell whether I’m like his sister Eleanor that died, and maybe change Miss Pomeroy’s mind after all, and lose Grandma Manser her ear-trumpet, and the money for the leaks and shingles and everything!”

Polly buried her face in the old shawl for a minute, and then sat up straight with a little gasp.

“I hear the phaeton!” she whispered, squeezing the kittens in her excitement. “I hear it coming over the bridge—fast!”

Snip and Snap objected to squeezing. They struggled under the shawl and dashed out over Polly’s knees, clutching wildly at the fringe. They looked up at her cannily with arched backs, and then scurried off toward the barn.

As the phaeton came around the curve of the driveway, Polly stood up, clasping her hands under the old shawl. She heard Arctura bustling out of the kitchen to the porch, and moved slowly along to stand beside her. In a moment more she found herself solemnly shaking hands with a boy who had jumped into the phaeton and then politely helped Miss Pomeroy out.

“This is my nephew Bobby,” Miss Hetty was saying. “And this is little Mary Prentiss.”

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Polly, lifting her browneyes to meet a pair of very large blue ones which gazed at her through spectacles.

“How d’you do?” said the boy, pleasantly. “Haven’t you got about through with my hand?”

He laughed as he said it, and so did Polly, but when the hand-shaking stopped they stood looking at each other awkwardly until Arctura broke the ice.

“You two children step out to the dining-room, while Miss Hetty goes and rests after her ride,” said Arctura, cordially. “I’ve set a tray with two tumblers of milk and some crullers on the buffet, and you can stand up and eat on to it, so’s not to scatter the crumbs. I never saw the time a boy wasn’t ready to eat, and Mary here’s got a most excellent appetite of her own. Dinner won’t be ready for nearly two hours yet.”

“Thank you,” cried Bobby. “You’re a trump!”

“Seems to me you’ve thickened up a little since last time,” said Miss Green, cautiously guarding the entrance to the cavern wherein dwelt her wisdom tooth, as she acknowledged this commendation. “I suppose you’ll drop into the kitchen along in the afternoon while Miss Hetty and Mary are taking their naps? I don’t see my way clear to sitting down at dinner for a talk with you, for I’ve been having a little neuralgy and the air in the dining-room seems kind of chilly after the kitchen.”

“Do you take a nap every day?” asked Bobby, curiously, as he and Polly drank their milk and ate the crisp crullers. “I s’pose girls like to do that kind of thing, but I’d rather read all night than waste time sleeping in the daylight. I’ve never known any girl very well except my sister. I’m afraid of them, they’re so queer.”

“Oh, they’re not half so queer as boys, I’m sure!” asserted Polly, with much decision. “I guess if you knew the Higgins boys that I’ve been to school with, you’d say so. I never could get those boys to play house with me once! They said it wasn’t any fun.”

“Well, ’tisn’t, you know,” said Bobby, without a moment’s hesitation. “Of course, nothing happens when you play house, no adventures—no accidents—no anything.”

“No accidents!” echoed Polly, in amazement. “I should think it was a pretty dreadful accident to invite four dollies to tea (cut out of a newspaper, they were, beautiful ones, Uncle Blodgett did them for me), and find you had burned up every biscuit to a crisp while you were setting the table. I mean they had burned themselves up! Don’t you like to play any make-believes?”

“Yes, I like some,” admitted the boy, frankly, “but you wouldn’t like my kind, and I call yours pretty slow.”

“What kind of make-believes do you like best?” asked Polly, as she and the dreaded guest sat together in the library at dusk. Miss Pomeroy was entertaining Marm Hackett in the parlor, much to the old woman’s rage, she having desired a talk with the newcomer, for whom she had prepared a list of searching questions.

“I like the kind of make-believes that are in books,” said the boy, staring into the fire. He sat on the hearth-rug with his legs crossed in a position of tantalizing comfort. Polly sat in a straight-backed chair and viewed him with envy. She would have liked so much to be beside him on the rug with her hands clasped over her knees and her chin resting on them. And he had not felt obliged to take any nap. She had heard him talking to Arctura while she lay on that hot bed.

“‘Treasure Island’ is a mighty good make-believe,” remarked Bobby, after a short silence. “I shouldn’t have had any objections to living that story right along.”

“I’ve never read it,” said Polly, with a little sigh. “I’ve never read much of anything till now. Is ‘Treasure Island’ as beautiful as the ‘Snow Queen’?” she asked, doubtfully. “It doesn’t seem as if it could be.”

“Beautiful isn’t the word for it,” said Bobby, turning his spectacled eyes toward her for a moment. “It’s wild, and murderous in places, and it carries you along with it. So does ‘Kidnapped.’ That’s what you want of a book. I never can make up my mind whether I’d rather have been David Balfour or Napoleon. If I had my choice, I believe I’d have to draw lots.”

“There are places in the woods where Miss Arctura and I went one day that would be splendid for make-believes, I should think,” ventured Polly, anxious to please this remarkable boy. “There are rocks that you could hide behind and jump out at me. I shouldn’t be a bit afraid—truly, I shouldn’t!”

“We’ll see,” said Bobby, “only to-morrow’s Sunday, you know, and, of course, we have to go to church—and, anyway, I couldn’t be as fierce about it as if you were a boy. I couldn’t knock a girl over, or pitch into her and wrest her sword from her grasp. That’s where the fun comes in.”

“I thought they said you didn’t care much about play,” said Polly, much surprised.

“I don’t care for ball, or marbles, or any of those things,” said Bobby, scornfully. “I’d rather read, any day. But there’s a fellow at home, George Rogers—just twelve, my age, you know—and he and I play a robber band piece that we’ve made out of different books. I can tell you it’s worth seeing. Only, I suppose, ’twould scare a girl blue.”

“It would not scare me blue.” said Polly, shaking her curls. “I should like it!”

“Eleanor never minded it,” said the boy, softly, to himself, but Polly heard him, and her heart beat high with hope as he took off his spectacles, rubbed them for a minute with a big, white handkerchief, and then adjusted them carefully to his nose, as Uncle Blodgett always did when preparing to read the newspaper.

“Perhaps he’ll think I’m something like Eleanor, after all,” said Polly in her heart. She hesitated for a moment and then leaned over until her head was almost against the boy’s shoulder, as he sat gazing into the fire.

“Do you like ‘Mary’ for a name?” she asked, scarcely breathing the words.

“Why, yes, I don’t know but I do,” said the boy, turning to face her. “But what are you whispering for? I can tell you what I don’t like—I despise ‘Bobby’ for a name! It’s just like baby talk—but I’m afraid of hurting Aunt Hetty’s feelings if I say anything about it. Next time she comes over to our house, I’m going to get grandfather just to suggest to her that it’s time to give up nicknames when a boy’s all but in his teens. He can do it all right. Maybe she’ll bring you over. I’d like to show you George Rogers, and we could do our act for you.”

“Perhaps I shall be in school then,” said Polly, feeling highly honored by this invitation, “there are only two weeks more vacation.”

“You’re not going to school next term,” said Bobby. “I know, for Aunt Hetty told me. She wants to get you more ‘chippered up,’ Arctura says. Isn’t Arctura an old dear? Did she ever tell you what the children used to sing about her nose when she was a young one? It’s funny, and she says she never minded, but I’d have soon stopped them if I’d been there.”

“She never told me,” said Polly, with a glance of admiration at the boy who spoke so valiantly while he looked so mild, “I’d like to hear it.”

“Her nose is pretty prominent, of course,” said the heir of the Pomeroys, reluctantly, “and she says it got its growth before the rest of her. And when they’d see her coming they’d sing out:

“Hark! hark!’Tura’s bark!’Spose her noseCame out o’ the Ark!”

“Hark! hark!

’Tura’s bark!

’Spose her nose

Came out o’ the Ark!”

“How mean!” cried Polly, indignantly.

“That’s what I say, but she laughed like everything when she told me about it,” said the boy. “She says her voice was hoarse and queer because she was always having coughs and colds. She seemed to think it was a good joke.”

“That’s because she’s so good-natured,” said little Polly.

“I say, let’s act a charade to-night and make Aunt Hetty guess it.” said the boy, after staring at the old andirons in silence for a few minutes. “I know a fine one that I’ve just thought up, and I’ll tell you howto do your part. George Rogers and I are always making them up, and then our families try to guess them.”

Polly assented with mingled joy and fear. Bobby pressed Arctura into his service to collect materials for this impromptu entertainment, and at seven o’clock Miss Pomeroy sat in the library, waiting for the first syllable. The door that led into the little porch hall was open, and Arctura and Hiram were seated side by side just over the threshold of the dining-room.

“I don’t want to sit in the library along with your aunt, for it gets het up so with that fire,” Miss Green had explained to the actors. “Hiram and I will sit outside where we can see all, and yet keep comfortable.”

The children had exchanged a glance of perfect understanding and some amusement, but loyalty to the faithful Arctura kept them silent.

A moment after the tall clock had given its seven silvery strokes, the door into the front hall burst open and in rushed a strange figure. He was wrapped in a blanket with a bright red border, tied about the waist with a blue and green plaid shawl. In this belt were two carving knives and a hammer. A feather duster waved above the boy’s head, its handle imparting a peculiar stiffness to the action of his neck. A brown calico mask was drawn over his face. In each hand was an old hatchet.

“Never you fear, Miss Hetty,” came Arctura’s voice from the porch hall, as this extraordinary figure began to caper about the room, uttering discordant yells and brandishing the hatchets, “there isn’t a weapon in his outfit that would cut a string. Mercy on us, keep away from me!” she shrieked, as the calico mask turned in her direction.

Presently Polly appeared with a little basket on her arm, walking along with eyes cast down. There was a wild whoop from the figure in the blanket, a shrill cry from Polly, and the two rushed from the room, leaving the audience to reflect upon what they had seen.

“Looked like murder to me,” said Hiram, chuckling, “but I suppose that ain’t the answer.” Just then Bobby stuck his head in the door.

“We think it’s only fair to you,” he said, bowing to his aunt, and casting a glance beyond her into the darkness where sat the Greens, “to tell you that there were three syllables to the first act—there’ll be two to this next one—and one to the last.”

“Three syllables—that settles it—murder’s only got two,” remarked Hiram, solemnly. “Well, I’ve guessed wrong the first time. Got any light on it, Miss Hetty?”

“I’m not sure, of course, Hiram,” said Miss Pomeroy, with a laugh, “but I have the glimmer of an idea.”

Hiram’s chuckle ended abruptly as the door opened to admit Polly, bearing a slate, on which was drawn an irregular-shaped object, from the top of which a long line curved off to one edge of the slate.

“I call that a pin-quishion,” said Hiram, meditatively, “or else a balloon. I don’t know which. It’s first-rate for either one.”

“It isn’t,” said Polly; then she blushed, shook her head, and ran out of the room, to be received by her partner in the hall with a good deal of reproach.

“I seem to be sinking in deeper every time,” said Hiram, in a loud voice, intended to reach the other hall. “Murder—quishion is the nearest I’ve come.”

“In this next scene you’ve got to pretend you’re all English,” said the boy, pausing on the threshold before he and Polly entered, “for that’s the only way we can make it come out right.”

“Pretty short notice for a man that’s never been thirty miles from home,” said Mr. Green, in a melancholy tone.

The actors paid no heed to him. Polly put her little right hand to her ear and assumed a listening attitude, while the boy fell prone upon his stomach, and, raising his head, began to squirm over the floor, making a strange sound suggestive of tightly-shut teeth and breath drawn in and let out with all possible force. At last hesquirmed out of the door, followed by the listening Polly.

There was a sound of animated dialogue in the hall, and then just as Hiram had made the doleful announcement that all was lost as far as his guessing was concerned, in came the boy and girl, hand in hand.

“We can’t do the whole word,” announced Bobby, “for we’ve decided we don’t either of us draw well enough. But all I can say is, it’s on the map. Now, have you guessed? You have, Aunt Hetty, I know you have!”

“I’m not at all certain,” said Miss Pomeroy, cautiously. “Could it be—Indianapolis?”

“I knew you’d guess,” said the boy, delightedly. “Wasn’t it pretty good? Indian—apple—’iss. ’Twas her idea, thinking of dropping the h off hiss, because her Uncle Blodgett told her once that was the way English people talked.” He looked with appreciation at Polly, as he gave her this generous tribute. “Wasn’t it bright of her?”

“I move we clap the whole company,” said Hiram—and the entertainment closed in a burst of applause, while the two actors made their very best bows to the audience.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Back to Index Next