CHAPTER III.
THE GIRLS TRY TO IMPROVE THEIR MINDS.
Polly's reading-club started off valiantly the next afternoon, and for an hour the girls read aloud industriously, while the rain pattered on the shingles above their heads. The experiment had all the charm of novelty, and the weather was in their favor, since there was little temptation to be out of doors; so, at the close of the first day, the reading was voted a great success. However, the next time there was a slight decrease in the interest, and Jean's suggestion as they sat down, that they should read for half an hour and play games the rest of the time, was hailed with delight by all but Polly, who was haunted by the possibility of being that "living disgrace" which Aunt Jane had pronounced her. Still, Polly was in the minority, and the change of programme was adopted. At the third meeting, Molly was the one to propose an adjournment at the end of the first quarter of an hour, and the girls were not slow to take advantage of the suggestion, and go rushing down-stairs, and out into the bright afternoon sunshine, to join Alan who was lazily swinging in the hammock, with his eyes fixed on the bits of white cloud that went drifting across the blue above him.
It was with an air of great decision that Polly marched up the attic stairs, two days later. She had purposely delayed her coming, and the others were anxiously awaiting her. The warm sun streamed in at the western window, and threw a golden light over the dainty summer gowns of the three girls who were in a row on the slippery haircloth seat of an old mahogany sofa, which had an empty starch-box substituted for its missing leg. Alan sat in front of them, placidly rocking to and fro, astride the cradle that he had dragged out into the middle of the floor, to serve as an easy-chair.
"Hurry up, Polyanthus," he remarked encouragingly. "These girls are scolding me like everything, and I want you to come and fight for me."
"Do help us to send him off, Polly," his sister begged. "He insisted on coming up here with us, even after I told him we didn't want him."
"Why don't you go out and play ball with the other boys, Alan?" urged Jean.
"Now, Jean, that's too bad!" said Polly, filled with righteous indignation. "It's not fair to twit Alan because there are some things he can't do."
"Let him be," said Florence; "he'll get so tired of it at the end of ten minutes, that nothing would tempt him to stay here."
"Good for you, Florence; you're a trump," returned Alan. "I promise you, I won't so much as speak, if you'll let me stay; but it's awfully dull doing nothing, and mother's bound I shan't play ball. You wouldn't catch me here, if I could."
"Ungrateful wretch!" exclaimed Polly, while Jean added,—
"No danger of your saying anything! You'll be sound asleep before we've read a page."
"What's the use of reading it, then?" was Alan's pertinent question.
"I'm sure I don't know," answered Florence. "It's one of Polly's ideas, or rather, Aunt Jane's."
"Aunt Jane ought to be ganched!" remarked Alan, with calm disrespect; for Polly made no secret of Aunt Jane's eccentricities, and they were a common subject of discussion among the V.
"I know it," confessed Polly, filled with shame at the thought of having such a relative.
"Come, Polly, what is the use of reading this poky old book?" urged Molly. "'T isn't doing any of us the least bit of good. I've listened just as hard as I could, and I'm sure I haven't any idea what it's all about, it's told in such a queer way."
Molly's use of the word "queer" said more than a dozen lesser adjectives. She had a singularly expressive manner of drawing it out, that threw untold meaning into its simple form. Alan used to declare that, if Molly once pronounced anything queer, its reputation was spoiled, as far as her hearers were concerned. This time Jean upheld her.
"It is very poky," she announced, as she pulled a bit of hair out from one of the holes in the cushion, and fell to picking it to pieces. "I think it's too warm weather for it, Polly. I don't care what Aunt Jane says; I'm not going to waste these glorious summer days over such stuff." And she pointed disdainfully at the book, a square, clumsy volume, bound in dingy black cloth covers.
Polly looked rather hurt.
"I know all that, girls," she began; "but an hour a day, and only every other day, too, isn't very much to spend on it."
"It's an hour too much, though, Polly," said Molly decisively.
"This garret is so warm; wait till cooler weather, and then we'll
try again. We shouldn't have time to finish it, anyway, before
Jean had the play ready for us. How is it getting along, Jean?"
"Awfully!" confessed Jean. "Whenever I sit down to write, my head is as empty as an egg is, after you've blown it."
"Now, you girls let me plan for you," said Alan, moved to pity by Polly's downcast face. "You let your old book go till fall, and then start again, but only read half an hour a day. That's all your brains can take in, and I'll try to be on hand to explain it to you. How does that suit, Poll?"
"I suppose it will have to do," sighed Polly. "I hate to give up, now we've started; but if you won't read, you won't."
"Very true," remarked Jean, while Florence added,—
"Now, tell us truly, Polly, do you know what the man is talking about half the time?"
"No, I don't know as I do," admitted Polly.
"Then what do you want to read it for?" pursued Florence, determined to come to an understanding.
"Oh, it sounds sort of good, you know," said Polly vaguely; "just as if we ought to like it. 'Most everybody does read it, and I didn't know but, if we kept at it long enough, it might teach us a little something."
"Who wants to be taught? And besides, I'd rather have something a little fresher than this," said Jean, making no secret of her heresy.
"Polly! Polly!" called a voice from below.
Polly sprang up from the floor, where she had seated herself.
"That's mamma; what can she want?" she exclaimed, running to the window and putting her head out.
Down in the street sat Mrs. Adams in their low, two-seated carriage, while Job stood nodding sleepily in the sun, as he waited for the signal to proceed.
"Don't you girls want to go for a little drive?" she called, as her daughter's head came in sight.
In an instant three other heads appeared, and she was saluted with three voices,—
"How lovely!"
"What fun!"
"We'll be down in a minute."
The minute was a short one; for the girls snatched their hats in passing through the hall, and quickly surrounded the carriage, in a gay, laughing group. Alan came sauntering down the stairs after them, and stood leaning in the doorway, watching them settle themselves preparatory to starting. Something in the lad's position struck Mrs. Adams, and she beckoned to him.
"Come too, Alan; that is, if you can stand it with so many girls."
"May I? Is there room?"
He ran out to the carriage, then stopped, hesitating, as he saw
Polly touch her mother's arm, and shake her head silently.
"I don't believe I'll go," he said, drawing back.
"Why not?" asked Mrs. Adams, in surprise.
"I don't think Polly wants me to," answered the boy frankly. "I don't want to be in the way." And he turned back to the house.
"'Tisn't that, mamma," said Polly, blushing at being caught. "I'd like to have Alan go, well enough, only I was afraid it would be too much for Job to take so many of us."
"In that case, you might have offered to be the one to give up," said her mother, in a low tone, which, though very gentle, still brought a deeper flush to Polly's face. Then she added to Alan, "Nonsense, my boy! You are thin as a rail, and don't weigh anything to speak of. Get in here this minute, and if Job gets tired, I'll make you all walk home."
Alan mounted to the front seat, where he made himself comfortable, with a boyish disregard of Florence's fresh pink gingham gown; Mrs. Adams shook the lines persuasively; Job waked and began to trudge along with an air of sombre patience which would have done credit to the scriptural original of his name.
"I am glad you are all of you used to Job," said Mrs. Adams smilingly, as they moved slowly down the main street and across the railroad track. "He really has been a valuable horse in his day, and there was a time when nothing could go by him,—why, what is the matter?" And she looked around at the girls on the back seat, as they burst into an irreverent laugh.
"Nothing, mamma," said Polly, leaning forward with her elbows on the back of the seat in front of her; "only we thought we'd heard you say something about it before."
"Let's drop them out, if they're so saucy," suggested Alan. "Don't you want me to drive, Mrs. Adams?"
"Thank you, Alan; but I don't dare trust you, when you are no more used to him, for he stumbles so. Go on, Job!" she added, with an inviting chirrup, as she leaned forward and rattled the whip up and down in its socket, to remind Job of its existence.
But Job was familiar with that operation, and from long experience he had learned its lack of significance. Accordingly, he only tilted one ear back towards his mistress, and went on at his former jog.
It was one of the finest days of the summer, one of the days when the season seems to have reached its height and appears to be standing still, for a moment, in the full enjoyment of its own beauty. A shower early in the day had washed away the dust, and every leaf and blossom by the roadside stood up in all the glad pride of its clean face, and turned its eyes disdainfully upward, away from the brown earth below. The girls chattered and laughed while they rode through the town, past the cemetery, where Mrs. Adams had some difficulty in overcoming Job's desire to turn in, across the long white bridge over the river, and through the quiet little village on its eastern bank. Then they turned southward, where the road lay over the level meadows, now past a great corn- field, now by the side of a piece of grass land dotted thickly with large yellow daisies. At their right was the broad blue river, shining like metal in the sun; before them rose the two mountains that watch over the old town, one beautiful in its irregular outlines, the other impressive in its bold dignity. No one who has lived near these hills can ever forget their spell. Though long years may have passed before his return, yet his first glance is always towards the bare, rugged cliffs, the wooded sides, and the white summit houses of these twin guardians of the quiet valley town.
"I believe I am perfectly happy," said Florence, with a sigh of content, as she leaned back and surveyed the meadows.
"I should be, if I could have some of those daisies," said Polly, pointing to a great bunch of them close by.
"Want 'em? All right, here goes!" And before Mrs. Adams could bring Job to a halt, Alan was out over the wheel.
"Don't stop; I can catch up with you," he called. "It's too hard work to get Job under way again."
He was as good as his word; for he hastily pulled up the flowers by the roots, came running after the carriage, and tossed them into Polly's lap.
"There! Now aren't you glad you brought me?" he exclaimed triumphantly, as he scrambled up the back of the carriage, like a monkey, and worked his way along to the front seat again. "You're a daisy, yourself, Alan," answered Polly, leaning out over the wheel to break off the roots. "These are lovely. Want some, girls?"
"It's going to rain to-morrow, I just know," said Molly, disregarding the daisies. "If it does, it will spoil our picnic, and that will be a shame."
"Oh, it won't rain," said Jean. "What makes you think so, Molly?"
"It always does," said Molly wisely, "when the hills look such a lovely dark blue. I heard somebody say so, ever so long ago, and I never knew it to fail."
"I don't believe in signs," remarked Polly vindictively, with her mouth full of daisy stems. "It's all just as it happens, only some people have a sign for everything. For my part, I'll wait till I see the rain coming, before I believe in it."
"That's Polly all over," said Alan. "She won't take anything on trust; she has to see it first."
"How did the reading come on to-day?" inquired Mrs. Adams, leaning back in her seat, and letting Job ramble from side to side of the road, at his will.
"Not very well," said Florence, seeing that none of the others started to reply.
"I hope I didn't break it up," Mrs. Adams answered, as she took out the whip, to brush a fly from Job's plump side.
Alan giggled.
"You needn't be afraid, Mrs. Adams; the girls are glad to get off on any terms."
"I'll tell you how 'tis, Mrs. Adams," said Jean, coming to the rescue, rather to Polly's relief. "You see, it's such warm weather, and the book wasn't real interesting, so we decided to let it go till by and by. Do you think we're very dreadful?" And she laughed up into Mrs. Adams's face, with perfect confidence in her approval.
Mrs. Adams laughed too.
"I didn't really think you would carry out your plan for very long," she said. "Polly takes Aunt Jane's words too seriously. In old times, everybody read 'Pilgrim's Progress,' but it's going out of fashion now, and—Whoa, Job! What are you doing?" she exclaimed, as the carriage tilted to one side so unexpectedly that Florence and Molly screamed a little.
Job, grieved at finding himself ignored and left out of the conversation, had apparently determined to amuse himself in his own way. He had meandered back and forth across the road, as was shown by the serpentine character of his tracks; now, catching sight of a tempting stalk of mullein by the fence, he had walked across the gutter and was just stretching his head forward to seize the coveted morsel, when Mrs. Adams interrupted him. Her first impulse was to draw him back, but kinder feelings prevailed, and she bent forward to give him the full length of the lines, saying indulgently,—
"The mischief is done already, Job, so you may as well have your lunch, for you can't tip us up any farther." And she sat there quite patiently, in spite of her strained position, until Job had devoured the mullein in a leisurely fashion. Then she reined him back into the road, remarking, "It isn't fair for poor Job to do all the work and not have any of the fun, is it?"
"I'll tell you, Mrs. Adams," suggested Alan; "let's all get out and put Job into the carriage, and draw him a mile or two, just to rest him."
"You shan't make fun of Job!" said Polly indignantly. "You didn't like what Jean said to you, and now you go and say, Job is o-l-d and s-l-o-w."
"What in the world do you spell the words for, Poll?" asked Jean.
"I never have been able to make out."
"Why, Job knows what you are saying, as well as anybody, and may be he is sensitive about it," replied Polly, to the great amusement of the girls.
"We might read 'Pilgrim's Progress' to him, then," said Jean wickedly. "Perhaps it would teach him to go ahead, if he knows so much."
"Poor old Job! his going days are nearly over, aren't they, Joby?" said Mrs. Adams caressingly, as she rubbed the whip up and down over his glossy side. "Well, he's a poor, tired old fellow with a heavy load, so perhaps we'd better turn here and go home."
This proceeding met with Job's full approval. He had been walking more and more slowly, as if overcome by the effort which he had been forced to make, and seemed scarcely able to totter onward, stumbling at every stone. But with the change of direction, his life came back to him, and with a whisk of his tail and an ungainly flourish of his hind legs, he started off at a trot, turning neither to the right nor the left, but only intent on reaching home and supper.
"There!" said Mrs. Adams in a tone of disgust; "when Job does that I just want to whip him. He has played that trick on me over and over again, and still I am always deceived by it. It isn't more than two weeks since Polly and I were driving to the Glen, one very warm day. It was a strange road, and all at once Job was taken ill in such a queer way; he staggered and almost fell. Polly and I were so frightened, for we thought he was going to die, right then and there. We jumped out and walked along beside him, leading him and petting him. The road was so narrow that we couldn't turn him around, without going on ever so far; nobody was in sight, and we were both of us just ready to cry from sheer nervousness. At last we came to where we could turn him, and backed him around as carefully as could be. What did the old goose do but put down his head and give it the funniest sideways toss, and then trot off towards home, leaving us standing there in the road."
"What did you do? did you walk home?" asked Alan, while the girls laughed.
"No, indeed! We made him stop for us, and he had to trot the rest of the way, you may be sure. Go on, Job!" urged Mrs. Adams, shaking the lines violently.
But Job settled that matter by whisking his tail over the lines and holding them firmly, in spite of the attempts his mistress made to free them once more. Finding her labors of no avail, she turned her attention to the girls again.
"What if you take another plan for your reading?" she asked, pulling off one of her long gloves and turning slightly, as she rested her elbow on the back of the seat. "If you care to come to our house one or two mornings a week, through the rest of the vacation, and read aloud with me some good book,—I don't mean goody,—I should be delighted to have you. You could do the reading and amuse me while I sew."
"That's elegant!" exclaimed Jean rapturously. "What shall we read, girls?"
"But are you sure that you want us?" asked Florence doubtfully, for her mother was not particularly hospitable to the members of the V, and it seemed impossible to her that Mrs. Adams could be in earnest in her proposition.
"Indeed I do," responded Mrs. Adams heartily. "I can take that time for darning the doctor's stockings, and Polly's too, for that matter, for her toes are always coming through. I don't like to do it, but I shall be so well entertained that I probably shan't mind it at all."
"See here," said the practical Jean; "let's all bring our stockings to darn. There can't but one of us read at a time, and I just hate to do nothing but sit and twirl my thumbs."
"But I don't know how to darn stockings," said Florence helplessly.
"Time you did, then," said Jean. "If you had as many small brothers as I do, you'd have plenty of practice. Besides, I think any girl as old as we are ought to know how to mend her own stockings, whether she's rich or poor."
"So do I, Jean," said Mrs. Adams approvingly; "and yet I am ashamed to say that I have never taught Polly. But I think I'll add your plan to mine, and tell the girls to bring their darning- bags with them; and I will give you all lessons in a duty and necessity that can be made almost a fine art."
"I hate to sew," said Molly disconsolately.
"So do I," responded Jean calmly, "but I have to just the same; and that's the reason I thought I'd like to take the time when we read to do some of the worst things."
"I say," remarked Alan meditatively, as he plunged his hands into his pockets, "where's my share in this coming in?"
"Why, nowhere; you're nothing but a boy, you know," replied his sister, with an air of conscious superiority.
"One boy is as good as a dozen girls, though, ma'am," retorted
Alan.
"Do you want to come too?" asked Polly. "He can, can't he, mamma?"
"I don't know as I want to, all the time," said Alan. "I'd like it when I can't do anything else; but when the boys are round, I'd rather be with them, of course."
"That settles it," said Polly, leaning forward to tickle his ear with a long-stemmed daisy. "Take us or leave us; but we don't want any half-way friends that like us when they can't get anything any better."
"Don't you mind her, Alan," said Mrs. Adams. "You can come, if you want to, and I'll protect you myself."
"If you come, though," added Polly, determined to have the last word, "you'll have to bring some stockings to darn. We shan't let in any lazy people."