LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS
BY ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD
CHAPTER IX
HIRAM
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.
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.
POLLY went down the steps and along the driveway to the barn. Hiram was sitting on a long bench just inside the door, rubbing and polishing some silvery bells. He looked at Polly with a broad and hospitable smile.
“It appeared to me ’twas about time we got acquainted,” he remarked, sociably. “I had some expectations you might drop in on me come milking time last night, but I suppose you had other engagements. Can you spare time to sit awhile? Your friends seem to feel to home,” said Hiram, with a wave of his hand toward Snip and Snap, who had followed Polly and were racing up the steep stairs to the hay loft.
“I can stay till Miss Pomeroy wants me,” said Polly, delightedly, as she slid onto the end of the bench. “Is there room for me here, Mr. Hiram?”
IS THERE ANY ROOM FOR ME HERE?
“Let’s see,” said Hiram, gravely, taking a foot rule from his pocket and measuring the distance between Polly and some bells lying beside him on the bench. “There’s most a yard leeway; if you don’t wriggle more’n twelve inches this way there’ll be no trouble.”
Hiram closed the rule and put it in his pocket. As he did this Polly heard a subdued chuckle. She clasped her arms about her knees and rocked back and forth on the fence, laughing gayly.
“Oh, you’re some like Uncle Sam Blodgett!” she cried, as Hiram looked at her in pretended alarm. “That’s the way he used to talk to me, all solemn, but with the fun inside of him. Oh, I like folks that talk like you and Uncle Blodgett!”
Hiram rose from the bench, and made a low bow to Polly, the bells jingling in his hands.
“That’s the first compliment that’s come my way since I got through my schooling,” he said, with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “While I was ’tending school the teachers would praise me up because I had a good head for remembering. I could recite pieces. There was a piece beginning ‘On Linden when the sun was low,’ that was in considerable demand. I presume I could recollect it, if given time.”
“Oh, will you please say it to me, some time?” pleaded Polly. “I do love to hear poetry!”
“I’ll teach it to ye, gestures and all,” said Hiram, much gratified. “There’s a good deal depends on the gestures, mind. What’s this now, coming to interrupt?” he added, as Arctura appeared in the doorway.
“Mis’ Deacon Talcott has come to call, and Miss Hetty told me to send Mary in,” said Arctura. “She’s a real pleasant woman, you won’t mind her.” She straightened out Polly’s apron bows, and the little girl walked slowly away, after saying good-by to her host and promising to “call again soon.”
“She’s got a pair of honest eyes in her head as ever I saw, and she’s a real sweet-dispositioned child,” said Arctura, looking after Polly, “but I don’t know as I ever saw one of her age so quiet.”
“She’s been kept with a parcel of old folks, and we aren’t much better,” said Hiram, thoughtfully. “Miss Hetty was telling me she couldn’t seem to find out any kind of play the child cared about, but I said to her, give the little thing time; probably work is what she’s used to, more’n anything else; let her get used to play gradual, I say; don’t try to make her give up her old folks’ ways all at once. She’s ready for fun, soon as she knows it is fun,” said Hiram, “I can see that.”
“Well,” said Arctura, briskly, “I’ll say one thing for her, she don’t tell how hard she’s been worked, or say anything but what’s pleasant about the Manser Farm folks. She seems fond of ’em all, and yet I kind of think she holds back something, for once in a while she’ll start to tell one thing or another, and then stop and bite her lip.”
“I know one thing, sure,” said Hiram, firmly, as his sister stepped out of the barn, “that little thing’s no hypocrite, nor no cheat, or my name’s something beside Green! Let’s see, how did that piece go? ‘On Linden when the sun was low, all bloodless lay the untrodden snow.’ Soon as I get these bells out of my hands,” he muttered, as he turned back to the bench, “I’ll just run through that, with the gestures. I don’t believe there’s a line of it that’s escaped me, if I am going on a hundred!”
CHAPTER X
A DELIGHTFUL CALLER
POLLY had no trouble on her mind when Mrs. Talcott left the house after an hour’s call. She knew from the visitor’s gentle, sweet face and manner, as well as from her beautiful black silk gown that she was another grand person like Miss Hetty. Polly had often seen Mrs. Talcott at church in the distance, and had admired her from the Manser pew, which was in the gallery back where the shadows gathered. Polly had once watched a sunbeam dance on a violet bow in Mrs. Talcott’s bonnet.
“How do you do, my dear?” the visitor had asked, when Miss Pomeroy presented “little Mary Prentiss” to her. “I’m sure I have caught a glimpse of you now and then at church. I believe you don’t go to the Number Three school with my children, do you?”
“I am very well, thank you, ma’am,” said Polly, sedately, though her dimples showed. “Yes’m, I have seen you in church; the sun comes in the gallery window and dances on your bonnet sometimes, just as pretty. No, ma’am, I go to Number Four, where there are just five boys and nobody else but me. The teacher says it’s hardly worth while to keep a school for five sprawling boys that will be farmers when all’s said and done, and one little girl that’s nobody,” said Polly, quoting Mrs. Manser without a touch of injured feeling, “but we’re out of the other districts, the Higgins boys and I are, ma’am.”
Mrs. Talcott flushed, and drew the little girl to her side.
“I’ve brought you a present, Mary,” she said, putting a box into Polly’s hands. “My children always like a surprise, and I knew you wouldn’t be expecting this; it’s very pure candy,” said Mrs. Talcott, looking over Polly’s head to Miss Pomeroy for approval, “it cannot possibly hurt her.”
It seemed too good to be true, but there were dozens of the delicious chocolate drops in the box. Polly’s cheeks grew crimson as she saw them.
“Mrs. Deacon Talcott,” she said, lifting her shining eyes to this wonderful visitor. “I expect I don’t know how to thank you right, but I do wish I did! I’ve had so many presents now, you could hardly believe. It began before I left Manser Farm. I had new clothes, bought right out of the store, the gingham was, and nobody had ever worn it before. I wish I had one of those dresses on, to show you,” said Polly, who had been advised by Miss Pomeroy to keep on her red frock under a white apron for the afternoon.
“Never mind, my dear,” said Miss Pomeroy, exchanging a quick glance with her caller. “Mrs. Talcott may see it some other day.”
“Yes’m,” said Polly, “and then Uncle Sam Blodgett gave me a knife that will be an extra fine article if I should get the broken blade fixed, and some slippery elm, and Aunty Peebles gave me a dear little pincushion, and Miss Pomeroy bought me a bag of gum-drops and chocolates—but those are gone all but one, for Miss Arctura likes them; she has a sweet tooth, though she doesn’t often indulge it, she says—and then Miss Pomeroy bought me these beautiful shoes that I have on,” she finished, breathlessly, sticking out one small foot for inspection. “You see it’s been presents and presents,” said Polly, beaming upon Mrs. Talcott and then turning to Miss Hetty with a face aglow with gratitude.
“So it seems, my dear,” said the visitor, and when Polly mentioned her plan in regard to Aunty Peebles, Mrs. Talcott said cordially, “Why not send her part of these chocolates, Mary?”
“I hoped and hoped you’d say for me to do that,” said Polly, earnestly. “If you please, Miss Pomeroy, I would like to send them the middle of next week, for it always seems long then to Aunty Peebles from Sunday to Sunday. She values her privileges very much,” said Polly.
“You shall send them next Wednesday if all goes well,” said Miss Pomeroy, “and perhaps you’d like to write a letter to go with them. We’ll see about it. And now you may run off, Mary, and read or do anything you like.”
Polly said good-by, and then as she reached the doorway she turned and made a courtesy to the guest.
“Will you please pay my respects to your family,” said Polly, and then she departed, hugging her precious box.
“I believe I was just about like Eleanor that time,” she said, as she put her new treasure away in the top bureau drawer, “for they both looked as pleased as could be. Now I’m going to the library to pick out a book, and take it out on the south porch. Seems as if probably I could read better out-doors.”
Miss Pomeroy and her visitor were in the parlor and the door was closed, so Polly had no fear of disturbing them. She had never owned any books except the Bible and her school reader, but she had heard a great deal about stories from her friends at Manser Farm. Uncle Sam Blodgett had a battered Shakespeare, from which he had recited extracts, and Polly had looked upon the book with awe.
“I guess I’d better begin with a small book,” she said, as she stood for a moment undecided in the centre of the library, looking about at the bewildering display of literature. “Of course, small books are meant for boys and girls, and I’ll take one from that shelf under the window; probably those are the ones Eddy reads. Miss Pomeroy said yesterday I could choose anything I liked. Here’s one that won’t take very long,” said Polly, kneeling to slip a small, leather-covered volume from its place.
“‘S-e-s-a-m-e and Lilies;’ that’s a pretty name,” she said, approvingly. “I don’t know what sesame means, but probably I shall when I’ve read far enough. There aren’t any pictures, but Uncle Sam Blodgett’s book didn’t have any pictures, either, except one in the front, of the gentleman that wrote it. I’ll go out on the porch and begin right off.”
On the south porch there were two low wooden chairs, and Polly seated herself in one of these, resolutely facing away from the big oaks which waved their branches so alluringly, and appeared to be inviting her to play with them and follow their beckoning down the road.
The book seemed very strange and hard to understand, but Polly read on bravely page after page, stopping now and then to spell a word softly, and shake her curly head over it. When she had read ten pages she closed the book with a little sigh of relief.
“If I read it by tens I can remember the place better,” said Polly, to the oaks, “and I don’t believe it makes much difference where I stop, because it goes right on and on, and there doesn’t seem to be any story to it. I didn’t suppose there were so many long words in the world, but Uncle Sam Blodgett always says ‘understanding comes with experience,’ and I guess I shall have a good deal of experience before I finish this book,” said Polly, soberly.
She felt a little bit lonely in spite of all the good things that had been showered upon her.
“I wish I could paddle in that brook down in the meadow, and I wish I could see what’s growing in the woods,” said Polly, wistfully. “I guess I’m not very much like Eleanor yet. I don’t suppose she ever wanted to go barefoot.”
This was rather sorrowful, but after Mrs. Talcott had gone Miss Pomeroy and Polly took a pleasant walk under the big oaks, and Miss Pomeroy smiled, with pleasure, Polly thought, when she saw the book the little girl had chosen. And after supper there was a delightful time in the barn while Hiram milked. Altogether Polly felt modestly contented when she got into bed that night. She had composed a short prayer, which she added to her usual petitions:
“Dear Father in heaven,” prayed little Polly, “please make me just as much like Eleanor as You think it’s best for me to be, for You know all about her. Amen.”
CHAPTER XI
A PLEASANT PLAN
SATURDAY was a busy day. Polly not only helped Arctura in the kitchen, but together they made the beds, for Miss Hetty, who usually preferred to take that duty upon herself, had to go away unexpectedly for an hour or so after breakfast. So Arctura and Polly turned the feather-beds and “plumped them up,” putting the mattresses squarely over them without any bulging out of the soft beds below, then stretched the sheets as smooth and tight as they could be drawn, and over them the fleecy blankets—Polly’s were striped with pink—and last of all they put on the snowy counterpanes and patted the stout pillows till they lay round and even at the head of each bed.
Snip and Snap added their society in Miss Pomeroy’s room. Suddenly Snip vanished, and Snap seemed much distressed. Arctura, who had been struggling to reduce an unaccountable lump on her side of the bed, made an exclamation, and drew out the sheets and blankets, and Snip, breathless but unvanquished, slid to the floor.
“My land!” ejaculated Miss Green, surveying the kitten with apparent disgust. “If you haven’t got any more sense than to go where you’ll be made up with a bed, it don’t seem as if you were worth raising!” But she took Snip up in her arms and stroked him, receiving for reward a vigorous scratch on the nose.
“Well, now, aren’t you the ungratefullest little piece that ever was?” said Arctura, setting him hastily down, and tenderly caressing her injured feature. “Didn’t you know to-morrow was Sunday and the minister coming to dinner? You’ve settled one thing. I shouldn’t be willing to sit down to a meal, facing him, all battered up this way. I shall tell Miss Hetty, so she needn’t consider it for a minute,” said Miss Green firmly, as she led the way to the kitchen.
There were two squash pies and two apple pies to be made that morning, and Polly was allowed to help with the rolling, and to crimp all the edges of the crust with a delightful little wheel. Arctura watched her with the first pie, but after that she bustled about the kitchen singing a gay little refrain.
“Oh—she—was—as—beautiful as a butterfly,
And as proud as a queen,
Was pretty little Polly Perkins,
Of Abingdon Green,”
sang Arctura over and over again, and little Polly Prentiss listened with delight.
“You have a splendid voice, haven’t you, Miss Arctura?” she said, when at last the song stopped as the pies were put in the oven. “And what pretty words there are to that tune.”
“My voice isn’t anything now to what it was,” said Miss Green, evidently much pleased. “I can’t rely on it as I once could. When my brother John, that lives out West, and I were in our teens we used to be called for far and near, whenever there was music wanted. He had a good tenor voice, and I could sing way up above the staff without straining my tones a mite. But now I’m getting old and I have to bear just as light as I can on the high notes, and there’s a number down towards G on the second line that are apt to fail me when I’m least expecting it,” said Arctura, and Polly thought her voice sounded a little sad.
“I think it’s all beautiful,” said Polly, with perfect sincerity. “It’s a great deal better than anybody’s voice in the choir at the church. I am just sure!”
“They’ve got some young folks in the singing seats that lack training,” said Arctura, and then she dismissed that subject. “You put me in mind of that ‘Polly Perkins’ someway,” she remarked, sitting down in the big kitchen rocker, and pulling the little girl into her lap. “To be sure, your name’s Mary, and, of course, favor’s a deceitful thing and beauty’s a vain snare, but someway you brought that song to mind when you were crimping those pie edges.”
“I don’t believe I’m much like a queen, Miss Arctura,” said Polly, greatly pleased, but a little confused. “I haven’t any crown, you see, or any trailing dresses, and I haven’t anything to be proud about. I expect queens look like this, don’t you?” and, springing to her feet, Polly tossed back her head and stood with her chin raised and her small nose tilted up into the air, gazing out of the window.
“Mercy me, that’s almost like play acting!” cried Arctura. “I guess Hiram can teach you gestures easy enough. I understand you’re going to commit ‘On Linden.’ Well, it’s a real stirring piece, and it’ll give you good exercise. Hiram’s all over the lot, when he says it. He rehearsed it to me last night, and I said to him he’d got to bear in mind that little girls weren’t grown men, and not keep you thrashing round, stooping down, and reaching up every last living minute. I pointed out a few places where he could omit some of his arm work, and he’s going to do so. I shall expect to be invited to a performance when you get it all learned.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Polly, gayly, “and perhaps Miss Pomeroy would come, too. I know some pieces that Uncle Blodgett taught me, but they hadn’t any gestures except a bow at the beginning and one at the end. And Mr. Hiram must know other poems, doesn’t he?”
“He’s full of ’em as a nut is of meat,” laughed Arctura, “both prose pieces and poetry, and all he wants is opportunity. Why, I’ve heard him many a time, spouting away to himself in the barn, but I’ve never taken any notice, for you give an inch to these people that recite, and they’ll take an ell quick enough; it’s just like starting a leak. But a regular performance, such as you speak of, with different ones taking part, I believe Miss Hetty would enjoy it for once, anyway; she don’t have much to amuse her.”
“And you would sing?” asked Polly, eagerly.
“Um-m—’twould be according to whether I could depend on my voice. I could try it with the scales, I expect, late in the afternoon,” said Arctura, “and then we could give the entertainment right after supper, soon as the dishes were cleared up. Goodness me! look at that clock! It’s most half-past ten!” and then there was a busy time in the kitchen until the noon hour brought dinner and rest.
CHAPTER XII
SESAME AND LILIES
AFTER her resting hour on the bed Polly took her book again from the low shelf and read another ten pages. Before Miss Pomeroy went to her room after dinner, Polly asked for a pencil and paper, and Miss Hetty gave her a pad of smooth paper in a pretty linen cover, to which a sharp pencil was attached by a long red ribbon.
“Another present!” the little girl exclaimed when Miss Pomeroy told her she was to keep the pad “for her very own.”
“Another present,” said the mistress of the house, smiling down into the brown eyes, and she kissed Polly as she stood at the foot of the stairs.
Polly’s head felt warm and tired, and she longed to run out into the woods with her book, but with the thought of Eleanor in her mind, she set her lips firmly and took her seat on the south porch, and began her self-appointed task. Polly would have been spared a good deal of trouble if she could have overheard what Miss Pomeroy was saying to Arctura, while the little girl sat so quietly reading and copying words from the leather-covered book to the paper in her lap.
“I don’t know just what to make of little Mary,” said Miss Pomeroy, looking rather disturbed. “She is so busy reading and writing that she didn’t hear me come downstairs, and she is reading a book by Ruskin which is suitable for grown people, and I don’t see how she can possibly understand it, or enjoy it. Yet there she sits, copying a few words ‘to look up in the dictionary,’ she told me. Do you suppose most little girls of ten nowadays would do that? Of course, you and I haven’t had anything to do with children for a long time,” said Miss Pomeroy gravely. “I might ride over to Maple Hill and ask Mrs. Manser if Mary had been used to books, but I dislike the woman, and I should not prefer to do it.”
“I wouldn’t bother,” said Arctura, easily. “Probably she’s kind of forward for her age, but I guess we can liven her up by degrees. She’s real fond of a good time, provided it’s quiet now. You see she eats a good deal and she don’t exercise much, and take that with her nap every afternoon and reading so long, I expect she feels sort of dull some of the time. She’s a good deal livelier at her work than I am,” said Miss Green, handsomely, “and she’s a sweet little thing if ever there was one in this world. I’m getting fond of her right along. Come Monday, how would it be if I should speak of her going out to play awhile in the afternoon? She could take her book along to the woods. I can tell her of a place. We’ve got to make a start with her sometime.”
Miss Pomeroy cordially approved this plan. After a few minutes she went out on the porch, and soon she and Polly started for a walk. Miss Pomeroy was a little troubled with rheumatism, so the walk was not a brisk one, but Polly stepped soberly along at her side, and together they talked of the birds and the flowers. They saw and heard eight birds that day, and Polly recounted them to Arctura after supper—a robin, a crow, a ground sparrow, a song sparrow, a blue jay, a phœbe-bird, a red-winged blackbird, and a thrush.
“Spring is upon us without a doubt,” said Polly, joyfully quoting Miss Pomeroy. “And, oh, it’s so pretty along the edges of the road, Miss Arctura!”
“How’d you like to go off into the woods with your book, some day?” suggested Miss Green, and she was mystified by the look that came into the child’s eyes.
“I’d like to very much, if Miss Pomeroy thinks best,” said Polly, quietly, but her heart was dancing.
Meanwhile Miss Pomeroy was looking at the top sheet of Polly’s pad, laid on the dictionary, “for I think I will find out about those words before I read any more,” Polly had said. This was the list: “Acquirement, mercenary, punctilious, sagacity, concomitants, unsullied, devastated, macadamization, trivial, boulevard, burgher, martello, vestige, erroneous, consecutive, assigned.”
“You understand all the words you have read except these?” questioned Miss Pomeroy, with her keen eyes on Polly’s flushed face, as the little girl straightened up from her study of the big dictionary when bedtime came.
“No, ma’am,” said Polly, honestly, “but I could guess most of the other long ones, and I wanted to get on with the book.” Then suddenly the little girl felt very brave. “Would—would Eleanor have known all those words without the dictionary? all of them?” she ventured.
“My dear child,” said Miss Pomeroy, gently—and she did not look as if she were at all vexed—“my dear little Mary, there are several of those words I myself should be obliged to look up in the dictionary before I dared try to tell anyone exactly what they meant. Now run along to bed, and get to sleep as fast as ever you can,” and Miss Pomeroy bent her head and kissed the bright face upturned to hers.
“That’s twice to-day,” said Polly, hugging herself as she lay in bed, just before the Sandman carried her off to Slumber-land. “That’s twice to-day she kissed me! I guess I’m getting on pretty well. I believe I must be!”
[TO BE CONTINUED]
“The world goes up, and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain,
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown,
Can never come over again.”
—Kingsley.