Polo came on Monday and posed to the satisfaction of Professor Waite and of the class. Winnie was successful in entering the two children at the Home, and Adelaide had a happy thought for Polo herself, who was too old to be received there. One of the smallest apartments in her tenement had been taken by Miss Billings and Miss Cohens, two seamstresses, honest, industrious old maids, who had lived and worked together since they were girls. Adelaide called them the two turtle doves, the odd combination of their name suggesting the nickname, and their fondness for each other bearing it out. They were a cheerful pair, and their rooms were bright with flowers and canaries. One morning Miss Billings woke to find her friend dead at her side, having passed from life in sleep so peacefully that she neither woke nor disturbed the faithful friend close beside her.
The poor old lady was very lonely and was glad to take Polo in. The young girl brightened her life, and her own influence on the nearly friendless waif was excellent. In the intervals of posing Miss Billings taught Polo how to cut and fit dresses. Polo helped her with her sewing, and Miss Billings promised to take her into partnership by and by. Polo was very happy and grateful, and the girls all liked her immensely. She was a character in her way, an irresistible mimic. She would take off Miss Noakes to the life, while she had a talent which I have never seen equalled for making the most ludicrous and horrible faces. She was almost pretty, and with Miss Billings’s help, made over the odds and ends of clothing bestowed upon her very nicely. Her one trinket was a string of coral beads and a little cross which her brother had sent her before she left England. She never gave up her faith in this brother. “Albert Edward’ll turn up some day rich,” she said. She flouted the idea that he might be dead. “He ain’t the dying kind,” she said, when Cynthia suggested the possibility. “None of our family ain’t, except father. Why, I’ve been through enough to kill a cat, and I haven’t died yet.”
She was especially devoted to Milly, to whom she felt, with reason, that she owed all her good fortune. Professor Waite found her remarkably serviceable as a model, from her versatility and ability to adapt herself to any character, giving a great variety of types for us to copy. When she wore the Italian costume, one would have thought her an Italian, and a complete change came over her when she donned the German cap and wooden shoes. “May be that’s because I’ve lived amongst all sorts of foreigners so much,” she said, “and Albert Edward always said I’d make an actress equal to the best. He said I had talent. I do pity them as hasn’t. I wouldn’t be one of the common herd for anything.”
Polo was certainly uncommon. Her use of the English language had an individuality of its own. She hated Miss Noakes and said she had no business to be “tryannic” (meaning tyrannical). She spoke of native Americans as abor-jines (a distortion of aborigines), and intermingled these little variations of her own with cockney phrases which were new to our untravelled ears.
She found difficulty in understanding our words and expressions, and once when Professor Waite told her to set up a screen she astonished us all by uttering a most blood-curdling yell, under the impression that he had commanded her to set up a scream.
She disliked Cerberus, and to save her from his scornful scrutiny and contemptuous remarks, Professor Waite had a duplicate key made to the turret door, by which Polo entered each morning and mounted directly to the studio.
She was very diverting, but much as we liked her we could not forget that we had assumed a grave responsibility in taking the support of her little sisters upon our hands, and we now began to actively agitate the plans for the Catacomb Party, which was to raise funds for the Annex with its “Manger and Guest Chambers.”
One event of interest to us occurred before the evening of the Catacomb Party. This was the Annual Drill of the Cadet School. All of the Amen Corner and the Hornets had invitations. We occupied front seats in the east balcony of the great armory, vigilantly chaperoned by Miss Noakes. Her best intentions could not prevent the young cadets from paying their respects to us during the intervals of the drill.
The young men looked handsomely in their gala uniforms of white trousers and gloves, blue coats, and caps set off with plenty of frogging and brass buttons. They performed their evolutions with a precision which would have done credit to a regiment of regulars—and received the praise of General Howard, who reviewed them.
Out of all the battalion there were two boys in whom we were chiefly interested: Adelaide’s younger brother Jim, color sergeant of the baby company, and Milly’s friend Stacey Fitz Simmons, the handsome drum-major.