Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

During the week of the greenest Christmas that had been known at Harley's Mills for years, sudden and bitter cold turned a heavy rain to an ice-storm that locked village and country-side, laying low great trees by the clinging weight of icicles, freezing outright more than one veteran crow in the roost on Cedar Hill, and making prisoners of the ruffed grouse and bob-whites in their shelter of hemlock and juniper in the river woods.

In two nights Moosatuck became a vast mirror, in which the figures of the skaters by daylight and torchlight were reflected, framed by wonderful prismatic colors. Below the falls, however, the water, tempered by the breath of the sea, bedded the wild fowl, repulsed by the ice-pointed reed bayonets from their usual shelter.

From all the bordering towns the people gathered along the banks this particular Wednesday afternoon in a spirit of holiday festivity, whether they took the part of actors or spectators. Contrary to the custom of years, the Feltons and Mr. Esterbrook had returned to Quality Hill for the week, though quite against the wishes of Miss Elizabeth, who insisted that for Miss Emmy, with her sensitive lungs, the tropic atmosphere of a steam-heated New York house, with double windows to prevent even a breath of fresh air from entering unduly, was the only place. Miss Emmy, however, had rebelled, and seemed bent upon following the advice of a young practitioner, who had for two years been propounding the radical doctrine that fresh, cool air was the natural cure. The absurdity of his theory was on every tongue, even though he was backed by a few women of the progressive sort, who are always said by others to fly in the face of Providence.

Be this as it may, a quaint old push-sled that had belonged to Madam Harley, and been many years in the loft at the Mills, presently appeared on the ice, propelled by Patrick, somewhat indignant at his descent from the thronelike box of the carriage. When above a mass of fur robes Miss Emmy's eager face appeared, framed in a chinchilla hood tied with wide rose-colored ribbons, she was quickly surrounded, even before she had time to shrug her shoulders free and draw one hand from the depths of her great muff, extending it toward a young girl who had come toward her with the grace of a swallow skimming the air, bending to kiss her almost before she had paused, saying in the same breath: "Oh, Miss Emmy, I'm so glad that you've come out; I was afraid that we had missed you, and I must be going soon, for I promised Daddy that I would be home by four. No, it's not cold if you keep moving, but it will never do for you to sit stock-still. Please let Hugh push and I will skate beside you, and Patrick can wait in that old shed yonder, back of the bonfire the boys have made.

"We've been pushing Philip Angus all the afternoon. His tutor is ill, and the man that brought him out only stood about stamping his feet and beating his hands. It must be hard enough not to be able to skate, for there's nothing like flying down with the wind and fighting your way back in spite of it, without having to be stuck in one spot like a snow man. So we simply made Philip fly along, until he said that he really, truly felt as if the runners were on his feet instead of on the sleigh, and his cheeks grew red and his big gray eyes shone so. He is such a dear little fellow, Miss Emmy, and so clever at making pictures and images of anything he sees. Last summer he made Mack's head out of pond clay and baked it in the sun, and it was ever so much like Mack when he holds one ear up to listen, you know. Then he tried to do a head of Aunt Satira, but it wasn't so good; the nose and bob of hair behind looked too much alike. But then he coaxed Mack up through one of the parapet holes into his garden, but he had to look over at aunty where she sits to sew or shell peas under the first apple tree. You see, Philip and I can't visit to and fro like other people, because his father is angry with Daddy about something that isn't Daddy's fault, but we love each other over the parapet just the same, so now I have two make-believe brothers, little Philip and big Hugh."

Poppea had chattered on without a break in obedience to a signal from Miss Emmy, who, putting her muff to her face, indicated that the young girl must carry on the conversation, as she did not think it wise to talk in the face of the wind. Then looking about for Hugh Oldys, Poppea saw that he was evidently searching for her in the zigzag line of skaters near the opposite bank, and as a wave of her scarlet muffler did not attract his attention, she started in pursuit, still with the grace of birdlike flight that makes of motion an embodied thought rather than a muscular action.

As she glanced after the girl, Miss Emmy seemed to see as a panorama all the years between the time that she had first found the lady baby in the post-office house, with Hughey Oldys giving her his beloved tin soldier and the present, nearly thirteen years. Poppea, now at the crisis of her girlhood, Hugh in his first college year. Did she realize the lapse of time? In some ways not at all. Mr. Esterbrook was as courteous and precise as ever; if his morning walk was a little shorter and his before-dinner nap a little longer, the change was imperceptible to any outsider.

But it was through her interest in Poppea that Miss Emmy knew that time was passing, and yet the same interest kept middle age from laying hold upon her, either physically or mentally; Poppea, whom Miss Felton had from the beginning called Julia as a matter of principle, the second name having too theatrical a flavor to suit her. At first it had been the little child of five, coming to take her lesson in needlework on squares of dainty patchwork, one white, the alternate sprigged with blue forget-me-nots. The tiny silver thimble and work-box as a reward when the doll's bed-quilt was completed. With this came almost unconscious teaching of pretty manners, rising when some one enters the room, standing until all are seated.

Next came the discovery that Poppea was all music and rhythmic motion to her toe tips. At one of the summer afternoon concerts for which Felton Manor was famous, Louis Moreau Gottschalk had been the soloist, playing some of his Cuban dances, when to the surprise of all, the child of seven, who had been sitting on the porch steps listening intently, got up and, creeping inside the window of the music room, began to dance, suiting her steps to the music, now slow, now rapid, perfectly unconscious that any one was present, until the great emotional pianist, glancing up, finished abruptly, pausing to applaud, and Poppea, brought suddenly to herself and covered with confusion, fled out into the shrubbery, where, her face hidden in Mack's soft neck, she cried out her excitement. Then followed the music lessons, Poppea's legs dangling from the high piano-stool as Miss Emmy leaned over her, repeating the ceaseless, "one-two-three (thumb under) four-five-six-seven-eight" of the scale of C for the right hand.

Now, born of the last Christmas, a small upright piano stood in the foreroom of the post-office house, the room being further transformed by frilled draperies, flowery paper, and a few good prints, while in another year, Poppea would, if Oliver Gilbert could bring his mind to allow it, go away to school to have the necessary companionship of girls of her own age; not that she had the slightest feeling of aloofness or did not mingle with the village young people in the simplest way. It was the village people themselves, not Poppea, who seemed to hold aloof, as if they did not know how to place the girl, who, though belonging at the post-office, had the freedom of the Felton home, calling the ladies "aunt." Gilbert could not realize this, and a possible parting put him in a state of panic, not only for himself, but for her. What questions might be asked her? What doubts raised?