From the front porch, she could salute all the early visitors, and watch the butcher’s cart as it passed, often startling him with the inquiry,—
“What have you to-day?” Then, if no one answered, she would quickly reply, “Veal,” or, “Only veal to-day.”
But her greatest amusement was to watch a family of children, who lived nearly opposite. There was one child just commencing to go to school—a duty which he disliked exceedingly.
As soon as Poll saw him she would begin, “You must go, or you’ll grow up a dunce.”
Then she would whine, and cry, “I won’t go, I say I won’t.”
“Go right along, you naughty boy, or I shall tell your father.”
Poll now begins to sob and sniffle in earnest, when she suddenly stops and begins the whole conversation over again, greatly to the merriment of her hearers.
There is, however, one trick that Poll has learned, which is quite inconvenient.
Near Mr. Lee’s house, the ground rises, his residence being on a hill. Teams loaded with coal, and other heavy articles, continually pass by, it being of course quite an object with the drivers to get the horses to the top of the hill without stopping on the way.
But this would spoil Miss Poll’s fun. When they are about half way up, and just in the steepest part, she calls out, “Whoa,” in a loud, authoritative voice, so exactly in imitation of the driver that they obey at once. This she repeats as often as he attempts to start them forward, until, greatly vexed, I am sorry to say, he sometimes swears at both the horses and the bird.