“Oh, we aren’t going to melt it all,” said Polly, quickly; “the very idea! We’re going to save half to eat.”
“Then I want to drink some,” cried Joel, “and I’m going to melt it—Dave and me—”
“You can help, children,” said Polly, bustling away, feeling very grand and important. Dear me, how much there was to do, to be sure, when company was expected!
And when at last the eventful afternoon arrived, there was a still further surprise in store for the five little entertainers of the company. In walked Grandma Bascom. “I thought mebbe you’d like this, Polly, to dress up in. My Pa brought it home from the Indies, an’ you can keep it, ’cause th’ moths has got into it,” mourned Grandma, holding it up in her trembling old hands.
It was a yellowish, thin woollen shawl dingy with age, with a wide border running all around it of flowers of various sizes, and in flaring colors that, strange to say, had not dimmed in the least all the while they had been in Grandma Bascom’s possession. The children crowded around in speechless admiration as Grandma Bascom shook it out before their eyes.
“That corner goes up th’ back,” said Grandma, pointing to it, “an’ Ma was alwus partic’ler to settle it that way, bein’s th’ flowers ran up so fur”—as they surely did! A most remarkable spray like nothing ever seen in a garden, sprawled at its own sweet will almost into the middle of the shawl.
“There hain’t no other corner got a sprig, so you can’t make a mistake, Polly. An’ be careful of th’ fringe,” which indeed was necessary advice, as this particular adornment to the shawl had become very tired in the lapse of time since Grandma Bascom’s Pa brought it from the Indies, and had dropped away, till here and there only a thread remained, looking very lonely indeed.
“An’ don’t stick your fingers in th’ holes, child,” cautioned Grandma, before she finally let it go into Polly’s hands. “It beats me how those moths get into it, but if you don’t ketch it on any thin’, ’twon’t tear no more.”
“Oh, I’ll be very careful of it,” promised Polly, receiving the old shawl with fingers that trembled as much as Grandma’s. “It’s perfectly beautiful, but perhaps Mamsie won’t let me wear it,” she added, with a dreadful feeling that in that case the company would suffer a loss that could never be made up; “and then I’ll bring it back to you, Grandma, when she comes home,” she said loudly, for Grandma was so deaf.
“You ain’t never goin’ to bring it back to me,” said Grandma, beginning to waddle to the door, and turning back—“I’ve give it to you, Polly.”