LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS
BY ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD
CHAPTER VI
A TRYING AFTERNOON
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.
“SO you like your new friends, my dear,” said Miss Hetty. “They must be banished to the shed now for their dinner while you and I eat ours. Do you hear Arctura’s signal to us?”
There came a sound unlike anything Polly had ever heard; it was not exactly a bell; she couldn’t imagine what it was. Miss Hetty held out her hand with a smile, and Polly, still with Snip and Snap on her shoulders, was led out of the library, across the porch hall to a big, sunny dining-room. On the table, at Miss Hetty’s place, stood a strange thing with three bronze cups upside down, a little one highest up, one somewhat larger under it, and one still larger at the bottom; at least that was the way it looked to Polly.
Arctura stood close to it with a little stick in her hand; she struck the bronze cups as Polly looked at her, and again the musical sound was heard.
“There, I reckoned you’d never heard anything like that!” said Arctura as she beamed on Polly, and then took the kittens from the little girl’s shoulders. “That’s a heathen invention, called a gong, brought to Miss Pomeroy by her Uncle Pete. I hope you’ll relish your food; I’ve got no time to sit down now,” said Arctura, and bearing Snip and Snap in her arms she marched out of a doorway through which there was a glimpse of the kitchen.