An Old-Fashioned Girl (10 page)

Now, Polly was very angry, and I think she had a right to be; but she was not resentful, and after the first flash was over,
she soon began to feel better about it. It wasn’t easy to forgive; but, as she listened to Tom’s honest voice, getting gruff
with remorse now and then, she couldn’t harden her heart against him, or refuse to make up when he so frankly owned that it
“was confounded mean to read her book that way.” She liked his coming and begging pardon at once; it was a handsome thing
to do; she appreciated it, and forgave him in her heart some time before she did with her lips; for, to tell the truth, Polly
had a spice of girlish malice, and rather liked to see domineering Tom eat humble pie, just enough to do him good, you know.
She felt that atonement was proper, and considered it no more than just that Fan should drench a handkerchief or two with
repentant tears, and that Tom should sit on a very uncomfortable seat and call himself hard names for five or ten minutes
before she relented.

“Come, now, do say a word to a fellow. I’m getting the worst of it, anyway; for there’s Fan, crying her eyes out upstairs,
and here are you stowed away in a dark closet as dumb as a fish, and nobody but me to bring you both round. I’d have cut over
to the Smythes and got ma home to fix things, only it looked like backing out of the scrape; so I didn’t,” said Tom, as a
last appeal.

Polly was glad to hear that Fan was crying. It would do her good; but she couldn’t help softening to Tom, who did seem in
a predicament between two weeping damsels. A little smile began to dimple the cheek that wasn’t hidden, and then a hand came
slowly out from under the curly head, and was stretched toward him silently. Tom was just going to give it a hearty shake,
when he saw a red mark on the wrist, and knew what made it. His face changed, and he took the chubby hand so gently, that
Polly peeped to see what it meant.

“Will you forgive that, too?” he asked, in a whisper, stroking the red wrist.

“Yes; it don’t hurt much now.” And Polly drew her hand away, sorry he had seen it.

“I was a beast, that’s what I was!” said Tom, in a tone of great disgust; and just at that awkward minute down tumbled his
father’s old beaver over his head and face, putting a comical quencher on his self-reproaches.

Of course, neither could help laughing at that; and when he emerged, Polly was sitting up, looking as much better for her
shower as he did for his momentary eclipse.

“Fan feels dreadfully. Will you kiss and be friends, if I trot her down?” asked Tom, remembering his fellow-sinner.

“I’ll go to her.” And Polly whisked out of the closet as suddenly as she had whisked in, leaving Tom sitting on the bootjack,
with a radiant countenance.

How the girls made it up no one ever knew; but after much talking and crying, kissing and laughing, the breach was healed,
and peace declared. A slight haze still lingered in the air after the storm, for Fanny was very humble and tender that evening;
Tom a trifle pensive, but distressingly polite, and Polly magnanimously friendly to everyone; for generous natures like to
forgive, and Polly enjoyed the petting after the insult, like a very human girl.

As she was brushing her hair at bedtime there came a tap on her door, and, opening it, she beheld nothing but a tall black
bottle, with a strip of red flannel tied round it like a cravat, and a cocked-hat note on the cork. Inside were these lines,
written in a sprawling hand with very black ink:

D
EAR
P
OLLY
— Opydilldock is first-rate for sprains. You put a lot on the flannel and do up your wrist, and I guess it will be all right
in the morning. Will you come a sleigh-ride tomorrow? I’m awful sorry I hurt you.

T
OM.

“W
here’s Polly?” asked Fan one snowy afternoon, as she came into the dining room where Tom was reposing on the sofa with his
boots in the air, absorbed in one of those delightful books in which boys are cast away on desert islands, where every known
fruit, vegetable and flower is in its prime all the year round; or, lost in boundless forests, where the young heroes have
thrilling adventures, kill impossible beasts, and, when the author’s invention gives out, suddenly find their way home, laden
with tiger skins, tame buffaloes and other pleasing trophies of their prowess.

“Dun no,” was Tom’s brief reply, for he was just escaping from an alligator of the largest size.

“Do put down that stupid book, and let’s do something,” said Fanny, after a listless stroll round the room.

“Hi, they’ve got him!” was the only answer vouchsafed by the absorbed reader.

“Where’s Polly?” asked Maud, joining the party with her hands full of paper dolls all suffering for ball-dresses.

“Do get along, and don’t bother me,” cried Tom, exasperated at the interruption.

“Then tell us where she is. I’m sure you know, for she was down here a little while ago,” said Fanny.

“Up in grandma’s room, maybe.”

“Provoking thing! You knew it all the time, and didn’t tell, just to plague us,” scolded Maud.

But Tom was now under water stabbing his alligator, and took no notice of the indignant departure of the young ladies.

“Polly’s always poking up in grandma’s room. I don’t see what fun there is in it,” said Fanny as they went upstairs.

“Polly’s a verwy queer girl, and gwandma pets her a gweat deal more than she does me,” observed Maud, with an injured air.

“Let’s peek and see what they are doing,” whispered Fan, pausing at the half-open door.

Grandma was sitting before a quaint old cabinet, the doors of which stood wide open, showing glimpses of the faded relics
treasured there. On a stool, at the old lady’s feet, sat Polly, looking up with intent face and eager eyes, quite absorbed
in the history of a high-heeled brocade shoe which lay in her lap.

“Well, my dear,” grandma was saying, “she had it on the very day that Uncle Joe came in as she sat at work, and said, ‘Dolly,
we must be married at once.’ ‘Very well, Joe,’ says Aunt Dolly, and down she went to the parlor, where the minister was waiting,
never stopping to change the dimity dress she wore, and was actually married with her scissors and pin-ball at her side, and
her thimble on. That was in war times, 1812, my dear, and Uncle Joe was in the army, so he had to go, and he took that very
little pin-ball with him. Here it is, with the mark of a bullet through it, for he always said his Dolly’s cushion saved his
life.”

“How interesting that is!” cried Polly, as she examined the faded cushion with the hole in it.

“Why, grandma, you never told me that story,” said Fanny, hurrying in, finding the prospect was a pleasant one for a stormy
afternoon.

“You never asked me to tell you anything, my dear, so I kept my old stories to myself,” answered grandma, quietly.

“Tell some now, please. May we stay and see the funny things?” said Fan and Maud, eyeing the open cabinet with interest.

“If Polly likes; she is my company, and I am trying to entertain her, for I love to have her come,” said grandma, with her
old-time politeness.

“Oh, yes! do let them stay and hear the stories. I’ve often told them what good times we have up here, and teased them to
come, but they think it’s too quiet. Now, sit down, girls, and let grandma go on. You see I pick out something in the cabinet
that looks interesting, and then she tells me about it,” said Polly, eager to include the girls in her pleasures, and glad
to get them interested in grandma’s reminiscences, for Polly knew how happy it made the lonely old lady to live over her past,
and to have the children round her.

“Here are three drawers that have not been opened yet; each take one, and choose something from it for me to tell about,”
said Madam, quite excited at the unusual interest in her treasures.

So the girls each opened a drawer and turned over the contents till they found something they wanted to know about. Maud was
ready first, and holding up an oddly shaped linen bag, with a big blue F embroidered on it, demanded her story. Grandma smiled
as she smoothed the old thing tenderly, and began her story with evident pleasure.

“My sister Nelly and I went to visit an aunt of ours, when we were little girls, but we didn’t have a very good time, for
she was extremely strict. One afternoon, when she had gone out to tea, and old Debby, the maid, was asleep in her room, we
sat on the doorstep, feeling homesick, and ready for anything to amuse us.

“‘What
shall
we do?’ said Nelly.

“Just as she spoke, a ripe plum dropped bounce on the grass before us, as if answering her question. It was all the plum’s
fault, for if it hadn’t fallen at that minute, I never should have had the thought which popped into my mischievous mind.

“‘Let’s have as many as we want, and plague Aunt Betsey, to pay her for being so cross,’ I said, giving Nelly half the great
purple plum.

“‘It would be dreadful naughty,’ began Nelly, ‘but I guess we will,’ she added, as the sweet mouthful slipped down her throat.

“‘Debby’s asleep. Come on, then, and help me shake,’ I said, getting up, eager for the fun.

“We shook and shook till we got red in the face, but not one dropped, for the tree was large, and our little arms were not
strong enough to stir the boughs. Then we threw stones, but only one green and one half-ripe one came down, and my last stone
broke the shed window, so there was an end of that.

“‘It’s as provoking as Aunt Betsey herself,’ said Nelly, as we sat down, out of breath.

“‘I wish the wind would come and blow ’em down for us,’ panted I, staring up at the plums with longing eyes.

“‘If wishing would do any good, I should wish ’em in my lap at once,’ added Nelly.

“‘You might as well wish ’em in your mouth and done with it, if you are too lazy to pick ’em up. If the ladder wasn’t too
heavy we could try that,’ said I, determined to have them.

“‘You know we can’t stir it, so what is the use of talking about it? You proposed getting the plums, now let’s see you do
it,’ answered Nelly, rather crossly, for she had bitten the green plum, and it puckered her mouth.

“‘Wait a minute, and you
will
see me do it,’ cried I, as a new thought came into my naughty head.

“‘What are you taking your shoes and socks off for? You can’t climb the tree, Fan.’

“‘Don’t ask questions, but be ready to pick ’em up when they fall, Miss Lazybones.’

“With this mysterious speech I pattered into the house barefooted and full of my plan. Upstairs I went to a window opening
on the shed roof. Out I got, and creeping carefully along till I came near the tree, I stood up, and suddenly crowed like
the little rooster. Nelly looked up, and stared, and laughed, and clapped her hands when she saw what I was going to do.

“‘I’m afraid you’ll slip and get hurt.’

“‘Don’t care if I do; I’ll have those plums if I break my neck doing it,’ and half sliding, half walking, I went down the
sloping roof, till the boughs of the tree were within my reach.

“‘Hurrah!’ cried Nelly, dancing down below, as my first shake sent a dozen plums rattling round her.

“‘Hurrah!’ cried I, letting go one branch and trying to reach another. But as I did so my foot slipped, I tried to catch something
to hold by, but found nothing, and with a cry, down I fell, like a very big plum on the grass below.

“Fortunately the shed was low, the grass was thick, and the tree broke my fall, but I got a bad bump and a terrible shaking.
Nelly thought I was killed, and began to cry with her mouth full. But I picked myself up in a minute, for I was used to such
tumbles, and didn’t mind the pain half as much as the loss of the plums.

“‘Hush! Debby will hear and spoil all the fun. I said I’d get ’em and I have. See what lots have come down with me.’

“So there had, for my fall shook the tree almost as much as it did me, and the green and purple fruit lay all about us.

“By the time the bump on my forehead had swelled as big as a nut, our aprons were half full, and we sat down to enjoy ourselves.
But we didn’t. O dear, no! For many of the plums were not ripe, some were hurt by the birds, some crushed in falling, and
many as hard as stones. Nelly got stung by a wasp, my head began to ache, and we sat looking at one another rather dismally,
when Nelly had a bright idea.

“‘Let’s cook ’em, then they’ll be good, and we can put some away in our little pails for tomorrow.’

“‘That will be splendid! There’s a fire in the kitchen, Debby always leaves the kettle on, and we can use her saucepan, and
I know where the sugar is, and we’ll have a grand time.’

“In we went, and fell to work very quietly. It was a large, open fireplace, with the coals nicely covered up, and the big
kettle simmering on the hook. We raked open the fire, put on the saucepan, and in it the best of our plums, with water enough
to spoil them. But we didn’t know that, and felt very important as we sat waiting for it to boil, each armed with a big spoon,
while the sugar box stood between us ready to be used.

“How slow they were, to be sure! I never knew such obstinate things, for they wouldn’t soften, though they danced about in
the boiling water, and bobbed against the cover as if they were doing their best.

“The sun began to get low, we were afraid Debby would come down, and still those dreadful plums wouldn’t look like sauce.
At last they began to burst, the water got a lovely purple, we put lots of sugar in, and kept tasting till our aprons and
faces were red, and our lips burnt with the hot spoons.

“‘There’s too much juice,’ said Nelly, shaking her head wisely. ‘It ought to be thick and nice like mamma’s.’

“‘I’ll pour off some of the juice, and we can drink it,’ said I, feeling that I’d made a mistake in my cooking.

“So Nelly got a bowl, and I got a towel and lifted the big saucepan carefully off. It was heavy and hot, and I was a little
afraid of it, but didn’t like to say so. Just as I began to pour, Debby suddenly called from the top of the stairs, ‘Children,
what under the sun are you doing?’