she would be married before the year was out, and her father—Polly Ann
was his only child—said that he wouldn’t give Polly Ann to any man. He
needn’t have worried, for Polly Ann was so hard to please that she was
still unwed at twenty when Stanley came home from school. By that time
her father was telling every one how much land he meant to give Polly Ann
when she married.
“Stanley hadn’t been home very long until he, like all the other boys,
was crazy about Polly Ann, and she favored him more than any of the
others. Stanley went to see her every week and escorted her home from
parties and singings and took her to ride on Sunday afternoons in his
new top buggy. Father suspected he would be wanting to get married, and
told him he could have the wheat field on what we called the upper place,
to put in a winter crop for himself.
“Then one night at a party at Orbison’s Stanley wore his new lavender
waistcoat. Polly Ann wagered the other girls that she could have a
button off the waistcoat for her button string, and they wagered her she
couldn’t.
“That night when Stanley asked Polly Ann if he might see her home she
said he could if he would give her a button off his waistcoat. It must
have been hard for Stanley, for he knew he could never wear the waistcoat
again if he did as she asked and that he couldn’t go with Polly Ann any
more if he refused. He had no knife and he wouldn’t borrow one, so he
just wrenched a button off and gave it to Polly Ann.
“When the girls went upstairs to put on their wraps, Polly Ann showed the
button to them and they had lots of fun about it. The next morning Aggie
told Stanley what Polly Ann had done and how every one was laughing at
him.
“Stanley was at breakfast. There was no one in the kitchen but Stanley
and Aggie and me, and they didn’t pay any attention to me. I remember how
red Stanley’s face got when Aggie told him, and his chin, which had a
dimple, seemed suddenly to get square like Father’s. I thought to myself
that Polly Ann Nesbit had better look out, for, as Father often told us,
‘he who laughs last, laughs best.’ Stanley did get even with Polly Ann,
though not in the way we thought he would.
“Before he went to work that morning he wrote her a letter and paid
Charlie a quarter for taking it to her. Charlie told me that Polly Ann
was in the front yard by herself when he gave her the letter and when she
read it she just laughed and laughed, but that she put it in her pocket
for safekeeping.
“Stanley was as nice as ever to her when they met, but he didn’t go to
see her any more or take her buggy riding on Sunday afternoons. He took
Mother or me instead, and I thought it very nice. Stanley went right
ahead ploughing up his wheat field just as if nothing had happened, and
when he got through with that he began to fix up a little cottage where
brother Joe had lived for two years after he was married.
[Illustration: _Polly Ann was in the front yard when Charlie gave her the
letter_]
“He built a new kitchen, at the side instead of at the back where most
people built their kitchens, so his wife could see the road when she
was working, he said. And he added a front porch with railings and a
seat at each end and painted the house white and set out rose bushes and
honeysuckle vines and began to buy the furniture.
“Of course it caused a great deal of talk, and every one wondered whom
Stanley was going to marry. The girls would laugh about Stanley’s house
and say they wouldn’t marry a man who wouldn’t let them furnish their own
house. And often they would tease Polly Ann, but she would only toss her
head and say nothing.
“And all the time Stanley worked away, singing and whistling as happy
as could be. When any one questioned him, he would say he meant to keep
bachelor’s hall, or that he hadn’t decided what he would do, or that he
planned to marry the sweetest girl he knew. Belle and Aggie were wild to
know what girl he meant. They tried in every way to find out, but they
couldn’t.
“Stanley often talked in his sleep, and they would listen to hear whether
he mentioned a girl’s name, but they could never understand what he said.
Some one told the girls to tie a string around Stanley’s great toe and
when he talked to pull the string gently and he would repeat clearly what
he had just said.
“One night Belle and Aggie did this, but instead of a string they used
a piece of red yarn. When they were pulling it, it snapped in two, and
Stanley woke up and found the yarn on his toe and jumped out of bed and
chased the girls squealing and giggling into their room, and Father came
out to see what was the matter.
“But finally the house was done, even to the last shining pan, and Mother
had given Stanley so many quilts and blankets and things that Charlie
grumbled and said there would be nothing left for the rest of us.
“One afternoon I was up at the cottage with Stanley planting some of
Mother’s wonderful yellow chrysanthemums by the garden fence. Stanley
was building a lattice at the end of the porch for a climbing rose which
he had only just set out, when the front gate clicked and there, coming
up the path, was Polly Ann Nesbit. Her cheeks were rosy and she was
laughing.
“‘I’ve brought it myself, Stanley,’ she cried gaily. ‘You said in your
letter to send you the button when I was ready to marry you, but I’ve
brought it instead. Do you—do you still want it?’ and she held out this
little button, the very one Stanley had pulled off his lavender waistcoat
to please her.
“I looked at Stanley, so straight and tall and handsome though he was in
his everyday clothes, to see what he would do.
“‘Do I want it?’ he cried starting toward her. ‘Why, Polly Ann, I’ve just
been longing for that button. I never wanted anything so much in my life.
I was only afraid you wouldn’t give it to me.’ He put his arms around her
and they went in to look at the house. When they had gone in, I saw this
little button lying on the path almost at my feet, and I picked it up and
skipped home to tell Mother and the girls that Stanley was going to marry
Polly Ann after all.
“And now, ‘’night, ’night,’ and pleasant dreams.”
EARNING A VIOLIN
“And you don’t like to practice!” Grandma exclaimed in surprise when
Bobby told her why he did not like to take violin lessons. “But you’ll
have to practice, you know, or you will never learn to play. I knew a
boy once, who dearly liked to practice. I think I’ll tell you about him.
It was my brother Charlie. Charlie had wanted a violin ever since he was
just a little bit of a fellow and had first heard old Mr. Potter play on
his violin.
“Mr. Potter was a traveling tailor who went around the country making and
mending men’s clothing. He carried his goods from place to place in pack
saddles, and he always brought his violin along.
“In the evenings he would play, and we all loved to hear him. He played
beautifully. All Charlie and I had ever heard before were things like
‘Pop goes the Weasel,’ or ‘Turkey in the Straw.’ There was such a
difference between these tunes and what Mr. Potter played that the first
time Charlie heard him play—‘Annie Laurie,’ I think it was—he walked up
to him and said very solemnly, ‘I like a violin better than a fiddle,’
and everybody laughed.
“Years before, Mr. Potter had had a thriving trade, but when I knew him
he did not get much to do because store suits for men had become common.
Mother always found some work for him, though, and in his spare time he
gave violin lessons.
“He was in our neighborhood several weeks each spring, and one winter
Charlie determined to have a violin and be ready to take lessons when he
came next time.
“So right away he began to save money for a violin. But there wasn’t much
Charlie could do to earn money, and it looked as though he would never
get enough for a violin, let alone enough for an instruction book and
lessons. But he did get the violin, and this is how it came about.
“It was one of the coldest winters anyone remembered in years. A deep
snow lay on the ground for weeks and weeks, and the roads were frozen
hard and as smooth as glass.
“There was a sawmill about eight miles down the road from our house, and
every day we could see men passing on their way to the mill with logs.
Big iron hooks called ‘dogs’ would be driven into the logs and fastened
to a heavy chain which would be hitched to a single-tree, and the log
would be dragged over the smooth road by one horse. It was an easy way
to get logs to the mill, and every one was hurrying to haul as many as
possible before the thaw came.
[Illustration: _“I like a violin better than a fiddle,” said Charlie to
Mr. Potter_]
“Father had cut one big walnut log when he had been called to serve on
jury duty and had gone to Clayville to attend court. Before he went,
Charlie asked him what he would do with that one log and Father told
Charlie he could have it. Charlie could hardly believe his ears and he
asked Father whether he really meant that he could have the money for the
log if he could get it to the mill. Father said that was what he meant,
but afterward he told Mother he never dreamed Charlie would try to do it.
“But from the first Charlie intended to move that walnut log to the mill.
He thought of nothing else. He made plan after plan. He found out from
the storekeeper that the man who owned the sawmill came to the store
Saturday afternoons to buy supplies for the next week. So when Charlie
and I went to the store for Mother on the next Saturday we sat by the
stove to warm ourselves and wait for the sawmill man. When he came,
Charlie asked him whether he would buy the walnut log.
“‘Well, that depends,’ said the man, looking Charlie over good-naturedly.
‘I’m not anxious to lay in any more logs than we’ve bargained for.
We’re going to move Wednesday.’ Then when he saw the disappointment on
Charlie’s face he asked, ‘Pretty good log, is it?’
“‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said Charlie eagerly. ‘My father said when he cut it
that it was first grade—woods-grown, ten or twelve feet long.’
“‘Well, if that’s the case, I reckon I could use it,’ said the man. ‘Be
sure to have it in by Tuesday, though.’
“We went home by way of Mr. Brierly’s, and Charlie got permission to
borrow his logging chain and ‘dogs,’ as they were called. We stopped to
look at the log, and Charlie declared he could get it to the mill without
any trouble. He could have, too, if it hadn’t been for the thaw.
“Sunday was the longest day Charlie ever put in. Sometimes he would get
discouraged and think he couldn’t do it at all. Then the next minute he
would be talking about the kind of violin he would get with the money the
log would bring. Father had come home for over Sunday and he would help
him get started, the older boys being away from home.
“Sunday, after dinner, the weather turned slightly warmer, and by four
o’clock a gentle rain was falling. When Charlie got up long before
daylight Monday morning, Mother told him that it had rained hard all
night. He fed the horse and ate his breakfast, and Father helped him
drive the hooks or dogs into the log. Then Charlie was off.
“He got the log as far as Sugar Creek without any trouble, and there
what a sight met his eyes! Sugar Creek was out of bank, and the shallow
stream, easily forded the year round, was like an angry, rushing little
river filled with cakes of ice. To ford it was clearly impossible till
the ice went out, and even then the current would be rapid and dangerous.
There was nothing to do but wait, and Charlie unhitched the horse and
came back home. It was still raining and thawing and it didn’t get any
better all that day. The next morning, though, the creek was clear of
ice, which was some advantage.
“I went with Charlie and sat on the log, feeling very helpless while he
walked up and down the creek bank trying to think of some way to get the
log across. The current was so strong that, though the horse could swim
it, he could not swim and drag the heavy log along.
“Charlie examined the foot-log carefully and found that it had not been
moved by the high water, being chained at each bank to a big tree. Then
he made his plan. He fastened some strong rope he had brought along to
the chain which went around the walnut log. Holding the other end of the
rope, he got on the horse and made him swim to the opposite bank. Then he
fastened the rope at that side to the single-tree and urged the horse up
the bank.
“The horse tugged and pulled and finally the log moved slowly down into
the water. Now came the test of Charlie’s plan. If the foot-log proved
strong enough to withstand the jar it would get when the walnut log hit
it, everything would be all right; but if the foot-log gave way, Charlie
would have to cut the rope quickly to keep the horse from being drawn
back into the water, and the walnut log would float down stream and be
lost.
“I almost held my breath when the walnut log, sucked rapidly down the
stream by the swift current, struck the foot-log. I shut my eyes tight
and did not open them until I heard Charlie shouting for joy. The
foot-log hadn’t budged! Because of the high water Charlie thought it
would be easy for the horse to pull the log out on the ground, but the
log stuck on something under the water. Charlie couldn’t raise the log
up, and he had to let it slide back into the water. It slid back several
times before it finally came out on the road.
“It was nearly noon and Charlie was wet to the waist, so he went back
home to change his clothes and get a fresh horse. After dinner he started
out again. He got to the mill all right and sold the log, and when he
reached home late that night he had money enough for a violin.
“When Father heard about it, he was so proud of him that he doubled
the money. So Charlie had more than enough for his lessons and his
instruction book, too.”
“And did he really like to practice?” asked Bobby unbelievingly.
“Yes, indeed, and he came to be a fine violinist and owned a violin that
cost a great deal of money, but he always kept that first one, too.
“There! Mother’s calling you to bed.”
AT THE FAIR
“We’re going to the fair tomorrow, Grandma. It’s childrens’ day,”
announced Bobby one evening when he and Alice and Pink came to Grandma’s
room for their usual evening call and story.
“Are you going, Grandma?” inquired Pink.
“Why, I may go. I don’t know yet. Do you like to go to the fair?”
“Yeh, boy!” interrupted Bobby eagerly. “And this year they’re going to
give a pony away. I wish I’d get that pony.”
“That would be nice,” agreed Grandma. “I think I’ll tell you tonight
about the time we took our horse, Prince, to the fair at Clayville. I had
been to the fair several times before, and I always loved to go. To get
up early in the morning, and dress and eat breakfast and start before
daylight with a big basket of dinner tucked away in the back of the
surrey; to take the long pleasant drive through the cool of the morning
and at last go through the gates into the fair grounds and see all the
people and hear the noise of the sideshow barkers and the bands and
the balloon whistles and the lowing of cattle, uneasy because of their
strange quarters, was every bit of it a joy to me—usually.
“But this particular year it wasn’t a pleasure to look forward to the
fair at all, even though there was to be a balloon ascension. For when we
went to the fair Father was going to take Prince along and sell him to a
horse dealer. Father had raised Prince, and we all loved him, especially
Charlie and I. He was nine years old, but he still looked like a colt.
His coat was brown and glossy, and he was as playful and active as he had
ever been. When he had been a colt, the older children had petted him and
fed him sugar. Charlie and I had taken it up when they left off, so that
he had always been used to children and loved them.
“But Prince had a bad habit, and that was the reason he was to be sold.
He balked whenever a grown person rode or drove him. The only thing he
was any good for at all was carrying Charlie and me to the store for
Mother. He would take us both at once or one at a time wherever we wanted
to go and never balk once while we were on his back. Father said that if
Charlie and I had been older he would have kept Prince, but by the time
we would need a horse Prince would be too old to be of much use. If he
could even have been trusted to take Mother to church and back when the
roads were too rough to drive, Father would not have sold him. But he was
sure to stop some place or other, no matter how cold the day, and refuse
to budge until he got ready. So Father said he could not afford to keep
him any longer, and as none of our neighbors would want him he would sell
him to the horse dealer for what he could get. This wouldn’t be much, for
of course Father would tell the man that Prince balked.
“So we went to the fair as usual, except that Prince went along and was
hitched with the other horses to the fence until Father should get ready
to see the horse dealer some time after dinner.
“I went with Mother to Floral Hall, which was just a little, whitewashed
building, and looked at quilts and fancy work and cakes and pies and
pianos and stoves and pumpkins and potatoes until I got tired and
wandered on ahead of Mother—who was busily talking to some people she
knew—to the door, and there was Charlie waiting for us.
“He had been out to see the cattle and poultry. He said our white-faced
steer and Mother’s bronze turkeys had taken blue ribbons and he wanted me
to come and see them.
“As we passed our horses, Prince whinnied, and I suggested that we say
good-by to Prince again. So we went over to where he was hitched to the
fence. We petted him and fed him an apple that Charlie had in his pocket,
and then Charlie said we would take a last ride. So he got on first and
I climbed up behind him and put my arms around his waist and we were
off. For a while Prince trotted about on the grass, and then we came to
an opening that led into the race track. Before we realized what he was
doing, Prince had turned through this opening into the circular track.
“Two men were standing at the entrance talking. One of them was an old
man. The other, a big man with a wide-rimmed felt hat and high-topped
boots, waved a riding whip at us and called out something that we did
not hear as we passed, but Prince kept right on. Charlie could have
turned him around, but he wouldn’t, though I begged him to. The trainers
were exercising their horses on the track, but Prince paid no attention
to anything, looking neither to right nor to left. We must have been
a queer sight—two children riding bareback on a big farm horse around
the race track. By the time we got to the grandstand quite a crowd had
gathered and they cheered us loudly as we passed. Charlie, not to be
outdone, waved his hat in return.
[Illustration: _Prince turned through the opening that led to the race
track_]
“When we got back to the gate we had come through, Charlie pulled
Prince’s mane and he turned out into the grass again.
“The men were still talking, and the one who had called to us patted
Prince’s head and asked us if we had enjoyed our ride. Then, because it
looked so silly, we told him how we happened to be on Prince at a place
like that and how Father was going to sell him because he balked and
wouldn’t work and how sorry we were and afraid some one would buy Prince
from the horse dealer because he was so handsome and then beat him when
he found he balked.
“The old gentleman seemed greatly interested and asked us Father’s name
and a great many questions about Prince. We told him how he would do
anything for us and was as safe as safe could be. Then we hitched Prince
to the fence and said good-by to him and went to dinner. My dress was all
wrinkled and my hair was mussed and my face burned from being in the sun,
and Mother was not at all pleased that Charlie and I had made ourselves
so conspicuous.
“But we had lots of fun that afternoon watching the races and eating
peanuts and drinking pink lemonade. There was the balloon ascension, and
Father took us into some of the shows and bought us ice cream, molded
into cakes and wrapped in paper, which was called ‘hokie-pokie.’
“We had balloons and peanuts and canes to take home with us, and when we
got in the surrey to go home Prince was gone and no one mentioned him.
But when we were well out of town Father said, ‘Well, children, you may
rest easy about Prince. He has a good home where he will be well treated,
and it is largely due to Charlie and Sarah.’ And then he told us all
about it.
“The man at the gate with the wide felt hat and high-topped boots was the
horse dealer, and the old man with him was hunting a horse that would be
safe for his little granddaughter, who had been sick and was not strong,
to ride and drive. When he saw Charlie and me on Prince and heard what we
said, he knew that Prince was the very horse he wanted.
“So he had bought him from Father and paid a hundred dollars, when Father
had only expected to get fifty dollars at the most. He didn’t care a bit
because Prince balked, for no one would use him but the little girl and
he would be quite as much a pet as when we owned him.
“‘And that extra fifty dollars shall go to Charlie and Sarah,’ said
Father, ‘for their very own.’
“The next time Father went to Clayville, sure enough, he put twenty-five
dollars in the bank for Charlie and twenty-five dollars for me, and he
gave us each a brand new bank book with our names on the backs. We never
saw Prince again, but the man who bought him took care of him and was
good to him until Prince died a few years later.
“Now what shall I tell you tomorrow night? Oh, I know—a Hallowe’en
story!”
HALLOWE’EN
“Grandma, tomorrow night is Hallowe’en,” said Pink one evening when she
and Alice and Bobby had drawn their stools close to Grandma’s knee for
their usual good-night story.
“Mother makes candy on Hallowe’en,” Alice added, “and we have nuts and
apples and false faces and witches on broomsticks and black cats and
everything.”
“And last year we had a party,” said Pink.
“And this year,” put in Bobby eagerly, “we’re going to have a great, big
pumpkin to make a jack-o’-lantern of. I know how to do it. Daddy told me,
and he’s going to help. You hollow out the insides of the pumpkin and cut
round holes for the eyes and make a nose and a mouth with teeth and put a
candle inside, and I’ll say he’ll look scary.”
“Won’t he though!” exclaimed Grandma. “To meet a jack-o’-lantern like
that on a dark night would make a body shiver. I just know it would.
Brother Charlie and I used to save the biggest pumpkins for Hallowe’en.
In the summer we would pick out certain pumpkin vines in the cornfield
and take special care of them so that the pumpkins would grow extra large
for jack-o’-lanterns. We would keep the dirt loosened around the roots,
and when the weather was dry we would carry water from the creek to water
them. We would watch to keep the worms and bugs off the vines, and then
when the pumpkins began to get big we’d measure around them every few
days to see which was growing the fastest. Father said we did everything
but sleep with the pumpkins.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Pink in surprise, “did you have Hallowe’en, too, Grandma?”
“Yes, indeed,” answered Grandma, “but we generally called it Hallow Eve
in those days.”
And she went on to tell them how the evening of October thirty-first has
for years and years in many different countries been celebrated as the
eve of All-hallows or All Saints’ Day and is called Halloweven or, as we
most often say, Hallowe’en, and how on this particular evening fairies,
witches, and imps are supposed to be especially active.
“The young people in our neighborhood used to have parties,” said
Grandma, “and they would make taffy and play games and perform tricks
intended to reveal to them their future husbands and wives.
“Sometimes these parties would be broken up by a crowd of rough boys who
had not been invited, for if there was a lot of fun on Hallowe’en there
was also a lot of mischief done. Nothing that could be moved was safe if
left outside. Gates were carried away, wheels removed from wagons, farm
machinery hidden, well buckets stolen, and roads barricaded with great
logs. Some people took this time to vent their spite on anyone they did
not like.
“But these rough, mischievous boys had never bothered us, for between
the settlement where they lived and our farm was a strip of woods in
which an old woman known as Mother Girty had been buried years and years
before—in pioneer times, in fact. It was said she had been a witch, and
even when I was a little girl ignorant or superstitious folks did not
like to pass these woods by night. On Hallowe’en they were more afraid
than ever, since on this night witches are supposed to roam at will over
the country.