SOMEWHAT OF POLLY
IF THE spirit of Mrs. Bates hovered among the bloom-whitened apple
trees as her mortal remains were carried past the lilacs and cabbage
rose bushes, through a rain of drifting petals, she must have been
convinced that time had wrought one great change in the hearts of her
children. They had all learned to weep; while if the tears they shed
were a criterion of their feelings for her, surely her soul must have
been satisfied. They laid her away with simple ceremony and then all
of them went to their homes, except Nancy Ellen and Robert, who stopped
in passing to learn if there was anything they could do for Kate. She
was grieving too deeply for many words; none of them would ever
understand the deep bond of sympathy and companionship that had grown
to exist between her and her mother. She stopped at the front porch
and sat down, feeling unable to enter the house with Nancy Ellen, who
was deeply concerned over the lack of taste displayed in Agatha's new
spring hat. When Kate could endure it no longer she interrupted: "Why
didn't all of them come?"
"What for?" asked Nancy Ellen.
"They had a right to know what Mother had done," said Kate in a low
voice.
"But what was the use?" asked Nancy Ellen. "Adam had been managing the
administrator business for Mother and paying her taxes with his, of
course when she made a deed to you, and had it recorded, they told him.
All of us knew it for two years before she went after you. And the new
furniture was bought with your money, so it's yours; what was there to
have a meeting about?"
"Mother didn't understand that you children knew," said Kate.
"Sometimes I thought there were a lot of things Mother didn't
understand," said Nancy Ellen, "and sometimes I thought she understood
so much more than any of the rest of us, that all of us would have had
a big surprise if we could have seen her brain."
"Yes, I believe we would," said Kate. "Do you mind telling me how the
boys and girls feel about this?"
Nancy Ellen laughed shortly. "Well, the boys feel that you negotiated
such a fine settlement of Father's affairs for them, that they owe this
to you. The girls were pretty sore at first, and some of them are
nursing their wrath yet; but there wasn't a thing on earth they could
do. All of them were perfectly willing that you should have
something--after the fire--of course, most of them thought Mother went
too far."
"I think so myself," said Kate. "But she never came near me, or wrote
me, or sent me even one word, until the day she came after me. I had
nothing to do with it--"
"All of us know that, Kate," said Nancy Ellen. "You needn't worry.
We're all used to it, and we're all at the place where we have nothing
to say."
To escape grieving for her mother, Kate worked that summer as never
before. Adam was growing big enough and strong enough to be a real
help. He was interested in all they did, always after the reason, and
trying to think of a better way. Kate secured the best agricultural
paper for him and they read it nights together. They kept an account
book, and set down all they spent, and balanced against it all they
earned, putting the difference, which was often more than they hoped
for, in the bank.
So the years ran. As the children grew older, Polly discovered that
the nicest boy in school lived across the road half a mile north of
them; while Adam, after a real struggle in his loyal twin soul, aided
by the fact that Henry Peters usually had divided his apples with Polly
before Adam reached her, discovered that Milly York, across the road,
half a mile south, liked his apples best, and was as nice a girl as
Polly ever dared to be. In a dazed way, Kate learned these things from
their after-school and Sunday talk, saw that they nearly reached her
shoulder, and realized that they were sixteen. So quickly the time
goes, when people are busy, happy, and working together. At least Kate
and Adam were happy, for they were always working together. By tacit
agreement, they left Polly the easy housework, and went themselves to
the fields to wrestle with the rugged work of a farm. They thought
they were shielding Polly, teaching her a woman's real work, and being
kind to her.
Polly thought they were together because they liked to be; doing the
farm work because it suited them better; while she had known from
babyhood that for some reason her mother did not care for her as she
did for Adam. She thought at first that it was because Adam was a boy.
Later, when she noticed her mother watching her every time she started
to speak, and interrupting with the never-failing caution: "Now be
careful! THINK before you speak! Are you SURE?" she wondered why this
should happen to her always, to Adam never. She asked Adam about it,
but Adam did not know. It never occurred to Polly to ask her mother,
while Kate was so uneasy it never occurred to her that the child would
notice or what she would think. The first time Polly deviated slightly
from the truth, she and Kate had a very terrible time. Kate felt fully
justified; the child astonished and abused.
Polly arrived at the solution of her problem slowly. As she grew
older, she saw that her mother, who always was charitable to everyone
else, was repelled by her grandmother, while she loved Aunt Ollie.
Older still, Polly realized that SHE was a reproduction of her
grandmother. She had only to look at her to see this; her mother did
not like her grandmother, maybe Mother did not like her as well as
Adam, because she resembled her grandmother. By the time she was
sixteen, Polly had arrived at a solution that satisfied her as to why
her mother liked Adam better, and always left her alone in the house to
endless cooking, dishwashing, sweeping, dusting, washing, and ironing,
while she hoed potatoes, pitched hay, or sheared sheep. Polly thought
the nicer way would have been to do the housework together and then go
to the fields together; but she was a good soul, so she worked alone
and brooded in silence, and watched up the road for a glimpse of Henry
Peters, who liked to hear her talk, and to whom it mattered not a mite
that her hair was lustreless, her eyes steel coloured, and her nose
like that of a woman he never had seen. In her way, Polly admired her
mother, loved her, and worked until she was almost dropping for Kate's
scant, infrequent words of praise.
So Polly had to be content in the kitchen. One day, having finished
her work two hours before dinnertime, she sauntered to the front gate.
How strange that Henry Peters should be at the end of the field joining
their land. When he waved, she waved back. When he climbed the fence
she opened the gate. They met halfway, under the bloomful shade of a
red haw. Henry wondered who two men he had seen leaving the Holt gate
were, and what they wanted, but he was too polite to ask. He merely
hoped they did not annoy her. Oh, no, they were only some men to see
Mother about some business, but it was most kind of him to let her know
he was looking out for her. She got so lonely; Mother never would let
her go to the field with her. Of course not! The field was no place
for such a pretty girl; there was enough work in the house for her.
His sister should not work in the field, if he had a sister, and Polly
should not work there, if she belonged to him; No-sir-ee! Polly looked
at Henry with shining, young girl eyes, and when he said she was
pretty, her blue-gray eyes softened, her cheeks pinked up, the sun put
light in her hair nature had failed to, and lo and behold, the marvel
was wrought--plain little Polly became a thing of beauty. She knew it
instantly, because she saw herself in Henry Peters' eyes. And Henry
was so amazed when this wonderful transformation took place in little
Polly, right there under the red haw tree, that his own eyes grew big
and tender, his cheeks flooded with red blood, his heart shook him, and
he drew to full height, and became possessed of an overwhelming desire
to dance before Polly, and sing to her. He grew so splendid, Polly
caught her breath, and then she smiled on him a very wondering smile,
over the great discovery; and Henry grew so bewildered he forgot either
to dance or sing as a preliminary. He merely, just merely, reached out
and gathered Polly in his arms, and held her against him, and stared
down at her wonderful beauty opening right out under his eyes.
"Little Beautiful!" said Henry Peters in a hushed, choking voice,
"Little Beautiful!"
Polly looked up at him. She was every bit as beautiful as he thought
her, while he was so beautiful to Polly that she gasped for breath.
How did he happen to look as he did, right under the red haw, in broad
daylight? He had been hers, of course, ever since, shy and fearful,
she had first entered Bates Corners school, and found courage in his
broad, encouraging smile. Now she smiled on him, the smile of
possession that was in her heart. Henry instantly knew she always had
belonged to him, so he grasped her closer, and bent his head.
When Henry went back to the plow, and Polly ran down the road, with the
joy of the world surging in her heart and brain, she knew that she was
going to have to account to her tired, busy mother for being half an
hour late with dinner; and he knew he was going to have to explain to
an equally tired father why he was four furrows short of where he
should be.
He came to book first, and told the truth. He had seen some men go to
the Holts'. Polly was his little chum; and she was always alone all
summer, so he just walked that way to be sure she was safe. His father
looked at him quizzically.
"So THAT'S the way the wind blows!" he said. "Well, I don't know where
you could find a nicer little girl or a better worker. I'd always
hoped you'd take to Milly York; but Polly is better; she can work three
of Milly down. Awful plain, though!"
This sacrilege came while Henry's lips were tingling with their first
kiss, and his heart was drunken with the red wine of innocent young
love.
"Why, Dad, you're crazy!" he cried. "There isn't another girl in the
whole world as pretty and sweet as Polly. Milly York? She can't hold
a candle to Polly! Besides, she's been Adam's as long as Polly has
been mine!"
"God bless my soul!" cried Mr. Peters. "How these youngsters to run
away with us. And are you the most beautiful young man at Bates
Corners, Henry?"
"I'm beautiful enough that Polly will put her arms around my neck and
kiss me, anyway," blurted Henry. "So you and Ma can get ready for a
wedding as soon as Polly says the word. I'm ready, right now."
"So am I," said Mr. Peters, "and from the way Ma complains about the
work I and you boys make her, I don't think she will object to a little
help. Polly is a good, steady worker."
Polly ran, but she simply could not light the fire, set the table, and
get things cooked on time, while everything she touched seemed to spill
or slip. She could not think what, or how, to do the usual for the
very good reason that Henry Peters was a Prince, and a Knight, and a
Lover, and a Sweetheart, and her Man; she had just agreed to all this
with her soul, less than an hour ago under the red haw. No wonder she
was late, no wonder she spilled and smeared; and red of face she
blundered and bungled, for the first time in her life. Then in came
Kate. She must lose no time, the corn must be finished before it
rained. She must hurry--for the first time dinner was late, while
Polly was messing like a perfect little fool.
Kate stepped in and began to right things with practised hand. Disaster
came when she saw Polly, at the well, take an instant from bringing in
the water, to wave in the direction of the Peters farm. As she entered
the door, Kate swept her with a glance.
"Have to upset the bowl, as usual?" she said, scathingly. "Just as I
think you're going to make something of yourself, and be of some use,
you begin mooning in the direction of that big, gangling Hank Peters.
Don't you ever let me see you do it again. You are too young to start
that kind of foolishness. I bet a cow he was hanging around here, and
made you late with dinner."
"He was not! He didn't either!" cried Polly, then stopped in dismay,
her cheeks burning. She gulped and went on bravely: "That is, he
wasn't here, and he didn't make ME late, any more than I kept HIM from
his work. He always watches when there are tramps and peddlers on the
road, because he knows I'm alone. I knew he would be watching two men
who stopped to see you, so I just went as far as the haw tree to tell
him I was all right, and we got to talking--"
If only Kate had been looking at Polly then! But she was putting the
apple butter and cream on the table. As she did so, she thought
possibly it was a good idea to have Henry Peters seeing that tramps did
not frighten Polly, so she missed dawn on the face of her child, and
instead of what might have been, she said: "Well, I must say THAT is
neighbourly of him; but don't you dare let him get any foolish notions
in his head. I think Aunt Nancy Ellen will let you stay at her house
after this, and go to the Hartley High School in winter, so you can
come out of that much better prepared to teach than I ever was. I had
a surprise planned for you to-night, but now I don't know whether you
deserve it or not. I'll have to think."
Kate did not think at all. After the manner of parents, she SAID that,
but her head was full of something she thought vastly more important
just then; of course Polly should have her share in it. Left alone to
wash the dishes and cook supper while her mother went to town, it was
Polly, who did the thinking. She thought entirely too much, thought
bitterly, thought disappointedly, and finally thought resentfully, and
then alas, Polly thought deceitfully. Her mother had said: "Never let
me see you." Very well, she would be extremely careful that she was
NOT seen; but before she slept she rather thought she would find a way
to let Henry know how she was being abused, and about that plan to send
her away all the long winter to school. She rather thought Henry would
have something to say about how his "Little Beautiful" was being
treated. Here Polly looked long and searchingly in the mirror to see
if by any chance Henry was mistaken, and she discovered he was. She
stared in amazement at the pink-cheeked, shining eyed girl she saw
mirrored. She pulled her hair looser around the temples, and drew her
lips over her teeth. Surely Henry was mistaken. "Little Beautiful"
was too moderate. She would see that he said "perfectly lovely," the
next time, and he did.