"POLO."
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It must not be inferred that our life that winter was all intense and
tragical; if it had been so we could not have endured it. There were
patches of clear sky, and the sunlight of generous acts glinted through
the storm. We had all merry hearts and good digestions, and these bore
us up under our troubles with the buoyancy which is so mercifully
granted to youth and inexperience. Then, too, our thoughts were not
entirely taken up with ourselves and our own affairs. For a few days
after this we saw nothing of Mr. Mudge, and our attention was partly
diverted to another matter.
One day, earlier in the school year, Mrs. Booth, of the Salvation Army,
had addressed Madame's school on the need of work among the poor of New
York. One little parable which she gave made a great impression upon us.
I cannot repeat Mrs. Booth's eloquent language, but will give the main
points of the story.
"As a young girl," said Mrs. Booth, "I was very selfish and
hard-hearted. I did not care for the suffering and anguish of others.
It was not that I was naturally cruel, but I did not think of them at
all. I thought and cared only for myself, of parties and dresses, and of
having a good time--and this Dead Sea of selfishness was numbing every
generous impulse within me. My heart was growing to resemble a certain
spring which my mother took me to see when a little child. I remember
the walk through the wood beside a little brook which babbled over the
stones, and how the light of the sky shone down into its clear amber
waters, and the trees and the clouds were reflected in its quiet pools;
how long mosses fringed its stones, and water plants made a little
forest under its ripples; and how its depths were all alive with tiny
fish and happy living creatures seeking their food and sporting among
the cresses. But we came presently to a spring quite apart and very
different from the brook. The water was deep, and quiet, and clear, but
when I looked into it I was struck by a death-like influence, weird and
sinister. There were no minnows darting through the depths like silver
needles, or craw-fish burrowing in the banks, or water beetles skimming
the surface like oarsmen rowing their light wherries. There was no life
to be seen anywhere. The very stones had a strange, unnatural look; they
were white as marble; no mosses covered them, no water-lilies or algae
grew through the deadly water. The very leaves which had fallen into the
pool were white and heavy, as though carved in marble. The grasses which
grew downward and dipped into the spring were marble grasses, more like
clumsy branching coral than the delicate bending sprays above the waves.
It was a petrifying spring, and everything dipped in its waters was
presently coated with a fine, stony sediment and practically turned
to stone.
"So the deadly, petrifying spring of selfishness will turn the heart to
stone, and while having the form of life it will be cold and hard and
dead."
This was Mrs. Booth's little parable, and while none of our hearts had
been dipped in this petrifying spring, it woke us to new desires to do
more for the suffering poor.
Something happened a little after this talk, and several weeks previous
to the robbery, which gave a direction to our impulses. Milly and I were
returning from a shopping excursion one very cold and rainy Saturday,
when we were approached by a poor girl who was selling pencils on a
corner. "They are always useful," I said; "suppose we take some."
"I should perfectly love to," Milly replied, "but I haven't a cent."
The girl had noticed our hesitation and came to us. "Please buy some,
young ladies," she said; "I haven't had a thing to eat to-day."
"Then come right along with me," said Milly. "Mother lets me lunch at
Sherry's, whenever I am out shopping."
The girl followed us but stopped beneath the awning of the handsome
entrance. "That's too fine a place for me, Miss," she said. "Only swells
go there. It costs the eyes out of your head just for a clean plate and
napkin in there. How much do you s'pose now, a lunch would cost in that
there palace?"
"Not more than a dollar," Milly replied cheerfully.
"Glory!" exclaimed the girl, "if you mean to lay out as much as that on
me, why ten cents will get me all I want to eat at a bakery on Third
Avenue, and I'll take the balance home to the children."
"That is just where the awkwardness of papa's way of doing comes in,"
Milly said to me. "You see," she explained to the girl, "I've spent all
my money to-day, but I can have a lunch charged here."
Still the girl hesitated. "I'm not fit," she said, looking at her
dripping, ragged clothes. We were sheltered from view by the awning, and
in an instant Milly had taken off her handsome London-made mackintosh
and had thrown it around the girl. "There, that covers you all up," she
said, "and your hat isn't so very bad."
It was a tarpaulin, and, though a little frayed at the edges, its glazed
surface had shed the rain and it was not conspicuously shabby.
We passed into the ladies' restaurant and seated ourselves at one of
the little tables. Milly took up a menu and looked it over critically.
"Now I am going to order a very sensible, plain luncheon," she
announced. "No frills, but something hot and nourishing. We will begin
with soup. Papa would approve of that. He is always provoked when I cut
the soup. Green turtle? Yes, waiter, three plates of green turtle soup."
"Please excuse me," I interrupted. "I do not care for anything."
"No? Well, two plates. I usually loathe turtle soup, but I'm determined
to be sensible and have a solid lunch. Some way, I don't know why, I'm
not very hungry this afternoon."
"Perhaps the ice-cream soda we had at Huyler's has taken away your
appetite," I suggested.
The soup was brought and Milly sipped a little daintily, as she
afterward said merely to keep her guest company. The guest devoured it
ravenously; she had evidently never tasted anything so delicious; but
perhaps plain beef-stew would have seemed as good, for her feast was
seasoned with that most appetizing of sauces--hunger.
"What will you have next?" Milly asked politely, as the waiter removed
their plates.
"Whatever you take, Miss," the girl replied. "I ain't particular. I
guess anything here's good enough for me."
"I declare I don't feel as if I could worry down another morsel," Milly
answered. "There is nothing so surfeiting as green turtle. It makes me
almost sick to think of crabs or birds, or even shrimp salad. Let's skip
all that, and take the desert. Waiter, bring us two ices. Which flavor
do you prefer?" she asked of the pencil vender, and again the bewildered
girl left the choice to her hostess.
"Strawberry, mousse, and chocolate are too cloying," Milly remarked
meditatively. "Bring us lemon water ice and pistache. Don't you just
dote on pistache?"
"I never ate any, Miss."
"Then I shall have the pleasure of introducing you to something new.
You'll be sure to like it."
The girl did like it. She ate every morsel. Possibly something more
solid would have proved as satisfying, but Milly was pleased with her
evident appreciation.
"Why don't you eat the macaroons? Don't you like them? Would you rather
have kisses?"
"If you please Miss, might I take them home to the children?"
"Yes, I suppose so. It isn't exactly good form to put things in your
pocket, but they will be charged for just the same, even if we leave
them, so take them, quick, now that the waiter is not looking."
Although the waiter was not watching us, some one else was. A
faultlessly dressed gentleman approached at this juncture and greeted
Milly in an impressive manner.
"Why, Mr. Van Silver!" she exclaimed, a little fluttered by the
unexpected meeting. "I haven't seen you since last summer at
Narragansett Pier."
"And whose fault is that?" Mr. Van Silver asked plaintively. "If young
ladies will shut themselves up in convents, and never send their adoring
friends any invitation to a four o'clock tea or a reception or even a
school examination or a prayer meeting, where they might catch a glimpse
of them, it is the poor adorer's misfortune, and not his fault, if he is
forgotten. Won't you introduce me to your friends?"
"Certainly. Tib, this is Mr. Van Silver. Mr. Van Silver, allow me to
present you to Tib--I mean to Miss Smith. I can't introduce you to the
other young lady, because I don't know her name."
We had all risen and the last remark was made _sotto voce_. As we left
the building Mr. Van Silver sheltered Milly with his umbrella and the
waif followed with me. "Come with us to Madame's," I had said, "and
perhaps we can do something for you."
As we walked on together Milly and Mr. Van Silver carried on a lively
conversation, part of which I overheard, and the remainder Milly
reported afterward. She first told him of how we had met our new
acquaintance, and he seemed much interested.
"And so you have just given her a very solid and sensible lunch,
consisting of green turtle soup and ice cream." He laughed a low,
gurgling laugh and appeared infinitely amused.
"And macaroons," Milly added; "she has at least five macaroons in her
pocket for the children."
"Oh! yes, a macaroon a piece for the children. I wonder if I couldn't
contribute a cigarette for each of them," and he gurgled again in a
purring, pleasant way.
"You are making fun of me," Milly pouted, in an aggrieved way.
"Not at all. I think it was just like you, Miss Milly, to do such a
lovely thing. You are one of the most kind-hearted girls I know,--to
beggars, I mean,--but the young men tell a different story. There's poor
Stacey Fitz Simmons. I saw him the other day and he was complaining
bitterly of your hard-heartedness. He said you hardly spoke to him at
Professor Fafalata's costume dance."
"How unfair! he was my partner in the minuet. What more could he ask?"
"There's nothing mean about Stacey. He probably wanted you to dance all
the other dances with him. I told him that he was a lucky young dog to
be invited at all. Why did you leave me out?"
"I didn't think that a grown-up gentleman, in society, would care for
a little dance at a boarding-school, where he would only meet
bread-and-butter school girls."
"Oh! I'm too old, am I? Well, I must say you are complimentary. And it's
a fault that doesn't decrease as time passes. Well, I shall tell Stacey
that there's hope for him. You only care for very young men. Why did you
send back the tickets which he sent you for the Inter-scholastic Games!
You nearly broke his heart. He has been training for the past six
months simply and solely in the hope that you will see him win the mile
run."
"But I will see him. I wrote him that Adelaide's brother, Jim, had
already sent her tickets, which we should use, and as he might like to
bestow his elsewhere, I returned them."
"'Bestow them elsewhere?' Not he. Stacey is constant as the pole. He's
as loyal as he is thoroughbred. He was telling me about the serenade
that the cadet band gave your school last year. Some girl let down a
scrap basket from her window full of buttonhole bouquets. He wore one
pinned to the breast of his uniform for a week because he thought you
had a hand in it; and you never saw a fellow so cut up as he was when he
heard last summer that you had nothing to do with it, and even slept
sweetly through the entire serenade."
"Stacey is too silly for anything. It is perfectly ridiculous for a
little boy like him to talk that way."
"Little boy--let me see, just how old is Stacey, anyway! About
seventeen. Six months your senior, is he not? At what age should you say
that one might fall quite seriously and sensibly in love?"
"Oh! not till one is twenty at least," Milly answered quickly; but she
blushed furiously while she spoke.
"Sensible girl! But to return to the subject of the Inter-scholastic
Games. I am glad that you and your friend Miss Adelaide are going. They
are to take place out at the Berkeley Oval, you know. I have no doubt
that the roads will be settled and we shall have fine weather by that
time. May I have the pleasure of driving you out on my coach?"
"Certainly. That is, I must coax papa to write a note to Madame, asking
her to let us go."
"I will call at the bank and see your papa about it to-morrow, and
meantime do beam upon poor Stacey. And, by the way, here is something
which you may as well add to the macaroons for those poor children," and
he pressed a dollar bill into Milly's hand. Some one passed us rapidly
at that instant and gave the young man so questioning a glance that he
raised his hat, asking Milly a moment later if she knew the lady.
"Why, that is Miss Noakes!" Milly exclaimed, in dismay. "You must not go
a step further with us, Mr. Van Silver, or we will be reported for
'conduct.'"
"Far be it from me to gratify the evidently malicious desire of that
estimable person to report you young ladies. Good-by until the games,"
and with another bow he was gone.
As we approached the school building we saw Professor Waite leaving by
the turret door, and I asked him to allow us to enter by it, at the same
time requesting him to buy some of our new friend's pencils. He looked
at the girl closely, and as Milly led the way with her I explained how
we had found her.
"She is a picturesque creature," Professor Waite remarked. "I could make
her useful as a model. The girls pose so badly and dislike to do it so
much, it might be well to try this waif. Tell her to come on Monday, and
if the class like her well enough to club together and pay a small
amount for her services, we will engage her to sit for us."
He scribbled a line on one of his visiting cards for her to show
Cerberus, as we called our dignified janitor, who was very particular
about whom he admitted to the building; and I hastily followed our
_protege_ to the Amen Corner, where I found Adelaide talking with her
while Milly ransacked her wardrobe for cast-off clothing, finding only a
Tam O'Shanter, a parasol, and some soiled gloves.
"Can't you find her a pair of rubbers?" Adelaide asked. "The girl's feet
are soaked."
"Do you keep your own rubbers?" the waif asked. "That was my father's
business."
"What do you mean?" inquired Adelaide.
"My father was a rubber--a massage man for the Earl of Cairngorm."
"Oh!" said Adelaide, a light beginning to dawn upon her mind. "I meant
rubber overshoes, not a bath woman."
"We call those galoshes," said the girl, as Milly produced a pair which
were not mates. "I'm sure you've given me a fine setting out, young
ladies. I'll do as much for you if I ever has the chance. Who knowses?
Maybe some day I'll be a swell and you poor. Then you just call on me,
and don't you forget it." With which cheerful suggestion she left us,
grateful and happy. I took her down to the main entrance, and, showing
the card to Cerberus, explained that she had been engaged by Professor
Waite, and was to be allowed to enter every morning. He granted a
grudging consent, not at all approving of her appearance without the
waterproof, and I flew back to the Amen Corner to join in the general
conference. She had told Adelaide that her name was Pauline Terwilliger.
Her father had been English, her mother Swiss. They had knocked about
the world as foot-balls of fortune, but had lived longest in London,
where her father had died. Her brother had come to New York some years
previous, and her mother had brought the family over on his insistence.
But this brother had failed to meet them, as he had promised to do, on
their landing at Castle Garden. Their mother had lost his address, and
they were stranded in a strange city. They had advertised in the papers,
and had left their own address at the Barge Office, but her brother had
never appeared. They had taken a room in a tenement house, and the
mother had obtained some work, scrubbing offices and cleaning windows.
But she had taken cold and was now in a hospital, and Polo was trying to
support the two younger children.
"They are living in one of the worst tenement houses in Mulberry Bend,"
said Adelaide. "I would like to give them a room in my house, but it is
full; and cheap as the rent is, they could never pay it."
"The younger children ought to go to the Home," I suggested.
"The Home is full," Winnie replied. "I called there to-day. Emma Jane
says it just breaks her heart to look at the list of applications
waiting for a vacancy. Our dear Princess[2] has in mind a little
old-fashioned house which fronts on a side street, whose yard backs
against ours. She would like to have it rented as an annex. She says the
Home ought to have a nursery for very little babies. You know it does
not now take children under two years of age, on account of the expense
of nurses; but this would be such a charming place for them, and we
could call it the 'Manger,' and have it connected with the main building
with a long glass piazza. The scheme is a perfect one. All it needs
is money to carry it out. Unfortunately, that is lacking. I have
corresponded with all our out-of-town circles of King's Daughters. They
are doing all they can, and have pledged enough, with our other
subscriptions, to carry the Home through the coming year on its old
basis; but there isn't a cent to spare for a 'manger.'"
[2] "The Princess" was a quaint little foreigner, who gave the
girls botany lessons, and who originated the idea of the Home,
whose founding is related in the initial volume of this series.
"Would all of the new house be taken up by the nursery?" Adelaide asked.
"No; the Princess proposed that the upper story, which consists of four
little bedrooms, should be used as 'guest chambers' for emergency cases,
convalescent children returned from hospitals, and children who, on
account of peculiar distress,--like Polo's sisters,--it seemed best to
receive for a short time entirely free. The Princess thought that we
might like to club together and pay for one such room, and then we could
designate at any time the persons we would like to have occupy it. There
is always a list of applicants, which would be submitted to us to choose
from, in case we had no candidates of our own to suggest. The occupants
of such a room would then be as truly our guests as if we entertained
them in our own home. It would come in very nicely now in Polo's case."
Milly gave a deep sigh. "I wish I could help you, girls, but you know
just how I am situated."
Adelaide knitted her brows. "We must get up some sort of an
entertainment. It makes me tired to think of it, but there's no other
way."
"And in the mean time, Emma Jane must find room for those children some
way," said Winnie. "I will call a meeting of the Hornets in our corner
to-night, and we will pledge ourselves to raise money enough for one
guest chamber for these children, and until it is arranged for, Emma
Jane must make up beds for them on the school desks, or we can buy a
_retrousse_ bedstead for the parlor."
"_Retrousse_ bedstead! What's that?" Milly asked, in a puzzled way.
"Don't be dense, Milly; it's vulgar to speak of a turn-up nose, you
know; and I don't know why we should insult a parlor organ bedstead in
the same way. If we can't afford that sort of thing, they might turn the
dining tables upside down; they would make better cribs than the
children have now, I'll venture to say."
"You will tuck them up, I suppose, with napkins and table-cloths,"
Cynthia sneered. But Winnie paid no attention to the interruption.
"They will not mind a little crowding, and the thing will march right
along if we only plunge into it. They must not stay another night in
that old tenement. Polo said there was a rag-picker under them, and a
woman who had delirium tremens in the next room. I am going down
to-morrow afternoon to take them to the Home."
A meeting of our own particular circle of King's Daughters, which was
made up of ourselves and the "Hornets," took place that evening in the
Hornets' Nest. The Hornets were a coterie of mischievous girls rooming
in a little family like the Amen Corner, but in the attic story under
the very eaves. They took up the idea of the guest chamber with great
enthusiasm, but they were nearly as impecunious as ourselves. Suddenly
Little Breeze--our pet name for Tina Gale--exclaimed, "I have a notion!
We will invite the school to a 'Catacomb Party, and the underground
Feast of the Ghouls.'"
"How very scareful that sounds!" said Trude Middleton. "What is it,
anyway?"
"Oh! it's a mystery, a blood-curdling mystery. It will cost everybody
fifty cents, but it will be worth it. I want Witch Winnie to be on the
committee of arrangements with me, and you must all give us full
authority to do just as we please; and it is to be a surprise, and you
must ask no questions."
"We trust you. Where's it to be? In the sewers, or the cathedral
crypts?"
But Little Breeze refused to waft the least zephyr of information our
way, and there was nothing for it but to wait.
As we were returning rather noisily from the Hornets' Nest, we passed
Miss Noakes's open door, and she rang her little bell in a peremptory
manner. This meant that we were to report ourselves immediately to her,
and we did so.
"Young ladies," said Miss Noakes in her most disagreeable manner,
"before reporting you to Madame, I would like to give you an opportunity
of explaining a very irregular performance. As I was returning from a
meeting of the Young Women's Christian Association this afternoon, I saw
three occupants of your corner taking a promenade with a gentleman. This
is, as you know, an infringement of school rules, and I would like to
inquire whether the young man has any authorization from your parents
for such attention."
"Only two of us were concerned in this matter," I replied. "We met Mr.
Van Silver quite by chance, and he very politely offered Milly the
protection of his umbrella for a part of the way home, as she had none.
He is an old friend of her family and thoroughly approved of by Mr.
Roseveldt."
"How often have I told you young ladies never to go out, on the
pleasantest day, without an umbrella or waterproof, since a storm may
come up at any minute?"
"I did take my waterproof," Milly replied.
"Then you had no occasion to accept the gentleman's umbrella," Miss
Noakes said sternly.
"But I gave it to Polo," Milly stammered, quite fluttered.
"Polo! Who is Polo? and how can you tell me, Miss Smith, that Miss
Roseveldt and you were the only ones implicated in this disgraceful
affair, when I saw three of you enter the turret door?"
"The third girl was Polo, the new model whom Professor Waite has engaged
to pose for the portrait class."
"A professional model? Worse and worse! and how comes it that you were
walking with such a questionable character?"
I related the entire story as simply as possible; but it was evident
that Miss Noakes did not approve.
"A most extraordinary performance," she commented. "I feel it my duty to
report it to Madame."
"You may spare yourself that trouble, Miss Noakes," Adelaide replied.
"Tib, Winnie, and I are going to tell Madame all about it at her
next office hour. We want to ask her permission to get up a little
entertainment in behalf of Polo's little brother and sisters."
"And I shall suggest to Madame," Miss Noakes added, "the advisability of
inquiring into the character and antecedents of this girl, before she
allows her to become an accredited dependent of her establishment, or
authorizes the bestowal of charity upon her family. Artists' models are
often disreputable people with whom your parents would not be willing
that you should associate, and I advise you not to become too intimate
with a perfect stranger."
We had come through the ordeal on the whole quite triumphantly, but Polo
had excited Miss Noakes's enmity. She could never be won to regard her
as anything but a vagabond, and always spoke of her as 'that model girl'
in a tone that belied the literal signification of the words; and later,
when by dint of spying and listening Miss Noakes learned that a robbery
had been committed in the Amen Corner, her dislike and suspicion of poor
Polo led to very painful consequences. The relation of which, however,
belongs to a later chapter.
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