POLLY’S PLUCK
Angeline Montague did not tell her mother the forfeit she had had to
pay to “redeem” the beautiful doll she had brought home from Miss
Cicely’s party. In the first place, she conveniently forgot it, and
in the second, she always made a point of keeping very still when
her mother was in a “tantrum,” and her mother was in a terrible one
that day. Something had gone wrong somewhere, for the moment Angeline
reached home her mother had caught her by the arm and swung her about
roughly, saying: “Ho! So here you are, are you? Then you didn’t get
it, did you? And after all the trouble I went to, to teach you how to
bow and to hold your tongue and to speak soft and genteel when you did
speak! And the money I spent on your clothes, too! I’ve half a mind to
beat you well, you great silly. What under the sun your Aunt Theresa’ll
do to you, I don’t know--like as not she’ll put you in jail or send
you to the reform-school or something. I do declare I never saw such a
numb-scull! Where’s your brains, I’d like to know, to let any one else
get ahead of you like that?”
Angeline sobbed.
“There now,” continued her mother less harshly. “Quit that, and take
off those togs you’ve got on. It makes me just wild to see ’em and
think what they cost, and then what a fool you were to let such a
chance slip through your fingers.”
Angeline sobbed still more piteously. She knew it was the only way to
disarm her mother. After a minute or two the angry woman said: “Hush,
hush, I tell you, Angeline, or the neighbors’ll think I’m killing
you--and they have enough to say about us already. Besides, you’d
better save your tears till your Aunt Theresa comes, for you’ll need
’em then, or I’m mistaken. She ain’t as easy as I am, not by a long
sight, and she’ll scold the life out of us both for your foolishness.
She’ll probably stop paying for your board and keep into the bargain,
and then what’ll become of us, I don’t see. We’ll be turned out into
the street, most likely, for I’m two weeks behind with the rent as it
is, and goodness knows where I’ll get the money to pay up.”
Angeline’s sobs grew softer. “I did the best I could,” she whimpered.
“I never told a livin’ soul my name ain’t Montague or that Aunt Theresa
is my aunt, an’ I bowed just like you tol’ me to, an’ I didn’t hardly
say annything to annyboddy. I just smiled the way you showed me, as
soft as ever I could, an’ Mis’ Hamilton she said I was a sweet little
thing. I listened an’ I heard her. I didn’t let noboddy get ahead of me
nor nothing. I got the best cakes an’ the biggest orange an’--an’--I
would have got a--other things too, but a big man, he was real mean and
kept looking!”
“Well, go ’long with you now,” said her mother, whose true name was
McGaffey. “Take off those duds or you’ll tear ’em or something an’ then
the fat will be in the fire.”
Later that evening when Angeline was in bed her mother had a visitor.
It was Theresa, and her angry voice made the little girl quail. She
knew Aunt Theresa well and dreaded her, so she pretended to be asleep
when her bedroom door was rudely flung open and quick steps came toward
her where she lay.
“Get up, you Angeline,” ordered Theresa, clutching her by the arm. “You
ain’t asleep, I know your tricks. Get up this minute, I want to talk
with you.”
The child came shivering into the outer room.
“Now tell me this minute,” commanded her aunt, “every single thing that
happened this afternoon at my house. Don’t you leave out anything, and
don’t you tell me a falsehood, or it’ll be the worse for you.”
So the wretched Angeline, shaking with cold and sobbing from fright,
confessed to the affair of the broken chocolate-cup.
“There! What did I tell you,” demanded Theresa of Mrs. McGaffey when
the story was done. “I knew there was something wrong somewhere, or
she’d have gotten the place, sure as preaching. Her tricks will be the
ruin of us all before she’s through, I tell you, Harriet. She ought
to be beat, that’s what ought to be done to her. She’s a bad child,
right through. Why, Mrs. Hamilton as good as told me the whole thing
was settled and Angeline was to go straight up to the nursery then and
there, and you was to get sixteen dollars a month for the loan of her.
The young un that’s there now is nothing to look at--nothing next to
Angeline, but she got the place because she hasn’t underhand ways and
doesn’t try to make other people suffer for her faults. But I’ll pay
her off before I’m through with her, never you fear. In the meantime if
I could just punish this child here for her foolishness, it’d do me a
world of good. Now go back to bed, you Angeline McGaffey, and if I ever
catch you deceiving again and running your mother and me into danger of
being disgraced, I’ll attend to you, rest assured of that.”
Angeline crept off to her room, greatly relieved that she had escaped
so easily at the hands of her vixenish aunt. She was accustomed by
this time, to loud and angry talking, and did not let herself be much
disturbed by it. In a very little while, therefore, and long before
her Aunt Theresa had gone, she was asleep and dreaming, and the next
day she had forgotten all about it. But Theresa did not forget. She had
told her sister that she meant to bide her time and wait her chance,
but that in the end she’d get even with Polly for having cut Angelina
out, as she expressed it, and she intended to keep her word.
After her tumble down-stairs, and the whispered warning James had given
her, Polly managed to avoid Theresa. It was not very difficult to do
this, for the children spent most of their time in the open air or
in the nursery. The cold and stupid morning walks that Priscilla had
used to dread, she now looked forward to with pleasure, and her skin
and eyes were beginning to show the difference. Miss Cissy’s plan was
working like a charm--there could be no doubt about that.
Priscilla, in her quiet, shy little way, had grown to love Polly
dearly, and as for Polly, why, she simply adored Priscilla, and would
have done anything in the world for her. She “gave up” so entirely
in fact, that Hannah often had to interfere to save Priscilla from
becoming selfish through too much indulgence. When they played house,
Polly was always the baby and Priscilla the mother; when they played
school, Polly was the scholar and Priscilla the teacher. In las’-tag,
Polly was “It,” no matter how often she caught Priscilla, and when
Hannah shook her finger at her, she was sure to whisper: “She’s so
little, you know. She can’t run as fast as I can, and it isn’t fair.
’Sides, she likes to think she’s beating. When she las’-tags me she
laughs right out loud, she’s so pleased.”
“Well, you mustn’t spoil her, that’s all,” warned Hannah, but she
confided to James on more than one occasion that, “that Polly’s a
caution. I never saw her equal. She don’t know what it means to think
of herself. And the grown-up way she’s got with her, of looking out for
Priscilla! Why, you’d think she’d been used to protecting some one all
her life.”
“Well, perhaps she has,” suggested James, thoughtfully. “How about that
crippled sister of hers. Ain’t she had to protect her? An experience
like that puts years on a young thing’s age. By the way, how is the
sister?”
Hannah shook her head. “It’s a bad case the doctors think, so Miss
Cicely and Mrs. Duer tell me. If it had been properly attended to
in the first place, it would be different, but the poor thing was
neglected and now it may be too late. We don’t dare tell the child, for
her heart is bound up in her sister, and she’s set on her getting well.
The two of them were all run down, what with not having enough food to
nourish ’em, and perishin’ with the cold last winter on account of no
coal, and that tells against the girl’s getting well. She has nothing
to bear up on. See now, she’s been at the hospital ever since the week
after Priscilla’s birthday, that was the first part of February, and
now it’s the last of March. But we don’t give up hope. The doctors say
she may possibly get to walk again--only it’ll take a long time, and
she’ll have to go through a lot before it happens, if it ever does.
She’ll be at the hospital all summer anyhow, and maybe longer. But it’s
true, what you say about her being the cause of Polly’s acting old for
her years, and having such motherly ways. Poor little creature! She’s
actually getting a bit of flesh on her bones, as well as Priscilla,
and I declare she’s as pretty as a picture sometimes. I told Mrs. Duer
the other day, I was never afraid for Priscilla when Polly was around.
She’d just let herself be cut into small pieces before she’d see a hair
of Priscilla’s head harmed.”
“She’s got good pluck, I know that,” answered James, thinking of
Theresa, and Polly’s fall down-stairs.
Polly had occasion to prove her “pluck” within the course of the next
few days.
The children had had their regular romp in the Park one morning and
were ready to go home, when Hannah bethought herself of a few little
sewing odds and ends that she sorely needed. She made up her mind she
would buy them on the way back. It would take her but a few blocks out
of her way, and the children would not mind the little extra walk,
especially as it was on the fascinating, forbidden ground of the
bustling avenue, where so many shops and clanging cable-cars were.
Poor Polly, who had been perfectly used to shifting for herself amid
crowds, was greatly amused at Hannah’s command that she “mustn’t let
go her hand one minute,” but she did as she was bade, and clung to the
nurse’s arm until they reached the shop, where Hannah’s trifles were to
be bought. It was an attractive place enough, full of bright-colored
ribbons and laces and tinsel and gay embroidery stuffs. There was,
however, nothing very interesting to children, except in one corner,
where was a counter upon which a number of artistically made rag-dolls
were perched. Priscilla fell in love with these at first sight, and
tugged at Hannah’s skirts, begging her to “come and see.”
Hannah was busy with her own affairs, but she left them to follow
Priscilla and to exclaim, “Why, ain’t they just splendid, now?” as she
knew Priscilla wanted her to do.
But Priscilla, it seemed, wanted more than this. “I wish,” she said, in
a hesitating, shy murmur: “I wish I could have one of those dollies.”
Hannah stared. “Eh? Mercy on us, what next? Why, what in the world
should you want with one of those dolls, when you have a nurseryful
already at home. And such superior ones, into the bargain, as these
couldn’t hold a candle to. Why, these are nothing but rag-babies,
dearie.”
Priscilla swallowed. “I know it,” she whispered, with an effort. “But I
like them. I wish I could have one.”
When the little girl spoke in that wistful tone her nurse could deny
her nothing. “Well, if you ain’t the curiousest child!” she exclaimed.
“But if you want one, why, you want one, and that’s all there is about
it.”
The next moment the pinkest-cheeked rag-baby of them all was in
Priscilla’s arms. She hugged it to her bosom with a loving clutch she
had never given to any of her French dolls, and Hannah exchanged a wink
with the saleswoman at sight of her satisfaction.
“May I take my dolly into the street? Just to give her the air?” she
asked with motherly solicitude for her baby’s health.
Hannah nodded. “Yes, if you’ll be sure not to leave the door-step.
Polly, you go with her, like a good child, and don’t let anything
happen to her. Now, run along, like dearies, and let me do my shoppin’
in peace.”
[Illustration: “GIVE THAT DOLL BACK THIS MINUTE!”]
“I think,” said Priscilla, as she and Polly stood outside the
shop-door, “I think I’ll name this baby Polly. Then she’ll be part
yours, won’t she? ’Sides, I think the name of Polly is a ’stremely nice
name.”
Polly laughed right out with pleasure at the compliment. “If you name
her Polly I’ll be her relation, won’t I? And I’ll have to give her
things and look after her. Oh, dear me! I wonder what Hannah’ll say?”
What Hannah would say was never recorded, for just at this moment a
dirty hand thrust itself over Priscilla’s shoulder and snatched her
precious baby from her arms, while a hoarse voice broke out into a
jeering laugh that almost frightened the children out of their wits.
“Hi, there!” it cried roughly. “A doll’s relation! That’s good! The
name of Polly is a ’stremely nice name! Bless me if it ain’t!”
Priscilla’s lips were blue with terror and she but dimly saw the face
of the mischievous newsboy, as he leered wickedly at her darling doll,
pretending to dance it up and down in his dirty hands.
But Polly’s eyes were blazing. “Give that doll back this minute!” she
broke out in a tremor of indignation.
The newsboy looked at her and grinned. “Oh, say, now,” he cried.
“Who’ll make me? Ain’t I fond o’ dolls meself? An’ ain’t I got
a little sister at home as just dotes on ’em? W’y, my little
sister--queer now, ain’t it, but her name’s Polly! a ’stremely nice
name, Polly is! well my sister Polly will just be tickled out of her
boots when I bring her this.”
“You give it back,” stammered Polly, breathless and panting with anger.
“Not on your life,” jeered the young rascal, delighted to see he was
teasing her so successfully, and clutching the rag-doll more tightly in
one arm while he shifted his bundle of papers in the other.
Polly darted at him; her hand swung out, and the next moment his ear
was tingling from a well-aimed blow. For an instant he was too amazed
to stir. Then he dropped his papers and the doll together and made a
dash for Polly. She ducked, he tripped on the shallow door-step and
lost his footing. It was Polly’s chance and she did not lose it. In a
twinkling she had dived for his papers, caught them up and was flying
down the street as fast as her swift feet would carry her.
“Go in,” she shouted back to Priscilla. “Go in to Hannah!” Then on she
sped like a little whirlwind, the newsboy after her in hot pursuit.
She knew he must outstrip her in a very few moments, for he was far
older and stronger than she. Her breath was already coming in painful
gasps and she felt she could not hold out much longer with the wind
blowing against her like this. He was rapidly gaining. She could hear
the clatter of his heavy boots on the pavement. In a second more he
would have clutched her. Her brain worked like lightning. She snatched
a paper from the bunch in her arm and flung it into the teeth of the
wind, not daring to pause long enough to look back to see if her
pursuer had stopped to capture it. She dropped another and another, all
the while making toward home, as fast as she could fly. At length she
had only one left, but she was in sight of the house and Priscilla’s
tormentor was a full block behind. She flung the last one back with a
great sob of relief and then paused a second to catch her breath and
look behind her. The wind carried the paper straight into the young
rascal’s face. He caught it and hurried on without losing a second.
Polly’s heart almost stopped beating. It seemed to her as if her feet
had grown suddenly heavy as lead. If she could only reach home! But she
heard those heavy boots stamping nearer and nearer. Lagging and panting
she reached the house and began to crawl and stumble up the steps
scrambling on all fours, like a baby. The fellow was close at hand. He
could leap the flight, two steps at a time she knew. She reached the
top just as he sprung to the bottom. Her strength served her to touch
the bell. It faintly rang--but too faintly to bring James if he did
not happen to be right there. On the instant, however, the door opened
and to the butler’s amazement Polly stumbled blindly over the threshold
and pitched headlong into the hall.