MARY POTE HELPS
David rushed into the old kitchen in a whirlwind of distress. There was
no one there, and stumbling over to Mamsie’s big calico-covered chair,
he flung himself down and buried his head on the cushion.
“Now, Phronsie,” said Polly, running in, “you’ve been such a good girl,
I’m going to give you a piece of that gingerbread dear Mrs. Beebe gave
us the other day. Shut the door, child.”
Phronsie obediently pushed the big green door to, and pattered after
Polly.
“You see,” said Polly, running her head into the old corner cupboard,
“Ben and Joel will have a good dinner at Deacon Blodgett’s, and Davie
is at the parsonage--I’m so glad he was such a good boy to help Mrs.
Henderson.”
“_Ugh!_” came a noise from the corner over by Mrs. Pepper’s big chair.
“What was that?” cried Polly, pulling her head out of the cupboard.
“Don’t be afraid, child,” as Phronsie huddled up to her.
“But I am, Polly,” said Phronsie, snuggling up closer than ever, “very
much afraid.”
“Mamsie said we weren’t to be afraid at things, but to see what they
were, so I’m going to.” Polly ran across the old kitchen, Phronsie
hanging to her.
“_Why, David Pepper!_” cried Polly, nearly tumbling over him as she ran
around Mother Pepper’s big chair. Then she turned very white.
“What is it, Davie? Oh, where are you hurt?” she asked, while Phronsie
with a little wail, threw her arms around him, too.
“I’m not hurt,” sobbed David. “O dear, dear!”
“_Not hurt!_” gasped Polly, hanging to the chair.
“I’ve been a bad boy,” cried David in a spasm of grief, and holding to
the old cushion with desperate little hands.
“Oh, never, Davie,” exclaimed Polly, “you couldn’t be ever in all this
world. Why, you are our Davie.”
At this Davie’s despair was greater than ever, and he burrowed his face
deeper in the old chair.
“You see, Davie,” Polly ran on, “Mamsie trusts you, so you couldn’t be
bad.” Phronsie meanwhile had sunk to the floor, and was silently gazing
at the misery, lost to everything else. “No, you couldn’t be bad,
because Mamsie trusts you so,” she repeated.
This was so much worse that David began to scream, and without any more
words, Polly lifted him up and sitting down in Mamsie’s chair, she held
him tightly in her lap.
“Now, David Pepper,” she said sternly, “you’ve just got to tell me what
you’ve done.”
“I--I--can’t,” David hid his wet little face on her shoulder.
“Mamsie tells us not to say ‘can’t,’” said Polly decidedly. “Begin and
tell me.”
“She--told--me--” began David in a shaking voice.
“Mrs. Henderson?”
David bobbed his head.
“Go on.”
“She--told--me--to--”
“Yes.”
“To dust--the--books--and--”
“Well, go on.”
“And I didn’t--O dear!”
“And you disobeyed dear Mrs. Henderson! Oh, David Pepper, how could
you!” Polly turned very white again, and cold little shivers ran up and
down her back. To think that the parsonage people should ever have one
of the Pepper children disobey them!
When Polly said, “David Pepper, how could you!” it wasn’t to be lightly
borne. So now Davie raised such a despairing little face that Polly
hastened to say, “Well, you must tell me all about it.”
“There was a boy in the book--”
“What boy?” said Polly, very much puzzled.
“I was going to dust him, and the other books.”
“Oh, you mean you were going to dust the books,” said Polly, beginning
to see a little light.
“Yes,” said David, trying to keep back the sobs.
“Well, stop crying and tell me all about it--every single thing.” Polly
gathered him up more closely. “Now then, Davie, you began to dust the
boy.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Davie in a fresh anguish; “I didn’t dust him a
bit; not once, Polly--O dear!”
“Why?” asked Polly.
“He had a slate and pencil, and--and--he was going to school,” said
Davie in another outburst of grief.
“Oh, I see,” said Polly with more light, “and you wanted to read about
him?”
“Yes, I did,” said Davie; “it told all about him.”
“Well, why didn’t you dust the books just as Mrs. Henderson told you?
It didn’t take long, I’m sure, to find out about that boy.”
“I wanted to see if other boys were going to school, and had slates and
pencils--O dear!” he sobbed.
“Well, now I guess I know all about it,” said Polly. “Phronsie, you
must stop crying,” for Phronsie was softly wailing on the floor in
front of Mamsie’s old chair. “You forgot about dusting the books,
Davie?”
“Yes, I did,” said Davie. “O dear!” and he burrowed further than ever
in her arms.
“Well, that _was_ bad,” said Polly, “when she told you to do it. But
it’s worse to cry about it now--because crying doesn’t help it any.
Well, now, is there anything else to tell me?”
“Peletiah came up in the attic, and told me to come down to dinner. And
Mrs. Henderson called me and--”
“And you didn’t go?” cried Polly in astonishment.
“No, I couldn’t have any dinner, I’d been bad--and I ran home.”
“O dear--dear!” exclaimed Polly in great distress. To have one of the
children lacking in politeness was a terrible thing, and here was
a blow that quite unnerved her. When David saw that, he was quite
overcome, and he cried on steadily.
“Something must be done,” thought Polly. “O dear, if Mamsie were only
here.”
“David,” she said, “you must go straight back to the parsonage, and beg
Mrs. Henderson to forgive you.”
David shrank into a little heap. “Oh, I can’t do that, Polly; she’ll
make me stay to dinner.”
“That would never do,” said Polly.
So she hopped out of the big chair and set him on his feet. “I’ll get
you something to eat, and then you can tell her you have been to dinner
if she asks you.” And presently David was seated before the old table,
and eating, as well as he could for his tears, a cold potato well
sprinkled with salt and a generous slice of brown bread.
But he didn’t get to the parsonage after all, for just as he was
swallowing the last mouthful, in walked the parson’s wife.
“I want you to come over to-morrow, Davie,” she said, just as if
nothing in the world a bit unpleasant had happened, “and you and I will
work in the attic.”
“Dear Mrs. Henderson, Davie has something he wants to say to you,”
Polly began in a trembling voice.
David got out of his chair and went over on unsteady feet to her.
“I didn’t mean to be bad,” he said, his poor swollen little face
working dreadfully.
“I know, dear,” said the parson’s wife, bending over him
sympathetically, and stroking the soft, wavy hair with a kind hand.
“But it was bad,” said Polly, “for him to forget, and not obey you.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Henderson.
“And I’m sorry,” said Davie, his hands twisting together.
“And you’ll come to-morrow, and help me, and that will show that you
are sorry,” said the parson’s wife.
“I’ll go to-morrow,” said David, with a crooked little smile.
“And Peletiah and Ezekiel are going away to their grandmother’s again
to-morrow,” said Mrs. Henderson, “just as they did to-day. So, you see,
I shall need you very much, Davie.”
“Now, how in the world can I find any one to take Mrs. Pepper’s place
nursing Miss Babbitt?” The parson’s wife puckered up her forehead all
the way down the road with anxious thought. “If here doesn’t come Dr.
Fisher!” as the old gig swung into view at the turn of the road.
Dr. Fisher pulled up suddenly. But she didn’t wait for the old horse
to stop. “Dr. Fisher,” she began, hurrying up to the side of the gig,
“can’t we find some one to take Mrs. Pepper’s place over at Miss
Babbitt’s?”
Dr. Fisher looked out at her gloomily. “I’d give a good deal if we
could,” he said. “That idiot of a Bunce woman--she was there when Miss
Babbitt fell down the cellar stairs, and she began to scream for Mrs.
Pepper. And she rushed out--the Bunce woman--and caught Mr. Tisbett
going by on the stage, and sent him for Mrs. Pepper. And now Mrs.
Pepper won’t desert Miss Babbitt.” He switched the whip gloomily from
side to side, his face getting more and more sober every moment.
“But she must desert Miss Babbitt,” declared the parson’s wife
frantically.
“You know Mrs. Pepper will never desert any one in trouble.” The little
doctor slapped the whip into its socket and glared at her through his
big horn spectacles.
“There’s Polly doing her best to keep things together,” cried Mrs.
Henderson; “’twould go to your heart, Dr. Fisher, to see her!”
“It’s gone to my heart a good many times,” said the little doctor,
relapsing into gloom again, “to see her. But what can we do? There
isn’t a woman fit to take care of Miss Babbitt, who’d be willing to
go.”
“There’s Mary Pote,” said the parson’s wife suddenly with a brightening
face.
“Mary Pote?--well, Miss Parrott owns her, soul and body.” Dr. Fisher
set his big spectacles straighter on his nose and glared at the
parson’s wife worse than ever.
“’Twouldn’t do any harm to try,” said Mrs. Henderson. “Maybe Miss
Parrott would let her go.”
The little doctor sniffed scornfully. “Well, will you try?”
Mrs. Henderson looked off to the distant fields, an awful feeling at
her heart. Then she swallowed hard. “Yes, I will,” she said, “if I can
get over to Miss Parrott’s.”
“No trouble about _that_,” cried little Dr. Fisher joyfully. “Hop right
in, Mrs. Henderson,” and before her resolution had time to cool, there
she was in the doctor’s gig and well along on the way to the estate of
the aristocratic Miss Parrott.
When the gig turned into the handsome stone gateway, the parson’s wife
had all she could do to keep from jumping out over the wheel. Suppose
she should anger the only rich parishioner of her husband’s! But she
was there on the big stone steps, and the butler was opening the heavy
oaken door. There was nothing to do but to go in, Dr. Fisher driving
off to call for her later. And presently she was ushered into the long
drawing-room, with its rich carpeting, its ancestral furniture and
portraits, all shrouded in the gloom of an apartment little used, and
left to her wildly beating heart for the only sound to entertain her.
And there presently broke in the rustle of a stiff black silk gown
advancing toward her, and in the gloom she saw the tall and haughty
figure of the rich Miss Parrott.
How she told her story, she never could remember, but it was all out
at last. And Miss Parrott sat erect, without uttering a word until the
parson’s wife thought as she told her husband that night, “I should go
through the floor.”
At last Miss Parrott broke the silence. “It’s those little brown house
people you want to help?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Henderson, unable to get out another word.
“And you want me to let Mary Pote go to take care of Miss Babbitt?”
“Yes,” said the parson’s wife faintly, “at least till they can get Miss
Babbitt’s niece to come.”
“_Um_--” There wasn’t another sound in the room except the wild beating
of Mrs. Henderson’s heart, until Miss Parrott got her long figure out
of the high-backed chair, and the stiff black silk gown rustled over to
the bell-cord.
“Send Mary Pote to me,” said Miss Parrott to the stiff old butler who
appeared.
And again there was silence in the long gloomy drawing-room. Mrs.
Henderson couldn’t tell, for the life of her, whether or no she had
harmed her husband’s interests, perhaps driven him from Badgertown
parish. At last in came Mary Pote, a round, roly-poly person, half
seamstress--half dressmaker, solely devoted to the spinster’s
interests, who lived in a small cottage on the Parrott estate. Who ever
thought of asking for Mary Pote’s services!
“Mary Pote,” said Miss Parrott, “you may get your bonnet, and pack your
bag. You are to go to take care of some tiresome old person who had
nothing better to do than to fall down the cellar stairs and break her
hip.”
“But I was making over your black batiste, Miss Parrott,” began Mary
Pote with the privilege of an old servant.
“When I want my black batiste finished, I will tell you so, Mary Pote.
Do as I bid you. Oh, one thing more. You are going so that a Mrs.
Pepper--she’s the mother of some children living in a poor old brown
house in Badgertown--”
“I know them,” said Mary Pote, turning back.
“Don’t interrupt me--well, their mother has gone to take care of that
odious old Miss Babbitt, and you are to take her place.”
“Now I’m glad enough to go,” cried Mary Pote joyfully, “for that Mrs.
Pepper of all folks is the best woman, and--”
“There, there,” said Miss Parrott, waving her off with long fingers on
which ancestral rings shone. “Get along, Mary Pote, and do as I say.
One thing more--tell Simmons to get the brougham ready and drive Mrs.
Henderson and you down there.”
The parson’s wife got out of her chair. “Dr. Fisher brought me, and he
will take me back,” she said.
Miss Parrott waved her back with the long fingers.
“I know nothing about how you got here,” she said; “it doesn’t interest
me in the least. I am taking charge of the case now, and not Dr.
Fisher, nor anybody else.”